What makes the execution of M&A transactions successful from start to finish:

In the M&A world, there are some transactions that are executed in no time, while others take a longer time, sometimes longer than anticipated. This speaks to the complexity of the deal, the nature of the business and their overall footprint, but many tend to forget other important pieces that make a significant difference with transactions. With a focus on both strategy and execution, some of the key pieces that determine success includes a well-structured Project Management Office, seamless communication & organization, experienced Subject-Matter Experts (SME) and reliable transaction management tools.

Every deal that has an execution phase to it, benefits greatly from a well-structured and organized Project Management Office (PMO). A Project Management Office is a hierarchical team of consultants hired by clients to assist with the overall execution of the deal. This team has PMO Lead consultants who spearhead the overall project's execution and maintain communication with the C-Suite and project leads on the client side. The remaining PMO has consulting Partners, Managers, Seniors and Associates who are organized in teams with a focus on different streams of work for the overall project. Management consulting firms have various PMO structures, but the main takeaway is to have one where consultants have clearly defined roles, teams have very little overlap, there exist strong leadership and accountability across the board and the communication from top to bottom is clear-cut.

This goes without saying, but seamless communication and organization is key with both consultants and the client team. Consultants' priorities include having a weekly agenda of tasks and key activities to be addressed and executed, creating short-term and long-term milestones based on project goals and guidelines and most importantly, maintaining communication with clients. There are many instances where a client has no transaction experience so it becomes the job of the consultants to provide guidance for the client to ensure project objectives are met. This level of communication and organization allows teams, clients and the project to stay consistently on track even in cases where there might be slight delays.

One of the benefits some consulting firms have over others is the presence of deep Subject-Matter Expertise when it comes to project execution. It's advantageous to have consultants who are experts in certain industries and business areas. These most sought out expertise needed by clients are usually in industries such as Healthcare, Pharma, Tech, Industrials, Oil & Gas etc. The most notable business areas that are considered to be complex and challenging for transactions are Supply Chain, Tax, IT, Sourcing, Change Management and Regulatory & Compliance. Clients favor firms who have extensive knowledge and experience with a certain industry or business area to benefit the most in terms of synergy realization, risk minimization and top-notch execution. As consultants become more senior and experienced in their career, it's common practice for them specialize in an industry or business area, which adds great value to the firm when trying to win projects that require deep expertise.

To supplement a well-structured team, good communication and expert consultants, projects benefit greatly from having sophisticated and reliable tools to track and monitor a transaction's progress. For more complex transactions with lots of stakeholders and moving parts, leveraging methods that give quick visual updates are beneficial. A perfect example of this is using Microsoft PowerPoint. PowerPoint is the go-to tool in consulting for providing clients with quick updates. It has a plethora of design capabilities, themes and layouts that can be customized to tell stories in the most simple and succinct way. The use of another tool, Microsoft Sharepoint online, allows documents such as PowerPoint presentations to be immediately available for both the clients and consultants with the option to make immediate changes if needed. Another tool used is Microsoft Excel. Microsoft Excel is the go-to method of keeping track of a project's overall progress; ensuing that key activities are being monitored, completed and addressed if needed.

However, Microsoft Excel can be time-consuming to update and is not an agile tool for large complex projects, hence why some firms go above and beyond to build their own in-house agile transaction management platform. These data visualization platforms have built in dashboards that allow a transaction's progress to be updated, tracked and monitored very easily. Real time updates can be made and summaries and reports can be generated depending on its capability. Clients like the use of technology and platforms that makes a transaction easier to follow and understand.

A winning combination of these key factors makes a big difference with M&A transactions. Lacking in one or the other set the stage for the execution of the deal to be more challenging, time-consuming and prone to risks that could have been mitigated and minimized. Overall, these are just a few factors that influence the successful outcome of transactions.