One of the most common ways to grow your business is by pursuing mergers and acquisitions. However, these deals are complicated and can have critical repercussions if they are not handled properly. Therefore, these are a few tips to help you with your merger strategy.

Set Clear Goals

Your first task should be setting your goals. You need to explore why you want to pursue this strategy over other growth opportunities. How will it benefit your company, and what advantages will you receive that you may not experience from other growth options?

Also, when do you expect to close, what kind of company are you looking for, and how long are you willing to wait for the right opportunity? Set a clear budget and create a detailed acquisition plan.

Be Willing To Walk Away

You need to understand every detail of the acquisition deal. Then, you should evaluate these details based on your goals and company values. Not every merger will benefit your company. You may be knee-deep into the negotiation process or ready to sign the papers, but if the company or deal doesn’t fit your needs, be willing to walk away.

Build an Integration Plan

Once the deal is done, you need to integrate the companies. Run a thorough investigation of both companies’ assets and liabilities. Assets may include intellectual property, contracts, vendors, insurance, etc. Review the company’s financials and search for any hidden liabilities, such as tax liens, bankruptcies or outstanding litigation.

Then, learn what you can about the employees. Search for key skills, knowledge and experience, but also analyze their productivity and satisfaction, especially for key employees.

Then, create a task force to implement and evaluate the plan and its progress. Use regular meetings to determine next steps and solve problems.

Share Your Corporate Culture

As soon as the deal closes, you want to eliminate the “us vs them” mentality within your company. You need all your employees to see both sides of the company as one. One of the best ways to do this is to share your corporate culture across the company. This may require that language within the company change. Share your corporate mission, vision and values.

Pursue Open Communication

The employees in both companies may feel insecure during the merger process and once the acquisition is completed. Therefore, you need to be open with your employees about the process, what they can expect and your goals. Assure them that they are safe in their jobs, and encourage them to come to you or your management team with any questions and concerns.

Mergers and acquisitions are challenging, time-consuming processes. However, you can increase your success rate by implementing a few key strategies.