100 Days and Beyond: Recent Episodes
Dudley Peacock
In this episode, we are joined by the prolific podcast content generator Simon Severino – he has obtained great life experience in the understandings and executions of post-merger integrations. In Simon’s words “most things happen by mistake” and if you are here, trust you are in the right place. Watch as Simon leads us through the chaotic yet wonderful world of PMI and talks about how he fell in love with the philosophy of growth and time. He talks about his failures, learning curves and how businesses can succeed in their first 100 days and beyond.
Welcome to another episode of 100 days and beyond with Karen Thomas. She is the founder and director of Seven Transformation Ltd. She is also a Chartered Organisational Psychologist, Associate Fellow of the British Psychological Society and a member of INSEAD's global director network (IDP-C).
Background
Karen started her journey with training and specialising in organisational psychology. Then, she got into Management consultancy, specialising in the people aspects of M&A. After that, she went into IBM to lead businesses and integration.
Karen is an Interim Executive Committee member, Consultant and NED with 25 years of experience leading complex enterprise-wide transformations and M&A integrations to $105bn turnover. Karen has proven expertise in strategy and transformation of complex global businesses involving the creation of new and disruptive operating models to reduce cost, grow the top line, extract more excellent value from data and technology, create new dynamic cultures and deliver customer-centric and digitally delivered customer experiences.
Value Creation Management as NED
Karen focus on the private equity world from the non-executive chair and believes that if you’re interested in value creation, then explore private equity because governance is the priority as the NEDs build a relationship with the CEO and the broader management team is critical. You need to know their motivation and passion for supporting them achieve their goals. From a cultural perspective, you can help the CEO to scale up the journey. Recognise the need to bring in more formalities and processes to scale up.
Psychology of value creation
Karen is a big advocate of strength methodology. She says that you must know your career and the purpose of business.
Strength plays a key role, but you need to know the issues to get better at bringing the proper capability support. Be focused on knowing the correct principles and tools with experience and knowledge to fix the issue.
Leading value creation through strategic transformation being CTO
Being part of the executive team is working with the business teams on the journey with a process to follow to set up a transformation office and centres of excellence. If they want to set up a new model around account management, CTO must deliver what they've set out that they want to achieve.
A transformation must have a defined endpoint with a set of KPIs that needs to be delivered, but the importance and the difference between working with an interim and a consultancy are that they're working with you. They're taking you on the journey, but they're leaving you with that capability and that sustainability that you may know that you will do more next time.
Make sure to work towards it in a planned way. Build checkpoints to see if we are achieving our goals in a planned and methodical way. You need the provocation and make a mission. These were some of the few things discussed in the Podcast with Karen Thomas. To know her magnificent experience, tune into the Podcast.
Connect with Karen Thomas
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karenthomas-bland
Share your expertise and knowledge on our podcast platforms. Apply to be one of our featured guests at https://www.linkedin.com/in/dudley-peacock This podcast gives M&A experts the platform and the opportunity to demonstrate and showcase their ‘in the trenches’ experiences using a state-of-the-art platform for peers and potential clients. Go To www.100daysandbeyond.com for more episodes.
LINKS: http://mergerintegration.co.uk
http://www.100daysandbeyond.com
http://www.skilfulpursuit.com
Welcome to another episode of 100 days and beyond. Today we have Ian Kirkpatrick with us. He is the Head of Transformation and a highly experienced, commercially astute business leader (COO/HR Director/Logistics Director) who has transformed HR, supply chain and facilities functions during M&A across multiple sectors. Background Ian Kirkpatrick started his career as a graduate trainee in food manufacturing. After that, he moved to dispatch and distribution and got into leadership, leading and helping people through the change. He has worked for RS Components, The Culina Group, Europa Worldwide Group, Kwik Fit & European Tyres, Itochu Corporation, Stapleton Tyres, Scottish & Newcastle, Coop Retail Logistics and Premier Foods. His significant projects include M&A involving large scale TUPE/redundancy, business turnaround and system improvements leading to significant cost cutting, improved sales and cultural change. Supply chain and logistics Logistics are buying the right products, putting and selling them at the right place, and then delivering on time. If you can win people, you can win logistics. Ian has learned over the years that it doesn’t matter how much money you invest in any business or property. The vital part is excellent customer service.
Pre-deal process and due diligence in M&A The key aspects to access in M&A before making a deal with the target acquisition are shared by Ian Kirkpatrick. These are as follows: • Start with communication because communicating with people is the key part. You must look at the customer feedback online and you can also look at it without the Internet by communicating with the salespeople because they know the customers and what drives margin. • Look at their customer records to know about the organisation. • You are required to look at the value of assets, stock, property, and liabilities that go along with people. These were a few of the consequences shared by Ian Kirkpatrick. To know more about his splendid journey, tune into the podcast.
Connect with Ian Kirkpatrick LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/mwlite/in/ian-kirkpatrick Email: davidb@mandaadvisory.com
Share your expertise and knowledge on our podcast platforms. Apply to be one of our featured guests at https://www.linkedin.com/in/dudley-peacock This podcast gives M&A experts the platform and the opportunity to demonstrate and showcase their ‘in the trenches’ experiences using a state-of-the-art platform for peers and potential clients. Go To www.100daysandbeyond.com for more episodes. LINKS: http://mergerintegration.co.uk http://www.100daysandbeyond.com http://www.skilfulpursuit.com
Welcome to another episode of 100 days and beyond. Today we have Debora Edwards with us. She is the chief transformation officer at illuminate. She is a business & an HR leader passionate about delivering sustainable change in a digital environment. Background Debora started her career as HR programme manager with professional services but found herself doing more in the M&A space and working with the technical business. Therefore she moved into the contractor space for many years and worked as a transformation manager with Lloyds Banking Group. Debora has over 20 years of the transformation experience. She also has experience in managing mergers, acquisitions, integrations and divestment. Building leadership team and change management. Debora Edwards stated that change management in mergers and acquisitions integrations to bring organisations together is critical. From an HR point of view, she says that pay the individuals, as it is their primary right. Get the plan right and put that in a framework incorporating change in communications. Ensure the individuals and leadership teams feel valued when joining the new organisation. Work with the internal technical teams to identify ways to automate or outsource services to make the business efficient. It will help the business to grow and develop. The cultural awareness and location of different organisations are fundamental. You must work closely with the internal and leadership teams to understand the culture. And you need to apply a different approach, depending on the location and the culture. Reviewing and revising business values. • When businesses plan to merge or acquire another business to move forward, how they approach other organisations and identify opportunities for the individuals' impacts and add value to the business. • Working with people who are champions and can help you embed the piece of change is another important aspect of adding value. • Make sure to support the individuals along their journey. Work with the leaders to help them to be successful. • Change management and communication are the essential parts.
Key takeaways Some key takeaways shared by Debora Edwards are: 1. Spend some time thinking about what you want the end outcome to look like and the journey you want to follow and identify the pain points that you want to avoid. 2. Planning is a significant part. 3. Work closely with the internal team and bring somebody who can support you. Tune into the Podcast to know the magnificent experience of Debora Edward.
Connect with Debora Edward LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/debora-edwards-6a09a0b
Share your expertise and knowledge on our podcast platforms. Apply to be one of our featured guests at https://www.linkedin.com/in/dudley-peacock This podcast gives M&A experts the platform and the opportunity to demonstrate and showcase their ‘in the trenches’ experiences using a state-of-the-art platform for peers and potential clients. Go To www.100daysandbeyond.com for more episodes.
LINKS: http://mergerintegration.co.uk http://www.100daysandbeyond.com http://www.skilfulpursuit.com
Welcome everyone to our latest episode of 100 days and beyond. Today James Pugh joined us. He is a Co-founder and director of CapEQ & he is M&A, Fund raising and strategy consultant. Background He started his first business at 14 by building computer backs. He grew the business to 8-9 locations. He got into M&A about 15 years ago, and set up CapEQ, a finance company with a colleague to run ethical M&A transaction two years ago. Value creation. To create value for your client's transaction, you must engage with people from both sides and communicate about value creation and their PMI processes. Good understanding leads to value creation. On the buyer side, you should help them continuously make strategic acquisition that change business’s outcome, allowing them to integrate effectively. Transaction support is critical to completing transactions and sitting on the buy side, you should advise the other side to get some advisors. That advice eventually helps the transaction flow better and become more successful. James believes that Carve-outs are technical. You are more capable of doing technical stuff all day long, and it doesn’t usually involve people. Corporate Acquisition strategy For a long time, corporate acquirers have been struggling to match their valuation of private equity. With a lot of change, corporate acquirers are acquiring stuff that changes the trajectory. It adds intrinsic value. There’s a drive to scarcity value that is becoming more focused. People understand that consumers are the critical part as they drive everything in the UK economy. Consumer Focus is changing. Therefore the business is changing.
ESG sustainability ESG provide a commercial advantage in the long-term. It can straight away preclude profitability. Capitalism has changed the world for a better place. ESG allows people to feel more in control and be supportive. It gets the consumer to drive the economy. It allows the consumer to make a better choice of the product. It is long-term and we need to be doing things that help people 15 years in advance. These things take time to get a return, but they can get a massive beneficial hit.
To know more about James magnificent experience, tune into the Podcast. Connect with James Pugh LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/james-pugh-1b046815 Website: https://capeq.com
Share your expertise and knowledge on our podcast platforms. Apply to be one of our featured guests at https://www.linkedin.com/in/dudley-peacock This podcast gives M&A experts the platform and the opportunity to demonstrate and showcase their ‘in the trenches’ experiences using a state-of-the-art platform for peers and potential clients. Go To www.100daysandbeyond.com for more episodes. LINKS: http://mergerintegration.co.uk http://www.100daysandbeyond.com http://www.skilfulpursuit.com
Welcome to another episode of FCMO Marketing Leadership for Investors in Business and Today we are joined by Larry Kotch. He is the co-founder and marketing strategist at ‘The Brains’ a digital marketing agency helping ambitious brands generate inbound and outbound leads using online advertising, marketing automation and B2B psychology powered by the best Brains in the business. Background Larry grew up in Kenya, South Africa. He studied environmental science and then did philosophy at the University of Oxford. Subsequently got interested in a start-up as a developer, which led him toward sales and marketing. After doing different jobs, he founded a digital agency with his Co-founder. B2B marketing psychology Psychology and marketing rely on understanding the consumerist. You need to know the tendency or the behaviour of the audience to make change. The buyer’s journey is a crucial sales and marketing concept. The natural inclination of most people in business is to pursue incremental, objective improvements rather than pursuing less confident but potentially game-changing improvements in perception. The aptness of B2B marketers is to ignore that our prospects are just human incarnations of their firms. This internal dialogue we all engage in is critical to understand how you can deploy this desire for growth to benefit you as a B2B supplier. If you can align your content with the status considerations of your prospects, they will be more motivated to act. Larry declares that Marketing can be a powerful tool to help do a lot of good in the world. Find out genius tips on successful marketing and advertising in the Podcast. Connect with Larry Kotch LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bblarry (https://www.linkedin.com/in/bblarry) Website: http://www.thebrains.co.uk/ (www.thebrains.co.uk) Twitter: Brainbroker1 We would love to hear your feedback, questions and discussions. This podcast is dedicated to anybody who wants to explore topics critical to the growth and development of a business. If you’d like to be featured as a guest to share your story and experiences, please contact us at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dudley-peacock (https://www.linkedin.com/in/dudley-peacock). Visit our website for more episodes https://marketingleadership.co.uk/ (https://marketingleadership.co.uk/). Follow our YouTube and Spotify channels to be updated on new episodes each week. LINKS: http://mergerintegration.co.uk/ (http://mergerintegration.co.uk) https://marketingleadership.co.uk/ (https://marketingleadership.co.uk/) http://www.skilfulpursuit.com/ (http://www.skilfulpursuit.com)
Welcome to another episode of 100 days and beyond. Today we are joined by Richard Sederman. He is a senior M&A and strategy director with an extensive history in listed FTSC companies with over 10k employees worldwide. Background Richard Started his career as a graduate trainee and then became a director. He had secured an extensive career in mergers, acquisitions and integrations. Value and sustainability as a strategic driver In acquisition integration, Richard says it is essential to create social value, thus creating a responsible company by accessing every business against a criteria from geography, people and product perspective. The products being made with a practical purpose and a solution are vital to the customer. You must understand your customer's problems and sort it out, bringing sustainability to them. You need to invest differently to bring sustainable products and services to your market and build it into the standard products offer, so people continue to buy from you. Strategies for merger and acquisition integration
- The critical thing is to have a horizon checking process within the business to know the outcome in your geography.
- You should have a good set of tools that have been tested and reused several times. It will help you get through diligence quickly to plan integration without doing much rework. It will make the whole process easier and repeatable.
- In different geographies, the big thing is cultural variations. You must be very adaptable to any local cultural variation to get a plan that everyone can work with.
Project management skills
A lot of nuances are the difference in culture and delivering the project with the people you haven’t worked with before. It is a combination of a good on-boarding experience, putting the new people or employees on a process to make them understand and experience the organisation’s integration. It is vital to have people from cross functional experience to understand the wider business.
Another thing leading the business to success is separating out the day-to-day running of the new business with the integration. If the organisation coming on-board is small, the starting principle is the vision and purpose needed to be integrated from larger to smaller. "It is important to have a growth mind-set. Things can be done differently and improve. Look for opportunities and take them." -Richard Sederman
These were some of the leading principles shared by Richard Sederman. To know more, hop onto the episode.
Connect with Richard Sederman
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/richard-sederman-4065464 Website: www.essentracomponents.com
Share your expertise and knowledge on our podcast platforms. Apply to be one of our featured guests at https://www.linkedin.com/in/dudley-peacock This podcast gives M&A experts the platform and the opportunity to demonstrate and showcase their ‘in the trenches’ experiences using a state-of-the-art platform for peers and potential clients. Go To www.100daysandbeyond.com for more episodes.
LINKS: http://mergerintegration.co.uk http://www.100daysandbeyond.com http://www.skilfulpursuit.com
Welcome to another episode of Hundred days and beyond with Jon Burke. Jon Burke is a commercially-minded, customer-focused marketing leader with over 20 years of international experience in multi-channel marketing, M&A integration, sales management and team realignment. Covering technology, software and smart products, industrial goods and consumer durables in both B2B and B2C markets. Background He has been leading and integrating marketing teams and overseeing strategic plans at head office and regional levels. He has worked on the corporate side for many years. He had spent six years in a business that did on average, about six to eight deals (M&A) a year. He is a director and consultant at Osmaston Associates. Strategic marketing management In an acquired business, from a sales and marketing point of view, giving your salespeople access to the right tool promptly is crucial. You want to understand how they use their data. You need to use most of the data to grow the business. It enhances the performance of the parent company as well as the other business unit within it. To optimise the performance in the company, you need to be working off the same system and data consistently so that you can reach out to target audiences and existing customers to grow the revenue. It is important that sales leaders manage their forecasts and stick to them and communicate in any plus or minuses on time. Quality communication is the key, it helps manage the business going.
Project Management Jon Burke has experience in managing 6-8 deals in a year. From an integration point of view, the key gateways are the 90-100 day plan. It is defined as a good project management process using a DMO or IMO approach. Ensure that there's a defined process that you can just repeat regularly. People get familiar with the processes and the key thing is to be aware of what the strategies are for each business.
Share Your Expertise And Knowledge On Our Thought Leader Podcast Apply To Be One Of Our FEATURED GUESTS… This podcast gives M&A experts the platform and the opportunity to demonstrate and showcase their ‘in the trenches’ experiences using a state-of-the-art platform so peers and potential clients can know in advance Go To www.100daysandbeyond.com
Connect with Jon Burke LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonpburke Website: http://osmastonassociates.com
LINKS: http://mergerintegration.co.uk http://www.100daysandbeyond.com http://www.skilfulpursuit.com
Welcome to another episode of 100 days and beyond with John Farrell. He is an accomplished business leader and executive director within a large multidisciplinary contracting organization. John has gained an impressive experience with business growth, M&A, turnaround, profit improvement, and value release in high paced environments across sectors including M&E, utilities & energy, construction, facilities management, and environmental services. Having gained success by securing significant growth in long-term framework and major project opportunities from bid through to successful delivery. Background John now works in the ranks of operational roles and in large-scale infrastructure business utilities focusing on people, large projects, big contracts and big customers. Through this he’s gotten a broad spectrum of business management from the front-line delivery to managing P&Ls and eventually M&A. John, later on, got involved in turnaround. He has also been a part of PLC as a managing director and a member of the executive team in the local government within M&E. He then went into SSE, a massive energy provider.
Value creation John says that the value of a business is maintaining the assets around its long-term customer relationships and contracts. Contracting organizations have long-term contracts with people. If you win a contract from another competitor, you bring the workforce and they move across to you. Hence allowing you to introduce change within a workforce. When you have the cycle running continuously - you educate your people around your target operating model and how your business is moving forward with innovation, this is what makes your company highly acquisitive. Which is why you've got to create a line through that by bringing people along the journey and making communication a priority. The more you can set up a team that becomes an advocate for change, the more effective your program and post-deal integration will be. Few important key points to help while going through an acquisition integration are:
- Discussion with customers in the due diligence process.
- Looking at the business history of delivery thinking & their engagement with customers.
- Maintaining your customer base is the absolute key.
- Approach your target and eventually nurture your business development team.
- Getting engaged with every stakeholder in the business at a senior level.
- Being mindful and having a well-built risk management team setup.
John Farrell is a consistent advocate in the creation and ongoing development of high performing teams and individuals to drive success. Connect with John Farrell
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/johnfarrellent
LINKS: http://mergerintegration.co.uk
http://www.100daysandbeyond.com
http://www.skilfulpursuit.com
Welcome to another episode of In hundred days and beyond with Robin Adda. He is a thought leader, entrepreneur, CEO of EdTech barefoot eLearning and essential digital GA skills gap by providing IT and soft skills eLearning to training center and businesses. Background Robin has studied law degree, went into accountancy followed by strict guidance of parents. Then he moved into corporate recovery running a business that failed, as his first experience in managing business. He decided to get a job in investment bank and from a large company corporate finance, he moved into a small M&A department. He later on moved to word pressing/IT through a friend, which was his first company. Barefoot eLearning Robin Adda has a company called Barefoot eLearning. The concept behind it is very interesting. People having issues in their computers, printers or Venuses which they couldn’t fix on their own, so they’d call them. The concept is basically to give them level support. So they run different courses called Barefoot engineers to create a hero in each department. It is like the initiative in China ‘Chinese barefoot doctors’ who trained people to be barefoot doctors going round the communes teaching somebody in each location the basics of medicine to help sick people get better until it was an incurable disease. Transition in M&A Robin thinks that It's very difficult because when you run your own business, you are your own boss. When you sell the business, you are no longer the boss. What he personally don't like is to see people come in and eliminate your brand, put in their brand as if you didn't exist. He felt more sad about the fact that they didn’t recognize the value. Robin says that if business is successful you need the key staff to stay in board. Hop on to the episode to learn some brilliant aspects of Advanced technology. Connect with Robin Adda LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robinadda (https://www.linkedin.com/in/robinadda) Website: http://www.barefootelearning.com/ (www.barefootelearning.com) Facebook: https://m.facebook.com/barefoot_elearning (https://m.facebook.com/barefoot_elearning) LINKS: http://mergerintegration.co.uk/ (http://mergerintegration.co.uk) http://www.100daysandbeyond.com/ (http://www.100daysandbeyond.com) http://www.skilfulpursuit.com/ (http://www.skilfulpursuit.com)
Welcome to another episode of In hundred days and beyond with Vladimir Cordier. He is a results oriented and hands-on implementation and transformation technology professional with over 20 years line operations consulting and international program management. He also has experience in the IT and business within senior technology roles in large corporations, specializing in addressing the needs and issues clients encountered during their digital transformation. Background
Vladimir started his career in telecoms as a support engineer for a big company and then he move into project management. He has worked in industry for a lot of big companies for 17 years as a senior management looking at their IT strategy and plan the implementation of those projects and delivering them. He stayed on the ground for 3 years doing most of the projects in PMI, where he got into integration. He involved in ERP and business management systems.
Hundred days plan – PMI
Few key things revealed by Vladimir Cordier are as follow:
The first and most important factor is all Planning. Make sure right talents stay on board Start a month before signing the contract on the buyer side and paint the picture. Integration blueprint will be a live document which will live couple of months after the day 1 and the 100 days. You need to get the synergies by not losing the momentum Communication and connection with clients, suppliers and everyone is very important. Assure them that things will remain the same. Merge your emails and websites. Make a priority list of the systems that need to merge, that are needed to be removed and replaced. You need army of consultants to keep your operations running and do things well. It’s all about planning and surrounding yourself with people who have done it before. Vladimir Cordier has led over 100 global projects and programmes, managing over 150 virtual team members across more than 30 business units. Heis French bilingual, Prince 2 and Scrum Master certified. He is author of the “50 Golden Rules of Project Management” book. These were a few of the factors. Tune into the podcast to know the rest of his brilliant journey.
Connect with Vladimir Cordier LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/mwlite/in/vcordier (https://www.linkedin.com/mwlite/in/vcordier) Website: http://www.bearingpoint.com/capital (http://www.bearingpoint.com/capital) LINKS: http://mergerintegration.co.uk/ (http://mergerintegration.co.uk)
http://www.100daysandbeyond.com/ (http://www.100daysandbeyond.com)
http://www.skilfulpursuit.com/ (http://www.skilfulpursuit.com)
Welcome to another episode of Hundred days and beyond with Liam McGreevy, who is a co-founder, director and CEO at Elite growth, holistic herb. Leading into 11 years in the Agritech industry with exceptional knowledge across all areas of the production and distribution, assisting in building global supply chain. He is a progressive business manager and am market developer with 15 years of experience in sales and marketing, technical and compliance manufacturing and distribution operations as well as finance and business development. Background Liam McGreevy started his career as a science graduate working with RMC in an in-house laboratory, testing in the construction sector for 6 years. Then worked as a sales representative for distribution of water cultural equipment. Then moved to another employer who was setting up his business and they grew it rapidly with a lot of learning in that period. After that, he ended up in the medical side with the science background. He has worked with a number of companies across retail medical ingredient development raising money and doing acquisition. Agritech – Agriculture Technology Liam McGreevy says, it is as broad scope covering cultivation of vegetables into livestock farming on the technological side. He says, people don’t value farmers and do not understand the complexity of the process. Having the elements of risk like climate change, pollution, and waste materials, we need to balance things with right measurements and think reasonably for long-term sustainability. Marketing strategy Been working as a distributor for many years, Liam McGreevy thinks that to market a brand/product, it has to be able to deliver the right message with right price and right margin structure and right relationship with the supplier. Understanding the product is key as well.
M & A Integration Liam thinks that whether you are on the Merger side or on the Acquisition side, there are two things. 1. You will look at the people and business teams, if they have similar end goals and right funding structure as you have. 2. And secondly, if the merged or acquired business has the ability to capture the growth. So he think on both sides, there has to be alignment of goals of mind-set and ability to work together. Liam has always been a hard worker and competitive person, played a lot of sports growing up. He has got the competitive streak at him and has the hard work ethics. His approach is to try and be really productive and stay fit and healthy within a certain time frame. He thinks that success comes from repeated positive habits and building them in life. These were few summarised points discussed in the episode with Liam Mcgreevy. To know more, tune into the podcast.
Connect with Liam Mcgreevy
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/liam-mcgreevy-5a808724 (https://www.linkedin.com/in/liam-mcgreevy-5a808724) Links: http://mergerintegration.co.uk/ (http://mergerintegration.co.uk) http://www.100daysandbeyond.com/ (http://www.100daysandbeyond.com) http://www.skilfulpursuit.com/ (http://www.skilfulpursuit.com)
Welcome to another episode of In hundred days and beyond with our brilliant guest Craig Richardson, who is director at PHD industrial holdings limited. He has spent 14 years working at KPMG undertaking corporate finance and due diligence assignments in UK as a chartered accountant. Background
Craig went into four big county firms and spent 3 years auditing there. Then he moved to corporate finance mostly dealing with SMEs and business owners. After a number of years, he got involved in acquiring business for investors. He has an experience of over 25 years, advising owners on all aspects of growth, succession, acquisition, MBOs, finance raising, exit planning and strategic advisory. He has also lectured to leading banks on how to assess the competence of management teams.
Transition period from Finance corporate to advisory
Craig says, the transition doesn’t happened overnight. When you start audit in a company as a finance corporate, you go to business owners and ask them questions. The problem you face is that you don’t actually know what you’re supposed to know and what you don’t know. With the passage of time you start to realize what you should know and shouldn’t know. That’s the moment of confidence as an advisor. He says, it’s about being a mentor, advisor and quite often the management teams you’re dealing with. So the big transition is how the board table acts.
Leading banks – assessing the competence of management teams
In Craig Richardson’s view, to have a successful business you’ve got to have a successful model and a good management team. The trickiest thing is buying businesses without management team and recruiting team is much harder. So it’s better to get a management team but they are still coached by the owner on what to say and what not to say. Culture is very difficult in an acquisition and you’ve got to have a leap of faith when you buy a company. The key thing is to make sure that you only acquire the businesses with the biggest customers. Never to invest in a business that is reliant on one or two customers. It’s all about making sure that the value is in the business and not in the people. Craig raised first fund in 2008 with some money from clients with another 2 transactions lined up. Then over the next 3-4 years they invested in 4 others which were really eclectic with 2-3 real winners making a really good return. On the back of that, raising a larger fund, created 6 entities.
Integration When we acquire a business after agreeing to the price and doing due diligence, to make it successful you need to keep few things in mind that are revealed by Craig Making sure the profit and cash generation of the acquired business will not go backwards. Only invest in the businesses that’s been going for a long time. The key thing is the margin and getting the right people involved as well, who have got the right experience from outside the company rather than self grown business owner. Craig Richardson has shared an amazing journey of sharing a lot of winning formulas These were a few of them. Tune into the podcast to know more
Connect with Craig Richardson
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/craig-richardson-70b61314 LINKS: http://mergerintegration.co.uk http://www.100daysandbeyond.com http://www.skilfulpursuit.com
Welcome to another episode of Hundred days and beyond with Vicky Tallon. She is a Merger, Acquisition & Carve-out specialist for operational integration and separation. She is also confident, versatile & resourceful with excellent stakeholder engagement, a reputation for deal-speed successful results. Background Vicky Tallon has started her M and A career by working in KPMG consultancy. Then she worked for other big consulting firms and after that in the global compliance, project management, learning commercials, legal negotiations, commercial agreements, SLAs, and KPIs moving to the foreign office. Stakeholder engagement For Vicky, the thing about stakeholder engagement is all about people that drives or motivate them. She thinks that stakeholder engagements is one of the biggest things to make the deal success. You have to build trust with stakeholders very quickly to assure them that you have got their back. So she thinks that you have to create impact at the beginning and create a positive impact at the beginning with all your stakeholders to the point that they feel comfortable enough to go along with you.Communication is the absolute key and about senior stakeholders being very honest and open. How is it like working with other practitioners? Vicky says that if you are opposed to other practitioners then you need to be confident, versatile and resourceful enough to tackle the situation to be successful. Marketing yourself versus creating your own personal brand, you’ve got to be able to move, flex, and change really quickly, comfortably and safely. Difference between Integration and Separation/Carve-out As Vicky Tallon says, Both of these processes start on quite a similar track but go down differently. In integration, you have to do things very quickly around the time of the deal and the process is slightly long-term strategy whereas separation is operational process where you carve out s part of business to sale and want it to succeed. You try to separate the business without any damage to the carved out business. Vicky Tallon is labelled as ‘great to fun with bringing energy and humor’. She thinks that In a very stressful environment people need to be able to breathe in order to make some key and important decisions for hundreds of other employees. She further on believe, When you are a professional integrator or a practitioner, you tend to be match fit for stressful difficult situations. Vicky Tallon has been an absolute great guest on our podcast today. Listen to the podcast to learn more.
Connect with Vicky Tallon LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vickytallon
LINKS: http://mergerintegration.co.uk http://www.100daysandbeyond.com
Welcome to another episode of Hundred days and beyond with our amazing guest Harry Cowan who is the CEO – Driving innovation and growth at power and water, Director, Board member, NED, coach and mentor, M&A integration and transformation, and Rugby Union Referee. Background Harry started his career as an executive and acquired a few companies facing a lot of cultural differences and difficulties. He learnt few skill on the way. He moved to the role of a professional PMI consultant and program manager and after that he became a chief executive of a boutique program management consultancy. His background spans construction, media,, broadcasting, financial services and aquaculture. Good attributes of a professional practitioner
In this podcast, Harry has discussed good attributes of a PMI practitioner and few of them are as follow: You need to be aware of the cultural differences and understand them. You need to be bold enough to backup your analysis. Do not promise the impossible, rather communicate with key reasons. You should know how to deal with people. Recognizing the intellectual capital that resides in the business being acquired is essential.
Interrogation
Harry Cowan interrogate the business teams including stakeholders, acquirer, sponsors and all. He thinks that it is quite important to know the summary of your business to understand the promises made of private equity, the objective and the drivers behind the acquisition. You should look a the realism of timeliness, looking at the business case and due diligence to figure out and do it. Harry developed a leadership program “leading at the edge”, inspired by Ernest Shackleton's expedition to the south pole. This program instils active engagement in management to support culture change and build high performing teams leading to successful navigation of very challenging circumstances. Being a Rugby referee has significantly influenced his leadership style, as this role required him to be involved, engaged and communicate without clearly instructing the players how to play the game. As a Referee coach, he mentored junior referees, two of whom have gone to referee at English Rugby Premier Level. These were few of the key factors told by Harry Cowan, tune into the podcast to know whole inspirational journey.
LINKS: http://mergerintegration.co.uk/ (http://mergerintegration.co.uk)
http://www.100daysandbeyond.com/ (http://www.100daysandbeyond.com)
http://www.skilfulpursuit.com/ (http://www.skilfulpursuit.com)
Welcome to another episode of Hundred days and beyond with Ashish Das, who is passionate for digital and technical work and intertwine into his career over many years. He also has expertise in strategy, business transformation, Merger and Acquisition and shared services. Background He has been doing growth and result oriented digital technology and GBS-shared services professional for over 20 years now and has global experience in IT enabled services industries in Europe, Asia and United States. He has deep transformation and change management experience through m&a, PMI, Carve-outs and divestiture and implementation of SAP. Aspects of Advanced technology Things have become so much efficient over the time. When Ashish started his career, the challenge at that time was the lack of data and information. They had to run printouts and pages of data to be able to get to something. But now, we are able to connect to an ecosystem outside and we get data and information to get answers to something. Having so much capability today than 20 years ago is the biggest change he felt.
Role of technology is M&A Integration The strategic purpose of technology for growth of business is finding efficiencies and bringing innovation. Technology is very closely linked with the business teams. We have to manage change and communication really well to make significant changes to get people to effectively and efficiently continue their lives. Technology is the block step in with the business teams. Merger and Acquisition Integration does have a financial and technical impact in its system.
People management in Integration To make the bridge between technology and people, you’ve got to love or learn to love things that will make things successful. Ashish thinks that you really need to communicate with people, understand the cultural differences and talk about their shared experiences around their culture. In an integration, the change management around integrating the cross functional teams into our SAP is significant. We had to have a quick follow through plan for 12 to 18 months, so people will understand the prioritization and the things that they will get the tools and systems, and be able to work around that. Change management and communication is critical as you work through teams. We do a quick work around or a quick stitch together. Shared services and Post merger integration As defined by Ashish, your ability to centralize and standardize a lot of your downstream or upstream processes and be able to run it from a dedicated team and applying technology to automate. Developing the processes as a capability that let an organization manage through cycles. You have to consolidate and find efficiencies in organizations , as every organization has a different life cycle. So a shared service sits right in the middle and allows an organization to go through transition effectively without reorganizing. Implementation of SAP Ashish wrote down these three sort of pillars to implement SAP 1. Looking at the cost side of organization, you can put it into the shared services to find the synergy. But, essentially, you need to figure out those cost efficiencies across people, process technology licenses and everything else. 2. Looking at how to run the business, what is the organization going to be or who is the decision maker. Does your technology and shared services capabilities support it or need redesigning. From technology perspective, we need to have conversation with business analysts and take it back to the decision maker. 3. Making sure to have right people assigned, so you need procedures, work flows, and the actual business model with lot of learnings. Shift of technology to online world Ashish says, shift is evident for all of us. The core project part of the organization is where you have to go back and look in the infrastructure of your technology stack and modernizing with the new components of...
Welcome to another episode of In hundred days and beyond with Kishen Gajjar having an impressive experience. He is a consulting director, specializes in strategy and transformation, coaches business leaders in C-suites executives and delivering value. His strengths are strategy translation and execution. Experienced in leading PMI, carve outs and regulatory divestments, IT transformations in financial services sector. He has also worked in FinTech organizations. He contributes to sales and business development and to practice growth through proposition development and people management including coaching and mentoring of clients and consulting teams. Background Kishen Gajjar is originally east African Asian, born in Tanzania. He started his career right at the beginning in technology as an Internet service provider start-up and a mobile virtual network operator for 4 years. After that he pursued his masters degree and got into financial services. The first job he got in financial services was in a Standard charter bank as a head of business planning and strategy he got the experience of big data analysis that was quite rare at that time. He moved to UK in 2008, started his career with customer acquisitions. He joined Santander right before they were making the announcement of the acquisition of Bradford and Bingley. He was one of the key people on that program. After that they did Alliance Leicester. He was an internal consultant effectively helping with the integration. He the moved into an external consultancy called capital, continued to do similar work but mostly on the separation side and later on decided to go in-house in financial services. Kishen is a quick learner and can operate in fast pace and uncertain environment that benefited him in the world of acquisition.
Acquisition Kishen is assuming that we have two boxes of Jigsaw puzzle. You open one box to create picture with pieces and then second one to create the picture with pieces. And if you try to join both of them to create one perfect picture, it’s never clean. You have to put a lot of effort into making it an ideal one but it’s never going to be. Bringing two organizations together to make one pretty picture, a lot of effort, a lot of time and focus is needed post merger integration. -Kishen Gajjar Separation You take one Jigsaw puzzle and split it up. Saying you take this half and I take this half. It’s never going to be a pretty picture at the end of the day. So Kishen says, people like him have to either copy the pieces that are taken away or see if they can make them good enough on the other side.
Good attributes of a PMI practitioner Some good attributes defined by Kishen Gajjar are knowing your subject area, knowing your expertise and having a good understanding of market trends. Kishen has learned a lot of difficult and valuable lessons along with his journey, created something that just didn't exist before.He will always welcome an opportunity to work in this space, obviously and continue to learn & expose himself to the new ways of running an integration program or a separation program.At this moment, he is about to enter the transition period where he is going to join a consultancy firm again. And is expanded his toolkit to go just beyond integrations and separations.
Connect with Kishen Gajjar: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kishengajjar
LINKS: http://mergerintegration.co.uk http://www.100daysandbeyond.com http://www.skilfulpursuit.com
Welcome to the new episode of Hundred days and beyond with Paul Harman, who is a genius marketing expert who understands marketing and business growth generating new work. He is involved in both merger integration and marketing. Background Paul is active in Post-merger integration and establishing the world of a website or E-commerce. He works with companies to establish growth in their market. A very important part of his work is digital Merger and Acquisition, especially website valuation. Valuation in m&a and marketing Paul says, Look at the historical digital assets that are becoming more and more prevalent in m and a. It will give you a view of the past up to now. As in most cases, there is much more strength within a website than you might expect when you look at the historical data. So it’s a big difference, but not always. Five main elements defined by Paul for driving worth in a website are: 1. Organic strength 2. Online authority strength 3. Conversion strength 4. Technical strength 5. Advertising and social strength Fulfilment of business According to Paul, do it smartly without going too fast. You first have to be able to handle all this fulfilment by yourself or your team and then go the other steps in hiring optimisation or robots or whatever. So it's a challenging journey to go on but do it easy and always have a mind that will take more time than you think it'll take up more money than you would think. Paul says, “You have to advertise, you have to really invest in marketing” Also, it is very important at every step of the way that you need to see the progress within the data, revenues and sales. And then you can invest. Take a top slowly because there's a lot of learning that has to take place in that process. On the first spot in every business are not only the people who you are working with but the customers. Don't forget the customer. It’s not a click it's not just data. These are persons. I want to see the interaction with human behaviour. -Paul harmaan
Welcome to 100 Days and Beyond Podcast This podcast is dedicated to post merger or post-acquisition integrations that part of the merger and acquisition process or M and a as people like to call it that part of the M and a process where the dealers done, the parties have negotiated, and it's actually starting to be day. why did we create this podcast? In the world we live today, it's never been easier to go online and get information regarding any subject, but therein lies. The problem information today is everywhere, but there are very few insights. This podcast was created to get the real stories, good and bad, the real expertise to help all parties involved in M and a to achieve stunning integrations. Not only can you listen to the real life experience of top M and a experts, but you can also have the option to contact them, to know who you can deal with long before you even speak to them and see what it takes to become an M and a integration practitioner specialist, or to get the services of one. So click on the button, subscribe to our channel. And listen weekly as we interview experts, as we build more and more episodes around this fascinating topic, taking different points of view, taking points of view from those being acquired through to those that are unskilled or skilled, or have become skilled through just sheer force and determination to be able to turn.
Welcome to another episode of In hundred days and beyond, this time with an absolutely brilliant guest. His name is Harrison Tull. Introduction He's a director at Altius, He has got 10 years of experience in operational leadership roles and has demonstrated a track record of driving new business wins, having the ability to communicate with people, and launching organizations from the ground up. So that's already a big one, restructuring teams, forging mission, critical partnerships and alliances that are again, people and then delivering top-line growth and profitability. He has been a senior manager of operations, and excellence at PWC. Background Harrison Tull was always interested in sports marketing, and also did various internships and Jobs in the same niche. Later on, found management consulting strategy exciting and took stepping stones to get his first job in consulting firm. Eventually building credibility to get into a price water house PWC. Flourished his skills to focus on private equity space, pulled together a team of people from ex PWC & started building a firm focused on value capture for private equity. Team management and challenges Harrison developed a team to deal with internal and external stakeholders. Taught them how to present in front of the client, and when is the right time to present in front of the client was the biggest challenge. Getting the team exposed to highest-level conversations as early as possible to own a key part and key deliverables. Building a culture in a team and bringing some values is a challenge too. Some good attributes of an integrator The good attributes of an integration person should be a generalist who can move across functions in an organisation. He should be a problem solver, how quickly he is able to move from one problem to the other under intense pressure. He can make the right assumptions. EQ is huge, being able to quickly, confidently and concisely communicate. He should be able to build great relationships with clients and put themselves in their shoes. There are a lot but these are some of the few summarised really well by Harrison. Value creation and integration In content distribution companies, each country was running their own process having different products, selling at different price points at a different costs. We realised that we could really leverage some low-cost areas. We focussed on content distribution which is a brand new function, taking in the front office, and touching customers. We looked at finance and accounting, indirect procurement, infrastructure and product development to cut the cost as quick as possible. In the deal-making process, the teams are all about paying the lowest amount for assets. It will cut costs by bringing the assets together and that way exit as soon as possible by having increased EBIDA. Importance of a mentor Harrison has two really great mentors at PWC. He thinks having a great mentor who has a lot of faith in you will put in spots to help you learn and grow. They will vouch for you on the right project and give you opportunities. He was pushed to manage a project in Abbot for a year by one of his mentors. Now mentoring someone else is different in Harrison’s view. It's called coaching, you have your coach and then you have your partner. And then you have a relationship partner. So you have three that are very set in terms of how your career pathing and who you work with. Specialist vs generalist Thinking about specialists, Harrison thinks deep technical expertise in a given function are specialists. And he thinks that he is a generalist, as he got to work in multiple functions, usually mid and back office, heavily within finance and accounting, HR and indirect procurement, pulling in the right expertise. These were some of the few summarised points discussed in the podcast with Harrison tull, who has a brilliant background having collaborations with 21 territories (157 countries)...
Today we are joined by Novica Mrdovic Vianello, an Investor in Venture Capital and Private Equity, Skilled in M&A, Corporate Venture Capital, Product Lifecycle Management, Operations & Manufacturing, CRM, R&D and Sales Management. He has gained vast experience in the industry of post-merger integrations worldwide, which makes him the perfect candidate for our episode today, where he shares stories from his point of view – his successes, lessons learnt, and how to ensure each integration succeeds throughout.
Welcome to another episode of Hundred days and beyond. This episode is for everyone within the industry or outside the industry or keen to learn what’s going on in this weird and wonderful world of post-merger integration, and what happens with private equity once businesses and entities are acquired. And what happens with the team and employees and so on. We have Let’s move on! Introduction Angus McGowan has joined us in this episode. He's from emerge vest, private equity. He's the UK operating director. Angus is a C-level operations executive with extensive experience in advising and leading organizations through growth, complex change transformation, integration, and M and a activities. He specializes in supporting private equity firms in the APAC and Amir region. Ensuring the strategic growth and acquisition programs are delivered rapidly, then guiding organizations into post-integration phases to ensure full value achievement.
Background Angus started off his professional career as a solicitor in a large Australian law firm but he was unable to find interest in this field so he moved to the UK. He did some in-house work and gradually became more commercial and operational. He made his first contract with the bank that was doing a joint venture with JP Morgan. He worked with other senior operational members and learned in the process, so the joint venture went well. Angus then joined a Swiss-listed banking company started by an Australian and was going on acquisition trial. He did a lot of stuff there from m&a (merger and integration), target evaluation and shortlisting to helping run due diligence. From there he picked up some sort of financial skills but the process of being primarily responsible for the acquisition and getting the post-merger operational strategy fully specked and managing the whole process, he finally got into this career.
Cultural diversity and communication Diverse culture issues are a challenge in terms of communication. It is often referred to as a stereotype. Augus thinks stereotypes tend to get embedded in the culture. He experienced one of the cultural clashes when he was working in the joint venture. He struggled personally to adjust to the environment. Like you actually weren't allowed to leave your desk until you were wearing your suit jacket or your suit coat. So it was very formal having a few personal learnings. Another time he was working in a grid company, which was effectively buying back our distribution margin. He did enjoy working with the fantastic team but one thing he struggled with, was the guy who led the business was a chain smoker. Making it very difficult for him to work around so People are always receptive to your best efforts to communicate no matter where they're from or whatever their organization's like, if their organization had high standards, then you just need to go up to that standard. If they came from something where it was more restricted and you are upping the on it and that's going to be really well received as well. Angus believes that one should have an open mind about how you’re going to communicate with people. Another thing he learned from this experience is one should not over-communicate.
Traits of a good PMI practitioner Certain elements defined by Angus, that will make you successful are: • The classic division around your hard and soft skill bucket • Bringing awareness around project management and the ability to bring that into the environment • You need knowledge around financial management, the ability to understand the culture, theory and transformation • Having the experience and respecting the capabilities of people you’re working with and engaging with Post-merger integration, professionals primarily bring a skill and a toolkit and an experience set that you should be able to apply across a range of contexts. -Angus McGowan
Effects of technology Angus considers having some kind of degree of awareness...
Today, our prestigious guest Mukul joins us, who supports technology-centric businesses looking for growth equity within the sustainable impact space. Mukul has established a good network of founders, entrepreneurs, investors, and family offices through his track record of high-level building portfolios, raising funds, and supporting successful exits. He has experience working with KPMG in Germany, Arthur Andersen in India, and the Big4 PwC and EY in London, so we’re more than excited to hear about his experiences over the years. Mukul Mohanty https://www.linkedin.com/in/mukul-mohanty-61898a5a/ Mukul supports sell-side raises from €10-€100m for IP Backed or Asset-Backed businesses that are technology-centric and looking for growth equity. Mukul has a strong background in leading early-stage/series A funding, investment preparedness and strategy, and engaging with VC’s/FO’s/Private Equities. He has a proven track record of building portfolios, successful exits, management buyouts and raising funds. In 2021, Mukul has secured almost c.$100m across 4 ventures. He supported second-round funding for early-stage technology start-ups specializing in clean tech 2017-2020. Mukul successfully raised and exited two closed-end funds in Germany from 2012-2017. Mukul's buy-side experience includes 15 years of lead advisory with the Big4 PwC and EY in London, KPMG in Germany and Arthur Andersen in India. Over the years, he has built a strong network of founders and entrepreneurs and an excellent roster of VCs, CVCs, PE's/ Family Offices, Funds of Funds, co-investors, and follow-on investors.
Welcome to another episode of In hundred days and beyond with Kevin collet, a finance director and get to know about his broad experience of how big companies engage in merger integration, Post-merger integration (PMI) and Post-acquisition integration. How M and A, the pre-deal or postdeal works. So let’s get started! Who is Kevin collet and how he became a finance director, From serving in the department of accountancy in private equity and then as a senior finance manager in digital marketing and software companies, to engaging in M&a integration to corporate management, he ends up being a brilliant finance director with a working experience of 20-30 years. The process of merging two companies, assets, people, duties and capital in order to acquire the most worth for the company with efficiencies and teamwork. Being a finance manager for 3 PMIs, Kevin thinks that one should always be willing and able to give an opinion on how things are operating. The key success behind having a successful project is planning. And not just planning, buy the capacity to do hard work. It’s good to have a plan but being capable to do the job has a lot to do with it. Business management strategy Post-merger integration If you are going to have a successful m&a deal, post-merger integration, look at the staffing, capacity, recruitment, sales pipeline and system integration, the team dynamics having different people working together and different cultures having different views. Organise face-to-face workshops, getting senior people from both sides. By Communicating with them, start winning acquired people by showing willingness. Merger and Acquisition • Merger Integration Merger integration happens to be the combination of two separate organisations to create a new combined organisation. In merger, one of the first and easiest steps is to merge finance. The first casualties will be finance people, as we probably would want to reduce down staffing levels because we don’t need two or three people to do the job. Kevin thinks it does not need to be done gradually but in a measured way. 1. Add new entities to the cash pool and if you don’t have a cash pool, look at getting it. 2. Expense management. 3. Focus on how the payroll cycle works. 4. Importance of working capital management 5. Treating people fairly, encouraging their behaviour to see an organisation. • Acquisition Whereas, acquisition integration is taking over an organisation by the other. In acquisition, the only thing changes are the owners of the share capital. Contracts, customers, suppliers, facilities and employees are there. The thing to highlight is planning your financial projections. Make sure to have a suitable allowance, retention bonuses, relocation bonuses, termination bonuses, office closure, or contract closure. Otherwise, the success of your business is actually going to be starting 2-3 steps back. You have to think about retaining key talents. You don’t need people to leave in a poorly managed way, Even when you know that they’re no longer a part of a combined organisation, treat them well because that’s what people will remember. Financial management Finance is the only function in the organisation that does see everything. Like commercial decisions, staffing, contracts, and property, everything ends up costing money at some point. Being a finance director, Kevin has been involved in the organisation, planning, financial reporting, staff incentive etc. Cash is the most essential factor. Your business will grow if you are operating cash flow and it is sufficient to fund your business to pay your liabilities. Another essential thing to succeed is having a strong financial person, manager or director who focuses on priorities. Makes sure that the planning is in place and got the capacity within the team. Conclusion The key success behind having a successful project is planning and having the capacity to do hard work about how you want the...
Why struggle through a post-merger integration when you can glide through it. Why deal with the PMI integration challenges when you can overcome them even before they occur? Why move slow? When you can move at pace? What are the world's leading PMI experts doing right now to achieve profit-accelerating integrations? This podcast will give you all the answers to these questions and many more like: 1. what does it take to be a really good PMI? 2. what's the best way to organise things when we have more resources? 3. what's the difference between in-house and outsourced practitioners? 4. What makes the system stronger? 5. how important is the role of the workstream? 6. What do you have to do to take two entities and make them grow? 7. why is communication important? 8. What is an operations system? 9. what are the three levels of work? 10. what is structural complexity? 11. what's the next big thing? 12. how our unique PMI slip stream method can help you? 13. should we productize one of our service offerings? 14. what is the most efficient growth strategy To reach us simply visit our website: https://www.100daysandbeyond.com/ or Skilfulpursuit.com