People are central to success in M&A deals
The New Shape of Work interview series addresses the challenges and uncertainty in the current business environment with a focus on how to transition to a more agile workforce for the future.
At the end of 2022, CEOs and CFOs responded to a survey indicating that, despite economic concerns, one in three was anticipating increasing merger & acquisition (M&A) activities in 2023. We saw that joint ventures were increasingly popular deal structure, an increased interest in divestitures, and new attention on the integration of past deals.
In this episode Jeff Black, Mercer’s Global M&A Advisory Leader, shares what he is seeing in the M&A space. He also digs into the critical role people play in the success of a deal with organisations needing to understand the talent they have and ensure they have people with the right skills in the right roles to make any M&A deal move forward effectively. Jeff also touches on the increasingly important role that culture plays in retaining the critical talent you need.
Interesting moments:
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Reassessing supply chains
A dynamic that we see driving a fair amount of deals is the look at supply chains. People look to reassess how global they are. Can they near shore, some of them? And that’s driving some M&A activity to get those productions set up. -
The right people in the right roles
I like to think about people as the execution engine of deals. You have a deal strategy. You have a direction you want to go. It really boils down to - do you have the right people, enough of the right people in the right roles organised in a way where it makes sense? -
Aligning cultures
When we talk about culture, it really is the rules of how work gets done. What's that work experience like for people in the workforce? Obviously, if you're taking two organisations and putting them together, there's going to be some differences right. And so recognise those differences and how you want to align them. -
The elevated people agenda
COVID elevated the importance of the people agenda. In a deal, it is important to make sure that there's appropriate execution linkage between the business deal strategy and the operating model. And then determine how are you going to link them and then execute in the talent platform?
Interview series
People are central to success in M&A deals