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There is an intimate tie between M&A strategy and corporate strategy. To be truly effective, acquisitions must directly support the overarching goal of the company. But beyond that, there needs to be a strategic alignment with everyone involved. In this article, Camilo Franco, Director, M&A Integration and Operations at Jamf, shares their secrets on how to achieve strategic alignment from top to bottom.
“If the people understand the “why”, then we can move into the “how” and how they fit into the process to help with the deal along the way.” - Camilo Franco
How to achieve strategic alignment
According to Camilo, sharing the corporate strategy with anybody and everybody, helping them see how they fit into that piece and how they can play a part is highly beneficial.
One of the things they’re doing is consistently having meetings with departmental function leads and their teams. They even come into their team meetings to give everyone an overview of what Jamf does.
They explain how they do it, what the structure is around the process, how they manage the pipeline and other aspects they might not consider because it's not their day job.
Once an acquisition comes around and they're brought in on the integration side, they understand how they play a part in moving things forward from an integration perspective.
This also includes the M&A strategy. The most effective way to maintain strategic alignment is to be overly communicative and appropriately distill the messaging to more people within the company.
Understanding the reason behind the acquisition makes team members more apt to participate. They understand their role in the company's success and are more willing to contribute to moving things forward.
Tools used to maintain alignment
Before, Jamf used many tools for different purposes. They had a corporate culture where everyone has a choice in the tools they use. And while this flexibility feels good, it presents challenges from a process perspective.
Camilo decided to consolidate these plans into one place, which they achieved using DealRoom. DealRoom became their source of truth for what's been done or not done in any part of the M&A process. Having a tool that's easy to navigate and use, also helps overcome initial resistance due to tool fatigue.
Advice for integration practitioners
Integration, at first, will feel daunting and complex but it's incredibly rewarding. Just push through and move forward. There's a lot of good content and practitioners out there who've been doing this forever. Learn from them.
But also, don’t be afraid to try new approaches. Having people with different experiences and perspectives on how to get things done is a good thing and can lead to a better process.
Lastly, don’t be afraid to fail. You may fail, and aspects of the deal might not work out, but that's really the only way you learn in some ways. Move through that, learn, and iterate for the next time.