Articles on Acquisitions Theory and Practice
The following sections contain short articles which describe issues associated with acquisitions. Most have been published in management journals or on e-magazine websites.
Acquisitions Strategy
How do you formulate an acquisition strategy. It needs to be more than opportunistic buying. The key to successful acquisitions is to stay within your capability and capacity and stick to your core business. There are many different types of acquisitions - it is simply not a case of 'one size fits all'. It is important that your acquisition strategy planning take a wide sweep of all the different ways in which benefits can be achieved through acquisitions.
Evaluating the Target Firm
The bulk of failures in acquisitions come from poor evaluations. It is critical that the business only commits to the acquisition after a thorough review of the benefits as well as the risks. Cultural and ethical issues need to be carefully evaluated if disasters are to be avoided.
Integration and Intervention
You don't have to merge operations! The key to successful acquisitions to to use both integration and intervention techniques to achieve the acquisition benefits. Often the best returns on investment are made by changing the acquired firm but not integrating their operations with those of the buyer.
