Deriving value from an M&A transaction depends not only on synergies but on speed as well—the longer a transaction takes to complete, the more expensive it can become, though the speed of the transaction is also dependent on the transaction type and deal terms. To ensure a smooth and rapid transition, the newly combined company may initially depend on transition service agreements (TSAs) that define specific services that the seller agrees to provide to the buyer at a predetermined price. These services may come at a cost considerably higher than if the combined company either built these functions internally or contracted them from a third party.

While TSAs are an important short-term solution, they can be excessively costly. The best advisors will help you understand the correct strategic approach and priority for which TSAs to exit in which order as well as the right timing. Ultimately, the goal of the transaction is to exit the TSA, put all aspects of the business under the management team and operate the company independently of the seller.

A value-driven M&A transaction advisor has the depth and breadth of experience to optimize portfolio operations across all of the business functions. This process helps effectively manage the transaction from purchase through the exit strategy.

In a field as critical as mergers and acquisitions, practice makes perfect: Your M&A transaction advisor should not only have extensive M&A transaction management experience, whether in private equity or public markets, they should also have a carefully developed methodology to deliver measurable enterprise value with a comprehensive approach. This is especially important in today’s complex and unpredictable M&A environment.

The success of your transaction will depend on data-driven insights and outcome-focused solutions that help minimize risk and maximize return on invested capital throughout the transaction life cycle. Rather than rely on standalone spreadsheets and databases to evaluate enterprise systems data, your M&A transaction advisor should leverage intelligent automation to sort through massive data sets. This allows them to identify the data that matters more quickly and accurately, then derive actionable insights that can help ensure the success of your transaction. They should offer a comprehensive, people-focused change-management plan and provide end-to-end visibility into the transition process via dashboards so you’re able to rapidly determine the status of the transaction.

Achieving game-changing goals that return the highest value can take a large, diverse team that could span multiple disciplines: not just diligence, but also risk, tax, technology, finance and accounting, among others. Your M&A transaction advisor should be prepared to engage the appropriate resources and ask the right questions across all key departments—finance and accounting, HR, tax and treasury, operations and supply chain and manufacturing—to provide whatever knowledge and resources it takes to bring the transaction to a swift and efficient conclusion.

You should also look for an advisor that has integration planning experience and resources to achieve cost-out and efficiency goals. Perhaps the most time- and cost-intensive integration is that of the IT function, an often-overlooked aspect of merging two enterprises. Without a pre-close understanding of IT capabilities, a 100-day improvement plan may end up taking over a year—or it might fail completely because of the extent of the IT issues that have to be addressed. Moreover, if the right systems aren’t in place, management won’t be able to generate meaningful reporting to make informed business decisions to grow revenue, making an efficient and effective IT improvement plan a critical element of success.

An experienced M&A transaction advisor can provide insight into what would be possible with the existing technology, quantify the pro forma run rate costs, estimate the one-time technology expenditures associated with the integration and provide insight into which ERP, CRM or core operating platform approach would make the most sense given the investment thesis.