People Matters

The Favoured Route

By Ester Martinez, Managing Editor

Jul 1st 2011

Experts predict that India’s cash-rich firms will continue their inorganic expansion both in domestic and overseas markets in 2011. Last year, India saw a three-fold increase in the overall M&A deal value over 2009, taking Indian M&A activity back to the levels of 2007. Bharti Airtel’s $10.7bn acquisition of Zain in Africa was a major contributor to this upward trend. Year-to-date M&A deal value as of May 2011 shows a slight decline in deal activity. Possible reasons c... Read more »

M&A: The Indian Way

Jul 1st 2011

India’s merger and acquisition (M&A) volume reached a consolidated USD 49.8 billion by end of 2010, registering a growth of 317% over 20091 . While organizations saw severe financial crisis in 2009 and that impacted M&A volumes too, the upswing in 2010 took deal activities close to levels seen in 2007. Outbound deals made the biggest contribution to the overall figure which saw a stupendous growth from USD 1.38 billion in 2009 to USD 22.5 billion in 2010. Bharti Airtel’s ac... Read more »

HR Due Diligence can avert M&A failures

By R. Sankar

Jul 1st 2011

The due diligence stage should include equal consideration to both ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ aspects of the organizations, explains R. Sankar, Executive Director, PricewaterhouseCoopers, IndiaDespite overwhelming evidence that inadequate attention to people and culture is the main reason for failures in M&A, HR continues to get short shrift. HR is less sexy, does not get the adrenaline pumping, its issues and concerns are less easy to quantify and its chiefs are far away fr... Read more »

Act Quickly, Execute Flawlessly

Jul 1st 2011

Schneider Electric recently announced its 6th acquisition in the last two years by acquiring 74% stakes of Luminous Power Technologies. Olivier Blum, Country President and MD, tells People Matters why it is essential for the strategy to drive the M&A deal to help the the organization achieve the goals it has set for itself and not the other way roundWhat is your strategy for Schneider Electric India and what is the role that M&A is playing to achieve this? From 2008, our strategy in I... Read more »

Retain Talent and Customers Alike

Jul 1st 2011

MphasiS has grown significantly over the years through the inorganic route. Since MphasiS became a HP subsidiary, there have been two notable acquisitions; AIG Systems Solutions (in 2009) and Fortify Infrastructure Services (in 2010). Dinesh Venugopal, Chief Corporate Development Officer, MphasiS, discusses with People Matters on what drives the M&A strategy at MphasiS and how it adds value to the overall growth of an organizationWhat drives the M&A strategy in MphasiS? Earlier this f... Read more »

Talent & Organization Challenges in M&A: An Indian Perspective

Jul 1st 2011

Post deal organization, HR transformation, cultural alignment and change management are the four aspects that can help accelerate the M&A process, say Deepak Malkani, Lead; Jayesh Pandey, Senior Executive and Rhiju Bhowmick, Manager – Talent and Organization Performance, AccentureMM&A activity in India continues to remain strong. The total deal value increased from USD 24bn in Q-1 2010 to USD 29bn in Q-1 2011. With deals on the rise, corresponding attention must be given to the e... Read more »

Implications of Cross-border Deals

By Anupam Prakash

Jul 1st 2011

Anupam Prakash, Partner, Mercer India, talks about the opportunities for Indian companies in cross-border M&A, and the crucial role that people and human capital considerations play in ensuring a successful transactionToday, in my view, there are two countries which have a great opportunity in exploiting cross-border M&As: China and India. The reason for this is that these two countries are used to scale and size. They have large domestic markets, know how to sell at scale, know how to... Read more »

Show me the Money

By Sharad Vishvanath & Jaidev Murti

Jul 1st 2011

Sharad Vishvanath, Principal, Aon Hewitt M&A Solutions and Jaidev Murti, Senior Consultant, Aon Hewitt M&A Solutions, disclose the strategic importance of Total Rewards successful people integration in an M&A dealThe past decade has seen unprecedented Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A) activity globally. Our research indicates that we are at the beginning of another boom cycle (the last one peaked in 2007). In fact, as per published research, the first quarter of 2011 witnessed t... Read more »

Managing Change is Critical For Deal Success

By Tushar Khosla & Vishala V. Thiagarajan

Jul 1st 2011

What is it that makes acquisition integration successful? Is it leadership alignment or culture alignment or employee transition management? Tushar Khosla and Vishala V. Thiagarajan, Strategy and Transformation, GBS, IBM, share critical areas that make acquisition integration successfulThe inorganic route to achieving growth aspirations has always been an attractive proposition in the corporate world. However, not all acquisitions deliver the value they set out to. In several cases, wherein ... Read more »

The Legal Side of Indian M&As

By Manoj Kumar

Jul 1st 2011

While an M&A is like any other commercial deal, there are many governing laws that must be understood in detail. Manoj Kumar, Assistant Vice President, Corporate Professionals Capital Private Limited, explains the legal and people aspects of an M&AM & As are critical in corporate life and are considered as inevitable tools for inorganic growth. The main objective of a M&A is to add value to all the stakeholders, based on the assumption that it will produce higher corporate pote... Read more »