Investors, brokers, small banks, and credit unions sometimes feel a merger or consolidation of assets is the way forward to address a growth strategy, succession challenges, or continued attrition. Member satisfaction and shareholder value are critical when seeking candidates, securing financing, and executing the transaction.

Lessons Learned indicate that the biggest challenge to smaller entities embarking on a merger is the access to knowledge and experience to help in the execution due to the costs. Often, the technical conversion is prioritized over everything else, and issues arise due to a lack of governance, stakeholder ownership, member and employee experiences, and the overall integration of people and technologies. This is where Accelera Ecosystem and our Merger-in-a-Box can help.

We've created a product for you to use that provides a series of checklists, templates, and tools to help you move through the tasks to increase the chances of success for your merger. We support our Merger-in-a-box with an upfront strategy and training followed by a subscription to the product and services. It is an affordable alternative when you want to take a consultancy's strategy and execute it on your own, or just manage costs through internal management combined with your favorite consultancy firm.

What does this do for you? Merger-in-a-box provides a roadmap you can control without the need to hire resources that drive up your costs, it creates collaboration across different departments, and is a blueprint to enable accountability. What it doesn't do - yet - is auto-build your merger scripts because, let's face it, every system is customized to some degree.

It cannot be overlooked that mergers and asset transfers are about both the people and the technology. We come prepared to plan your amalgamation of processes and information, product strategy, system consolidation, member communications, employees, and strategies to transition to your end state. If you need a helping hand, with some expertise to get you started or even just check in occasionally, we can assist as part of your subscription tailored to you.

Sample of the tools we use to power Merger-in-a-box with Microsoft 365:

Microsoft Project and Planner, SharePoint and Teams
Azure cloud and database services (an extension to track members, consolidate data, and spin up conversion environments)
Power BI embedded (recommended to have access to data across organizations longer term)

Maven - A Tool for Mergers and Acquisitions

by Accelera Business Solutions Ltd