Tech Tools You Need for M&A

Merger and acquisition (M&A) deals are often long-haul projects that require accuracy and consistent attention to detail over a long period of time. M&A attorneys and deal teams used to rely on a small tech stack to manage transactions, mostly opting to manage important documents and tracking due diligence manually. 

Now legal teams, M&A attorneys, and M&A advisors can utilize a wider assortment of tech tools to organize and streamline deals without assuming additional risks.

Tech you need for M&A

The best M&A tools are those that also serve the business. It’s worth it to invest in your tech stack, so think about a tool’s long-term value and the potential reach of its impact.

Some useful tech for M&A include:

• Contract lifecycle management (CLM)
• Virtual data room (VDR)
• Project management
• Enterprise resource planning
• Data analytics
• Reporting and forecasting

Let’s dig into these more.

Contract lifecycle management (CLM) software

CLM is an ace in the hole for M&A deal teams. As the tool that centralizes all your agreements in a repository, CLM makes it easy for sellers to populate your data room and provides a clear audit trail of all your agreements.

Virtual data room (VDR)

To facilitate the easy sharing of M&A documents like contracts, reports, and statements, buyers (or sellers) can set up virtual data rooms (VDRs) to share confidential documents easily and securely. Many VDRs disable copying or sharing, to help ensure the security of your sensitive information.

Enterprise resource planning (ERP)

An ERP is a comprehensive set of solutions that enables enterprise businesses to manage key business activities like procurement, accounting, operations, and compliance, while keeping track of their resources. ERPs allow businesses to seamlessly transfer large amounts of data internally, which ultimately benefits the M&A due diligence process.

Reporting and forecasting tools

Reporting and forecasting tools let businesses centralize their business plans and generate forecasts and revenue based on the rich data within the platform. Accurate forecasting is crucial to transparency and deal assessment in M&A.

Data analysis software

Data analytics allows businesses and M&A teams to dig into the data inside their organization. It helps businesses to organize their numbers and uncover what it means for the business. Data analytics software allows you to visualize your data so that they are more meaningful to your M&A activity. A robust CLM lets you do this with contract data.

Legal project management

A legal project management tool is not only an excellent source of due diligence data, but an effective means of keeping the deal team on task. You can use legal project management to organize your deal, track your progress, and share updates with stakeholders.

Takeaways

Don’t bear the burden of M&A alone — invest in and lean on tools that will help you execute more efficiently and strike better deals for your business. Tools that help you to organize your documents, dig into your finances, analyze the data, and share your documents are incredibly beneficial, and support both M&A deals and regular business operations.

See how LinkSquares can help streamline your M&A. Contact us today.