Growth through M&A: Learning from the successes of serial acquirers
Company leaders talk about the practices that consistently separate successful deals from costly mistakes
This caution is especially relevant when entering new product categories. TravelPerk’s acquisition of Yokoy, an AI-powered spend management platform, only made sense because its core travel business was already firing on all cylinders. “We had a machine that was producing accelerated and predictable growth, so now the question was ‘How can we throw more gasoline on the fire?’” says Hefer.
Buffalo’s Gu, author of The M&A Failure Trap: Why Most Mergers and Acquisitions Fail and How the Few Succeed, echoes this mindset. “You’re funding the next phase of your growth story, not making a last-ditch effort to save the day,” he says.
Before pursuing a deal, companies should evaluate whether they’re positioned for success or whether foundational work still needs to be done. If your strategy is unclear, your product not yet scalable, your team stretched thin, or your business model still evolving, it’s likely too soon.
Four key areas to assess:
One effective approach is to create integration roadmaps with well-defined milestones, such as revenue growth targets, time-to-market acceleration, customer retention, talent retention from the acquired company, and employee engagement. These milestones can be linked to performance bonuses, equity vesting schedules, or the release of earn-out payments. The clarity around “what success looks like” provides everyone with a common North Star.
Some deals make revenue targets easier to track than others. Zvibleman says that the success of AlphaSense’s Stream acquisition was easy to account for since the acquired features continued to be sold separately to customers, with AlphaSense eventually boosting the annual recurring revenue of those features by 20x. For its acquisition of Sentieo, AlphaSense had to look more deeply at other metrics of success, like mentions in client calls and win reports.
Bain has found that when companies underdeliver in the post-merger phase, it is because they succumb to inadequate follow-through. Common pitfalls include:
Underinvesting in communications. Teams are often left in the dark about vision, timelines, or their roles in the new structure. This creates confusion and erodes trust.
Lack of a “sponsorship spine.” Without visible, committed leadership from both companies, integration efforts lose momentum.
Failure to measure sentiment and understanding. Many companies don’t deploy tools (like pulse surveys or engagement dashboards) to track how employees are adapting or whether they grasp the rationale for the merger.
Skipping retrospectives. Organizations often neglect to systematically analyze outcomes — such as who stayed, who left, who advanced, and who stagnated — thereby missing key learning opportunities for future deals.
To avoid these issues and maintain momentum, companies should develop a post-merge evaluation framework, including:
Milestone tracking. A structured cadence of progress reviews (30-day, 90-day, 180-day milestones) to assess progress and troubleshoot integration issues.
Feedback loops. Surveys for, and listening sessions with, both legacy and acquired teams to surface concerns.
Performance benchmarks. Quarterly performance reviews, including EBITDA, burn rate, and impact on cash runway.
Lessons learned. Retrospectives to inform future M&A playbooks.
Ultimately, sustaining M&A success means treating it not as a one-off event, but as a repeatable discipline rooted in data and open to adaptation. The best acquirers treat each deal as a chance to refine their internal M&A engine.
