You and your board have had this debate. Where do the next deals come from? Outsourcing the search is tempting: no fixed cost, success fees only, a provider who makes it sound effortless. In 25 years we have watched the companies that compound through acquisition, and almost none of them rent this capability. They build it, and it becomes something a competitor cannot copy in a year.
Most companies outsource because business development was never designed as a function. It was an afterthought, a side job for the CFO, or a conversation with whichever banker called last.
What a CEO who does it well looks for
Steve Cassidy, CEO of Selig Group, began his career in M&A and business development and has built the role into every company he has led. Three things from that conversation hold up.
Culture first. Looking back on decades of acquisitions, every one that went wrong went wrong on culture. One acquired business with a toxic environment took more than ten years to repair. The people are the company you are buying.
Is there a team? Ask the target's management to explain their growth story and their competitive advantage. If they cannot say what differentiates them, that is the finding.
Meaningful fit. An acquisition has to land on a page that already exists: your product-market priorities, the capabilities you need to buy rather than build, the exits that fund the bet. Deals sourced outside that page get justified afterwards. Deals sourced from it get integrated.
Why it belongs on the strategy page
In the MOVE® system, acquisition is tool four made concrete: the capabilities that protect the priority cells of the product-market matrix. When the page says which capability the company must own by when, the target list writes itself, and the business-development function has a brief instead of an inbox.
Monday
Ask who in your company owns the pipeline of acquisition targets, by name. If the answer is a banker, a broker or "we all do," you do not have the capability. Decide whether to build it, and put the first target criteria on one page this quarter.
