How can you ride a wave if it seems you are already behind?

Holding a management position in a rapidly consolidating market can sometimes feel quite scary. Exciting yet intimidating. Over the last couple of years, the Scandinavian economy has been continuously pacing ahead, providing the opportunity for entrepreneurs as well as small and medium-sized companies to mature into large players in the market. An expanding economy has allowed firms to nurture growth through incremental innovation and steady exploitation of existing revenue streams.
 
 

The challenge

With growth comes saturation; with opportunity comes complacency. Market playing fields across industries become increasingly saturated, with competitive dynamics suggesting gradual consolidation and an onset of merger waves. The strategic narrative starts to tilt from incremental improvements to radical leaps. Firms and managers, who were on top of their game for several years, suddenly start to feel they are falling behind.
 

 

The solution

M&A activities are nearly always truly transformational steps – for employees, for leaders, for companies and even for industries. They are a radical leap – precisely what is required in consolidating industries. M&A activities are a tool to catch up and ride the wave of consolidation instead of being steamrolled by it.
 
That is the reason why we hold a deep belief in M&A at IM Strategy_. Because sometimes, in addition to being part of incremental steps, it is thrilling to be part of truly transformational steps forward. In the past, we have supported numerous M&A activities with both corporate clients and private equity investors on a variety of tasks ranging from due diligence processes to value creation strategies, post-merger integrations and synergy realisations. Two recent examples of this work are:
 
Shaping the industry for bus and coach services. We supported Polaris Private Equity with the acquisitions of Egons, Larsenbus, Papuga and Papuga Bus – all significant coach operators in Denmark. Following the acquisitions, the four companies’ intent was to merge under the Vikingbus brand. Clearly a transformative step to shape the industry for coach and bus services and to create a new player able to compete at an international level.
 
A transformative step to reshape the web development and digital marketing industry. We supported CataCap with the acquisitions of DanaWeb and Optimeo. Following the acquisitions, the companies merged to create a new innovative and leading player in the digital marketing industry – now called Group Online after a further acquisition of PLICO.
 
 

The impact

In two seemingly unconnected industries, we helped drive impact through harnessing the common tool of transformational M&A in order to work with our clients to unlock their future success. We helped them get on top of the wave.