Jason McDannold

Delayed and ineffective commercial integration can turn a good deal into a loser, because sales growth ultimately determines whether a merger achieves its value-creation goals. To create value, mergers need top-line gains: More sales to more customers, expansion into new territories or market adjacencies, new products and services to sell to existing customers. But compared to other areas of post-merger activity, the commercial engine starts late, operates uncertainly, and often runs out of gas… Show more

Delayed and ineffective commercial integration can turn a good deal into a loser, because sales growth ultimately determines whether a merger achieves its value-creation goals. To create value, mergers need top-line gains: More sales to more customers, expansion into new territories or market adjacencies, new products and services to sell to existing customers. But compared to other areas of post-merger activity, the commercial engine starts late, operates uncertainly, and often runs out of gas before reaching its goals. With M&A activity picking up and high interest rates making delay costlier, it’s more important than ever that private equity and corporate acquirers leave the deal table with underwriteable, ready-to-go plans to make deals pay off through growth — and carry those plans out quickly. Show less

Private equity (PE) firms have a proven approach to identify areas for revenue growth, value creation, and cost reduction: due diligence. But companies rarely use this same approach in the execution of their own growth strategy. This is a missed opportunity. The same due diligence skills and tools can be found in most large companies, but they are usually siloed in the corporate development team — the folks who handle M&A, who rarely have a chance to apply their expertise to a company’s ongoing… Show more

Private equity (PE) firms have a proven approach to identify areas for revenue growth, value creation, and cost reduction: due diligence. But companies rarely use this same approach in the execution of their own growth strategy. This is a missed opportunity. The same due diligence skills and tools can be found in most large companies, but they are usually siloed in the corporate development team — the folks who handle M&A, who rarely have a chance to apply their expertise to a company’s ongoing operations. There’s no reason to limit due diligence to the context of an acquisition. In this article, the authors cover a few steps from the due-diligence playbook that all companies can apply to growth strategy. Show less

Interviewed by PEI on pursuing growth in a disruptive market and how companies are deploying AI/ML to enable commercial effectiveness and competitive advantage.

Ongoing market disruptions are changing the private equity (PE) landscape. Winning firms are increasingly relying on the outside‑in due diligence (OIDD) approach to help identify opportunities, mitigate risks, and increase returns—all of it with minimal up-front investment.

Many large, multinational companies fail to reach and profit from middle-market customers. Yet the opportunity is enormous: In the U.S. alone, middle-market companies purchase more than $6 trillion a year in goods and services. Sellers with a big middle-market customer base can grow along with their clientele. The fundamental problem is that many multinationals don’t have a full-fledged strategy for selling to midsize companies, as they usually do for sales to enterprise and small business… Show more

Many large, multinational companies fail to reach and profit from middle-market customers. Yet the opportunity is enormous: In the U.S. alone, middle-market companies purchase more than $6 trillion a year in goods and services. Sellers with a big middle-market customer base can grow along with their clientele. The fundamental problem is that many multinationals don’t have a full-fledged strategy for selling to midsize companies, as they usually do for sales to enterprise and small business clients. As a result, they try to force either their enterprise model or their small-business model onto the middle market — and it doesn’t work. In this article, the authors describe what viable, profitable middle-market sales strategies might look like Show less

A featured article in Harvard Business Review:
Addressing the tension between cost efficiency and customer intimacy is important for companies of any size, but it’s especially important for midsized companies, particularly those upper-middle-market companies with ambitions to rise to the top of their industry. This article explores how winning companies are mastering this challenge.

We analyzed a broad swath of companies operating in media, technology, and information services and identified three models that successfully optimized the sales activity for growing mid-market revenue. The models – and variations on their design – have the potential to work in any B2B commercial function.

A featured article in Harvard Business Review: As the economic outlook continues to be murky, plenty of companies are making cuts. But you can’t cut your way to prosperity. There are often-overlooked opportunities to grow the top line — a lot and fast, even in the face of a down market — with a set of tactical actions designed to improve sales and margins.