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Eight Greatest Ideas for
Growing by Acquisition

Introduction

So far we have mainly concentrated on building the business of your dreams through
internal growth. The dream starts to loom larger quicker when you look at the proc-
ess of taking over going concerns. There is no reason if you have applied KISS, keep
it simple stupid, and built your business by trading ('If you do that, I will do this'),
why you cannot take this into making deals and forming bigger companies by trad-
ing businesses or divisions of businesses. It can look frightening, think big, unimagi-
nably big Idea 91, but it uses the same common sense and awareness of approach
that has got you this far. So here are the greatest ideas for building your dream in
large lumps, courtesy of four inveterate deal makers.

Idea 90 - Treat big organisations as a collection
of individuals

If you are involved with big organisations because you are organising a management
buyout or attempting to take over a part of their business, you must treat them as
individuals not as a sensible or logical institution. If we take easeyourself out by MBO
Idea 5 a step further you will see what I mean. The profitability of an internal divi-
sion is measured by the management accounting system. This has to include its
making a contribution to all the overheads of parts of the business above it, such as
head office. Given that fact, try this test. Think of the objections that a manager
might come up with to your leaving the business and buying out a small portion of