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Learn how to Successfully Integrate Acquired Businesses
The Certified Acquisition Integration Managers (CAIM™) designation shows readiness to deliver the value of your M&A deals. Build your in-house competencies
Your People. Our Expertise
Solve the poor operational performance of your acquired businesses
Build successful In-House acquisition integration teams through training and certification
It is said that 70% of acquisitions fail. This is not completely accurate; it is the integration of the businesses that fails. Delivering what was envisioned when the deal was put together is difficult and prone to failure.
Businesses that do not successfully integrate acquisitions waste the opportunity of value creation. With every subsequent acquisition, the pain of not integrating becomes greater, as the burden of multiple processes, tools and operational methods prevents growth.
Lower-mid and mid-size businesses are often torn: they know they need external expertise, but want to retain the skills within their teams.
Businesses need to develop in-house teams that can integrate current and future acquired businesses.
Intista has training and certification solutions to address these and other problems associated with acquisition integrations. Learn more below.
Certified Acquisition Integration Manager (CAIM)
Get Recognized as an Expert
Demonstrate that you have the knowledge to be an acquisition integration manager
- Managers and colleagues recognition of your certification
- Gaining the knowledge and skills of acquisition integration increases your value to your employer
- Helps build your case for workplace compensation or promotion
Career Development
Transferable skills for your next career move
- Transfer your competence to future career contacts
- Helps you stand out from other applicants to future hiring managers
Digital Badges
Certified Acquisition Integration Manager (CAIM) badges are Open Badges compliant
- Digitally verifiable
- Can be shared on social media and with your community
Renewable Certification
Intista certifications have a two-year lifespan
- Recertification demonstrates your experience and understanding of acquisition integrations
- Find out more about the recertification, here
What Lessons are in the CAIM™ training?
Training contains 10 lessons of self-paced on demand content, compatible with all mobile devices.
View topics in detail
Lesson 1: Getting off the Ground
We disclose important considerations before acquiring, discuss 6 myths about integrations, and differentiate between the priorities of the acquisition team and the integration team.
Lesson 2: Different Ways to Integrate
We look at four broad-category approaches to integrating an acquired small or mid-size business, along with the “Keep Separate” strategy (an approach where no integration takes place).
Lesson 3: The Integration Organization
We explore the teams that plan, manage and deliver the integration. We explain how this temporary organization is structured, within this hierarchy of teams. We describe the roles of the teams, the roles of members, and the qualifications/qualities of the ideal candidates for each role.
Lesson 4: Integration Objectives
Integration Objectives are the initiatives that define the emphasis, or focus areas, for the journey ahead. We learn how to identify those objectives, starting with the reasons for acquiring, formulating the Mission Statement for the journey ahead, and deriving two types of objectives: “Workstream” and “Company-Wide” objectives.
Lesson 5: Finance in Integrations
This lesson address the spectrum of needs for lower-mid and mid-size acquisition integrations: three types of cost estimation and the budgeting of your integrations based upon those costs, and the three types of synergy that can (and should) be pursued.
Lesson 6: Staff Retention after an Acquisition
We discuss the Cost of Losing Staff, and introduce the Staff Retention Toolbox. We suggest non-financial and financial incentives for retaining staff.
Lesson 7: Onboarding Acquired Staff
We discuss and review the Onboarding Team and explain how to onboard acquired staff. We outline how to plan a successful program and provide tips for its success.
Lesson 8: Preparing for Day 1
We proposed how to prepare for the acquisition announcement, known as "Day 1" by formulating a checklist of priorities to be addressed. We discuss the logistics of the announcement, and strategic topics to answer the questions that arise at kick-off and continue to come up.
Lesson 9: Communication During Integrations
We explain how communication is critical to the success of an integration. We show you how to identify and communicate with each of your audiences, and how to message to them.
Topics include how to prepare for the "Day 1" announcement, as well as how communication changes and must be sustained through challenging times.
Lesson 10: Creating Acquisition Integration Projects
We discuss how to create and run the hierarchy of projects that will merge together the operations, processes, and technologies of the businesses.
We explain how to combine the reasons for acquiring with Intista's templates, to create projects used to integrate the businesses together.
Build, Don't Buy, your Integration Team
You will need a team to integrate your current and future integrations so that everyone has:
- A common understanding of integration approaches
- A common terminology, which improves communication within your business
- Organizational understanding of the hierarchy and duties of everyone involved
- Ways to learn how to integrate, hands-on and in real-time
- After completing the course, students have access to our Integration Mastermind meetings, to exchange best practices and discuss integration related topics
5 Reasons why businesses want Certified Integration Managers
1. A successful integration team delivers the value defined by the Deal Team
- Incomplete integrations are missed opportunities to realize the value envisioned by the deal-makers
- Integration of the two businesses, not the purchase, is what delivers value
2. In-house expertise, which is transferred between successive acquisition integrations
- Create an in-house acquisition integration team, using the knowledge of established experts
- Invest in your team, and transfer experiences between successive acquisition integrations
3. Control the cost of getting external integration expertise
- Know the cost of the training and certification, up front
4. Improve the way that you approach and deliver integrations in the future. If you already acquire and integrate, avoid the cost of inefficient methods in:
- Staff retention
- Faster onboarding
- Improved productivity
- Staff engagement
5. Trained employees are happier employees
- Certified employees perform faster, are more engaged, and have better work outcomes*
- Organizations that invest in employee training demonstrate that they have faith in that employee and morale improves
- Improved morale creates more engaged employees, which makes them more productive
Autumn 2024 Cohort Class details
This training and certification is 100% online, self-paced study, with weekly review meetings..
- The course contains 10 lessons
- Students will be asked to study between 1 and 3 lessons per week, which should take between 1.5 to 3.5 hours of self-paced learning
- Student should complete the assessment at the end of each lesson
Self-study should begin on, or around, October 25th, 2024.
- On Fridays, students will meet for 45 minutes to review and discuss what they have learned in that week's lessons. Discussions will go into details on areas that the students have questions about. Meetings will be held:
- Kick Off: Friday October 25th, 10am EDT/3pm BST
- Welcome and kickoff
- Friday November 1st, 11am EDT/3pm GMT, Week 1 review
- (Lesson 1: Getting off the Ground, Lesson 2: Different Ways to Integrate, & Lesson 3: The Integration Organization)
- Note a difference in the USA start time, due to a difference in summertime between USA and Europe
- Friday November 8th, 10am EST/3pm GMT, Week 2 review
- ( Lesson 4: Integration Objectives & Lesson 5: Finance in Integrations)
- Friday November 22nd, 10am EST/3pm GMT, Week 3 review
- (Lesson 6: Staff Retention after an Acquisition & Lesson 7: Onboarding Acquired Staff)
- Friday December 6th, 10am EST/3pm GMT, Week 4 review
- (Lesson 8: Preparing for Day 1 & Lesson 9: Communication During Integrations)
- Friday December 13th, 10am EST/3pm GMT, Week 5 review and Final Assessment
- (Lesson 10: Creating Acquisition Integration Projects & the Final Assessment)
- Kick Off: Friday October 25th, 10am EDT/3pm BST
- After registering, you will receive a calendar invitation to the weekly review meetings
Chris Perfect
Intista's Sales Integration Checklist is a great tool to use when bringing two separate teams together, with all its supporting elements in place. There are other tools for merging sales teams, but this is the best there is for mid-size M&A integration. I recommend that you download and use this tool when planning next steps.
Rohit Kumra
As soon as M&A is done, everyone thinks that the job is over. Actually, the job starts there.
The CAIM is really helpful to understand the entire integration perspective, best practices, what works, what doesn't work, and the different types of integration.
David E Coit Jr
I thought the course was well-presented and informative, with real-world experiences and stories of actual integration assignments. Acquisition integration is important to value retention and creation. As such, the acquirer should use a skilled and well-trained interaction professional.
Chris Wise
I was really realizing the need to distinguish myself.
[The CAIM] was just so much value. It just hit so many value points for me, and what I was looking for. It was very well structured, very well thought out. It's very clearly communicated, and [gives] access to Steve and his knowledge, in the Masterminds.
Tony Mulvahil
Exceeded expectations. Substantial spreadsheets and checklists to support integration activity.
Joe McMorris
The CAIM allows us to do [the integration] in house... and still have complete control of the process
Jeff Provost
I've done a lot of strategy and execution work with companies looking to grow and was looking for a good framework to use to help get a tricky M&A business integration back on track after a year of challenges faced by the leadership team. Going through the CAIM program and getting access to the great tools and resources has helped me to get this integration on track and build the framework for the next acquisition in the coming year.
Winnie Lee
[Intista] made the platform very easy to follow. The way [it] organizes the content to align with the actual integration process, I think it was very easy to follow. It is a great product that is highly customizable and has the structure that is needed for anyone who [wants to] jump in on it at any time.
Rich Cone
The [course] exceeded my expectations. I think we were all 'experienced' coming into the class, but we all walked away with a much better understanding of the process which should help us collaborate better with corporate development on future integration work.
Jarvis Luu
I would really recommend [it for] people who are already in the field of M&A Integration, or for those who are interested in pivoting to this field to consider the course. There are a lot of fundamental learnings one can get from this course, [including] the structure, processes, and results of integration...”
Luis Acevedo
I loved it: the information, the way that everything is explained. The way that it flows all the way to the end. It is so well explained. It helps you concentrate and guide your process.
Ed Jurica
The class was comprehensive, and very practical. There's a lot of these that are theoretical and academic, and this is anything but that.
David Cusimano
It was very valuable. Saving me or an organization involved many times the cost of the class. There was lot of the practical advice that I wish I had had about 12 months ago with an integration that we did.
Andrew Swanscott
I used to worry about integration after signing the papers I'd think "What do I do now?". It was a really good program that helped me understand the things that I need to consider to get the most value out of my acquisitions, based upon my acquisition goals. There were a lot of things that I wasn't thinking about.
Mike Pijar
The [CAIM] course recognizes the reality of how to do an integration. There are some really good things that I didn't want to miss, so I listened to the slides 2 to 4 times.
Joel McGuire
A groundbreaking certification. This is a really unique course. There are other courses that have a chapter or two on integration, but nothing to this degree.
It's another way to get that competitive edge.
Ola Soderquist
We got lots of value from the CAIM, and I'd recommend it to anyone who needs to know how to integrate acquisitions.
$1,995 Year 1
$250 Renewals
including recertification
Upon registration, your affiliation with the AM&AA is verified to be either:
- A current member of the AMAA
- The client of a current member
Thinking about confidential discussions?
- Learn about our Private Classes
- Available in 3 delivery formats, including classroom learning
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Frequently Asked Questions
This special class works in a group activity to reinforce the learning and discuss areas in detail. The objective is to understand the practicalities of delivering acquisition integrations.
Students will study 2 lessons per week and meet on a Friday morning to discuss. The 5 meeting will discuss 1 lesson and the Final Exam, which is a scenario-based quiz.
Yes. You will be able to show your digital badge, with 3rd party authentication that validates you are a Certified Acquisition Integration Manager
During Mastermind you will have the opportunity to learning from other professionals who are (or have) gone through similar processes on their own. Traditionally, skills in the profession were accumulated through experience gained over a series of integrations.
The Integration Mastermind is an online opportunity for integration managers of all levels to pass on their knowledge through discussion topics, anecdotes, and lessons that they have learned over the years. Most of the daily work of an acquisition integration manager is very specific to each integration, but the skills and methods are valuable to colleagues.
Each lesson has an assessment that tests you on topics taught within that module. You must pass each of these to get access to the Final Assessment. This assessment poses realistic scenarios that an Acquisition Integration Manager could be asked to resolve in practice.
No. However, to recertify as an Acquisition Integration Manager, you must demonstrate continued experience or learning in the M&A integration field. Attend Mastermind sessions can be part of that.
See here for the Recertification Process.