Recent analysts insights indicate that M&A activity is likely to remain a hot topic in the insurance, healthcare, and financial services industry. Feeding this interest are prior experiences that have provided many valuable lessons evaluating, selecting, and implementing mergers and acquisitions. Equally well-known are the less successful attempts that provide insights into the most common reasons that acquisitions fail or provide poor returns, with one key barrier to success being the ability to define when the integration is 'done.' As activity heats up, it would bode well for leaders to consider prior efforts and learn from these mixed experiences.

Each acquisition and integration is unique and has its own set of complexities and challenges. Mistakes will be made along the way, up-front assumptions will turn out to be inaccurate, and cultures and roles will inevitably clash. We all know the old saying, "Hindsight is twenty-twenty." When it comes to an acquisition and integration effort, a look back can provide great insight into what went well, what didn't go well, and what should be done differently the next time.

For organizations that intend to remain active in acquisitions, a hindsight look before the acquisition is considered 'done' can be extremely beneficial. The effort needn't be long term; but in order for it to be efficient and effective, it should be structured, focused, and well-organized. When we ask our clients to look retrospectively at an acquisition, we typically take the following approach:

• Establish a "hindsight team" made up of representatives from each functional area of both organizations. The representatives should play key management roles and, ideally, have been involved throughout the process, including front-end due diligence and integration implementation.
• Establish and define hindsight team roles, responsibilities, and accountabilities.
• Establish templates for gathering and summarizing information and lessons learned in such a way that the intelligence can be easily summarized, referenced, and incorporated into plans for the next acquisition.
• Define categories under which to gather the information (external/internal communications; financial objectives; system testing and validation; cultural integration; and so on).
• Conduct workshops and interviews as needed to gather desired information to determine what went well and should be repeated, what did not go well, and what should be done differently.
• Establish a strong linkage between the up-front business case actual impacts.

A well-executed hindsight review can be a significant driver of future acquisition success and should be included in the latter stages of any integration plan.