Inside this book, you'll find.. Three root causes of most M&A failures (Chapter 1) Ten lessons we should all learn from the history of mergers and acquisitions (Chapter 2) What every manager should know about the odds of succeeding in mergers and acquisitions today (Chapter 3) Six reasons that acquirers become enamored with acquisition targets, and overpay for them (Chapter 3) Seven "best practices" of today's most successful business acquirers (Chapter 3) Advice from C-level executives in M&A-built companies about what works, what doesn't, and why (Chapter 3) How to avoid the most commonly cited problems that drain financial performance from M&A transactions (Chapter 4) How to assess your company's preparedness to benefit from M&A - whether the M&A is in your company's past or its future (Chapter 6) How to align leadership, business processes, and information systems to capture earnings and market share (Chapters 7 through 9) How to utilize a strengthened platform of leadership, processes and systems to accelerate and heighten the benefits of future mergers and acquisitions (Chapter 10) ..and a special bonus feature for busy executives who need to home in quickly on the most pertinent information: An executive summary of each chapter is contained in the book's introduction, enabling the reader to turn immediately to topics of greatest interest. Enterprise Optimization Is filled with powerful, detailed examples from A&D, Manufacturing, Healthcare, Financial Services, and Telecommunications industries showing exactly how to drive M&A activity directly to bottom-line financial performance! Decades of studies show that most mergers and acquisitions fail to deliver on promised financial results. In fact, many of them actually destroy shareholder value! If your company has mergers or acquisitions in its history, there is a strong likelihood that a lot of money was left on the table. This book explains why that happens, and how to recapture those earnings. The first half of this book explores the reasons that so many M&A transactions produce poor results. It also includes detailed explanations of how M&A pitfalls can be avoided. It contains original research, insights from interviews with C-level executives in M&A-built corporations, and survey results from senior managers with extensive M&A experience. The second half of this book lays out a winning approach to achieving real leverage from the total asset base of the merged enterprise, strengthening business processes and information systems to achieve sustainable competitive advantage. It also describes how to use this platform of strengthened performance to accelerate the financial gains from future mergers and acquisitions. Rich in detail, this book is packed with powerful illustrations from A&D, Telecommunications, Health Care, Financial Services, and Manufacturing industries. Bill Duncan has spent more than 30 years in management positions at some of the largest and most successful companies in the world including John Deere, McDonnell Douglas, and Boeing. He is an award-winning author with three other business books and numerous articles to his credit. He has taught courses in Strategic Planning all over the U.S. as well as Asia, and courses in Information Systems at major universities. As Director of Production, Director of Materials Management, Director of Information Systems, and Vice President of Operations, he has experience on both sides of the M&A table, in the United States as well as internationally. Now a management consultant, Duncan encounters many clients with millions of dollars in unrealized earnings and uncaptured market share as a result of previous acquisitions and mergers. He has written this book to help business leaders understand how to recover the money that was left "on the table," and produce sustainable competitive advantage.