Add this topic to your strategic planning discussions to build company worth
When thinking about your future euphoric exit event, one of the many areas an acquirer will evaluate your company for during their due diligence is what impact an evolving technology could have on your business. If they believe your company is ill prepared for an evolving new technology and could be disrupted by it, the valuation they place on your business will be negatively impacted. It will be impacted because they will see this as risk that they might have to address in buying your business. But if they see you are already leveraging a new technology to be the disrupter or have the potential to do so, your valuation could increase greatly.
Sit with your team and discuss these questions:
- What are the evolving technologies coming at our industry that could change products, services, customer experience or a general business model that we or a competitor has?
- Could an existing or new competitor leverage an evolving technology to change their product, service or business model and that change could give them an advantage over us, thereby disrupting us?
- Could an evolving technology be used by us to bring disruption to our market so we get a strong competitive advantage?
- Do we see any competitors beginning to leverage new technologies and if yes, what could that mean to us as we compete against them?
- Can we talk with select customers and even target suppliers to get their view on what evolving technologies they see coming into our industry?
Don’t let a new technology and how it’s being used in your industry be the reason a future acquirer reduces what they want to pay for your business. Add this topic to your strategic planning…could we be disrupted and could we play the role of a disrupter and in so doing, build the longer-term net worth of our company.
