Mergers and acquisitions software solutions is how the category is sold when several products are bundled: a data room, a deal record, a diligence tracker and sometimes integration planning under one contract. Bundling is genuinely useful and it hides one thing reliably, which is that the components are rarely equally good. This page sets out what a suite earns and how to find out which of its parts you would actually have chosen on its own.
What a suite genuinely earns
One contract, one login and one place where the buyer list and the data room know about each other. On a firm running several processes at once that integration is worth real money, because the alternative is somebody reconciling two lists by hand every week. It also removes an argument about which system is the record of truth.
What bundling hides: the weakest component
Suites are usually strong in the part the vendor started with and adequate elsewhere. The way to find out is to evaluate each component as if you were buying it alone and see which one you would not have chosen. If that component is the one you use daily, the bundle is the wrong shape however good the contract looks.
Ask what happens when you leave
The cost of a suite is not the licence, it is that four products leave at once. Ask, during the evaluation, what the export looks like for each component separately, and whether the data room contents come out in a structure anybody could read. A suite that exports only into itself is a longer contract than the one you signed.
The small-desk answer
Below roughly ten people the suite argument mostly disappears, because the data room is specified by counsel, the diligence list can live in a sheet and integration belongs to the buyer. What is left is the deal record, which is one product at one price: on this site $69 a month for the whole desk.
Questions people ask about mergers and acquisitions software solutions
Is a suite better than separate tools?
On a firm running several processes at once, often yes, because the components know about each other. Below about ten people the argument mostly disappears.
How do we find the weak component?
Evaluate each part as if buying it alone and see which you would not have chosen. If that is the part you use daily, the bundle is the wrong shape.
What should we ask about exit?
What the export looks like for each component separately. A suite that exports only into itself is a longer contract than the one you signed.