Next Generation Due Diligence™ is a research based, structured and systematic decision support methodology incorporating tools and solutions for “Business Unusual”. It is founded on over 25 years of detailed research into successful and unsuccessful operations, strategy and technology transformations, 20 years of effective risk management practices, proven crisis management solutions, and over 1000 successful due diligence assignments. It leverages the best methods and tools successful companies have used to provide practical solutions for non-routine business unusual critical decisions and challenges.

• Due diligence has been with us for hundreds of years. It is heavily based on financial analysis, common sense and the insights of the individuals involved. Where the individuals involved were experienced with the identified challenge and could devote the time needed, the due diligence process generated adequate results.
• Regrettably, due diligence within most companies has become a heavily outsourced and financially oriented process supported by numerous junior analytical resources focused primarily on merger and acquisition decisions. While many due diligence firms add the “tribal knowledge” of the leaders involved and some limited operations assessments to this financial analysis, the lack of rigorous, research validated tools often generates poor insights and inaccurate assumptions upon which decisions are based. Unsurprisingly, research has shown that less than 30% of all traditional due diligence supported acquisitions meet or exceed the projected value of the acquisition 3 years out, and over 33% of all acquisitions generate negative shareholder wealth for the buyer. A coin flip generates better results.

• Further, almost all due diligence efforts on other key “business unusual” decisions (including Directors and Officers risk mitigation, Crisis Management Response and major Operations and Technology transformations) receive ad hoc, non-rigorous and limited focus efforts. In these areas, the results are even worse. Over the last 4 years, D&O lawsuits and settlements have more than tripled, and ineffective crisis responses have severely damaged brands and even bankrupted companies. Similarly, over 70% of all transformations do not achieve their financial goals while costing multiples of their initial budgets.
• In short, traditional due diligence efforts are not providing companies and key decision makers with the insights, information and solutions to make good decisions. Directors and Officers end up relying on “guts and intuition” for all to many critical decisions. Each decision could have major impacts on their companies, their shareholders, and their personal reputations.