Merging 17 companies over 8 months while enabling sustainable growth

Our Impact

A national veterinary hospital consolidator needed a mature integration operating model and enhanced digital capabilities to scale and manage sizeable, complex deals. Recent acquisitions had left the organization’s current processes under-equipped to manage the 15+ near-final deals that all needed immediate attention. 

As the veterinary group continued to pursue more acquisitions, they realized there was both a need for improved pipeline coordination and to reevaluate their mergers and acquisitions capabilities to scale their business effectively and confidently.  

These needs led our client to West Monroe. Leaning on our expertise in healthcare and M&A, we were able to quickly integrate our team and begin tackling the large deal volume. Using our tailored M&A playbook, we identified strategies that would help manage current deals and created a roadmap to enable the client to achieve sustainable growth. Within 30 days of working together, West Monroe assisted our client in closing 15+ of their ongoing deals; our approach allowed us to adhere to the strict timeline, while addressing all regulatory and regional challenges.  

The Full Story 

The Challenge  

The organization had a massive influx of ongoing and incoming deals, but its current-state processes weren’t built to handle the volume. On top of the significant pipeline volume, the veterinary group identified a need for enabling surge capacity, increased visibility, and decreased downstream impacts. 

Within the first week of the engagement, our team quickly evaluated current state capabilities and identified immature processes that were limiting downstream visibility. On top of executing deals and de-risking operations simultaneously, our client needed digital data tools to analyze and react to operational performance. As the industry’s competitive landscape continues to build, our client needed effective avenues to differentiate themselves and drive the veterinary profession towards the future—while ensuring they could effectively empower, support, and unite their veterinary hospitals. 

An Undeniably Different Approach 

Considering the significant pipeline volume and aggressive timeline, our client needed to act fast if they were to prevent these value-creating opportunities from turning into liabilities. Optimizing our approach, West Monroe leveraged the expertise of multidisciplinary teams across the firm, including our Healthcare M&A team. 

Our approach prioritized simplicity and practicality. This was evident in the custom M&A playbook we developed for our client. It enabled them to develop the structure and discipline to identify, execute, and integrate their acquisitions more effectively. Through our outfit, West Monroe was quickly able to identify misrepresented data within a purchase agreement leading to a $1.5 million purchase price reduction for our client.  

We also tailored our work to the needs and personality of our client—such as identifying and enabling digital tools and processes fitted for their unique business requirements. This was all possible due to our detailed process mapping which provided significant visibility into major risks and process gaps. This knowledge empowered our client to understand and drive the underpinnings of the businesses they acquired and gain control of operations through:  

• A hub and spoke integration operating model that optimized resource allocation across the enterprise 

• A project management tool that established near real-time visibility into integration activities across the enterprise’s functional divisions while reducing labor hours 

• An internal ticketing system that enhanced customer service for acquired hospitals navigating the integration journey 

• Custom-built tools enhancing data visualization capabilities for future opportunities

A custom approach was essential to the project's success. Our client faced unique regulatory challenges. These challenges included an encroaching national growth strategy, regional differences in compliance, and rising deal complexity. Together, the understanding and flexibility we brought to each engagement helped us adapt and iterate based on our client’s needs. 

Real Results

Since working with our client, the veterinary group has attained digital capabilities that will not only help them manage and grow their acquisitions but also enable them to scale independently and effectively. To those ends, West Monroe tailored workstreams and reporting capabilities to our client’s needs and identified tools that could be used to optimize processes and provide data-driven insights that help our client evaluate future opportunities more efficiently.  

We did more than simply install new tools and instill processes. We partnered with our client to identify key risk areas and became fully integrated in the day-to-day operations; our team coordinated and communicated with the assigned FTC monitor on behalf of the client, ensuring all regulations and concerns were continually satisfied. This deep-rooted collaboration allowed us to map critical processes, define the current state of the business, identify gaps, and outline the minimum viable product. The engagement led to our client closing 17 concurrent deals and has enabled them to scale and independently execute larger, more complex acquisitions.