True Deal Intelligence.
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Welcome back to Growth TV. I'm Carolyn

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Vallejo.

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Joining me here is Ron John Dad, principal

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product manager at SSNC Intralinks,

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to explore how AI is changing the dealmaking

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space, including job roles within M&A.

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Ronan, welcome to Growth CB.

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Thanks for having me.

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So first, I want to talk about some of the challenges

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in the dealmaking process that firms are hoping

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AI can really help solve.

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Yeah, I mean there are

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endless problems that happen in

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in M&A deal execution process

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that you could

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look to solve and and a lot of technologies

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out there are solving today, you

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know, our

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organization, we are positioned to

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talk to a lot of clients that are in,

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you know, focus on the diligence part of

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deal making.

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And the diligence part of deal making is what ends

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up taking a lot of the time

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throughout these processes that take years,

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months, however long.

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Over the past you know few years we

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have seen with COVID and

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a number of, you know, other just market

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issues going on that deals are taking longer

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they stall and

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time kills all deals

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so a lot of the.

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M&A professionals that we've been talking to have really

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been focused on just driving efficiency

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in the core

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due diligence tasks and jobs that

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their bankers or you know the

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their teams are working on on a regular

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basis so simple things of

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spending, you know, less time

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making changes to documents

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preparing them to be.

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You know, viewed by potential buyers

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and, you know,

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more time spent actually with our clients

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understanding them and then, you know, moving

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forward in the deal process.

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I think their main focus is

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there's a lot that can be done within with

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an AI. I always say you can probably

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think of and do anything with

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AI,

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but right now it's like how do I just

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get my job done faster with less

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resources.

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Right, that makes sense. And as you just emphasized,

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there is so much potential in AI, but actually

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putting it into practice is kind of a different matter.

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Can you get us up to speed on what some of the early

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adopters of AI in the dealmaking community

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have done in terms of really using the

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technology to its full advantage right now?

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Yeah, I think everyone you

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talk to, they

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pretty much everyone talked to it. They've put together an

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AI committee or something

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to start looking into it and where I've

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seen people be early adopters

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and and start to make a difference early

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on

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is

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not just, you know, putting together these committees,

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go look at a bunch of different products, what

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else is out there, how are other people utilizing

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it, but actually doing.

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In internal reflection of

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their own organizations and saying

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all right based on what we do, whatever

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our niche is, you know what

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we're providing to our clients

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where are the different jobs and tasks

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that that our teams are doing

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and even if they're easy ones that.

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Don't need fixing, getting all those

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on the paper and then identifying OK

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not only where there are

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there's a lot of time lost but

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how frequently are those tasks

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that are losing time happening

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then not only you know how many times

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that it's happening but

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how painful it is,

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how

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costly it is if a mistake is made.

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And then I think the final point, which

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I think is really important for people to look

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at is if I were to fix this,

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how much of a competitive differentiation

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does that give my organization in firm

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because even if you do fix it

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and you know it helps cut down

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on time or processes if it's not helping

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deliver to your ROI,

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get more customers,

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make customers, you know, happier

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or position, you know, my

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team as a knowledge expert that we'd have clients

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come to us rather than others.

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Then you know you're just solving some of the

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bare minimum pieces, so.

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It's actually not like the people

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that go out and can

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find every single AI tool out

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there and figure out

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all the things that they can do, but more so, let's

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internally reflect

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where the biggest areas they're gonna produce the

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most return if we fix them and then

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you can go and start that process

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outside looking at what else is is out

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there. So

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internal reflection I think is one of

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the most important pieces so

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that when you do have conversations and.

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When I have conversations with people, they, they

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fully know, hey, these are the this is the problem

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we're trying to solve. This is what we're looking to get out of it.

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And then you have a much more pointed focus

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as to the solutions and areas

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that you go to look at.

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OK, so dealmakers want to solve problems. They

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want to make their jobs more efficient, but of

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course, one of the biggest fears that we're hearing,

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uh, kind of in every industry is that AI

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is going to come after their job.

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Um, when it comes to deal makers, what can

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we expect AI to have an

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impact on in terms of the labor market?

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Yeah, I think um I'm

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a little bit more optimistic in in this

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sense, you know,

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yes, the, I even said it

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before that.

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You want to do more with less

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resources. That doesn't always mean people though,

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and you know, a lot of the things that people

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are looking to solve

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are not necessarily,

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you know, the

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individuals are, you know, constantly

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spending time on minuscule

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manual tasks, and we would rather not have

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people do that.

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But it's more so that typically

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in this industry, the people they hire are

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very smart individuals. They went to great

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schools or highly intelligent

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and their skills and benefits

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are

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used or more useful in the,

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you know, more high intelligent, high profile

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tasks that that have to be done, you know,

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creating financial models. Models the

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you know actual analysis of companies

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helping understand strategy set direction

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for the companies that they're working with. So

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in my view, you know,

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maybe we will have to have

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less people, you know,

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working on a single pitch deck

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to remove comments all night, but that

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gives them actually the ability to

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really

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jump start their career earlier on

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focus on high value tasks, high profile

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tasks and become.

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Better

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advisors, better

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vendors, better lawyers

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earlier on with their clients because they're spending more

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time with them rather than just sitting by

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themselves in a queue

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knocking things out of a spreadsheet.

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Um, and more time really doing what

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they've been hired for in their intellect, their

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strategy, their decision making, so

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I think it we'll see it changes

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absolutely where

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you're the jobs that people

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come into are less a manual

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process and grunt work that takes all night

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but allows them to be much more

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focused on how they can help their

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clients and be strategic earlier on,

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not just waiting until you get to that.

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You know, senior partner manager

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level, right, yeah, so you're

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calling some fears here, which is great to hear. Um,

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thank you so much for joining Growth TV. AI is

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such a timely topic right now in the dealmaking community,

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so we really appreciate it. Absolutely, happy

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to be here.