Joint ventures are becoming an increasingly popular alternative to traditional mergers and acquisitions. According to a survey by McKinsey & Company, 68 percent of organizations expect that their joint venture activity will increase over the next 5 years.

But what is a joint venture exactly, and is a joint venture the right move for your business? In this article, we’ll discuss the pros and cons of joint ventures, so that you can make the decision that’s best for you.

In business, a divestiture occurs when one entity wants to dispose of certain business assets by selling them off, exchanging them, or closing them. According to the Ernst & Young Global Capital Confidence Barometer, two-thirds of consumer businesses review their portfolios at least every 6 months, and 82 percent plan to complete a divestiture in the next two years.

While it’s never easy to make this decision, there are a variety of situations in which it might be the right choice to consider a divestiture. Below, we’ll discuss 6 reasons for divesting your business assets.

When your business is preparing for a major financial transaction, like the sale of the company, a fundraising round, or an Initial Public Offering (IPO), you need a safe place to store all of the documents required for third parties to conduct a due diligence investigation. 

There are a couple of common ways to execute this task. Most of the time, a data room is utilized to facilitate due diligence, but there are various types of data rooms and factors to consider when determining what your company needs for a successful transaction. This article covers what a data room is, common features and functionality, data room pricing, and things to consider when choosing a data room provider.

Mergers and acquisitions have the potential to fuel long-term growth, but they also come at a cost. While every M&A transaction is different, there are a variety of common fees that you might incur before, during, and after the deal. In this article, we’ll go over some of the most common types of fees to expect, so you can better plan for your next M&A transaction.

Virtual data rooms (VDRs) are secure online repositories that are ideal for sharing sensitive and confidential information with third parties during major transactions, such as mergers and acquisitions. But how do you set up a virtual data room in the first place? In this article, we’ll go over the steps of setting up a virtual data room, from picking the right provider to going live in production.

Protecting your intellectual property is essential to the very survival of your organization: according to a study by Deloitte, IP may constitute up to 80 percent of a company’s value. Guarding your IP is especially important for startups, which can lose almost their entire value if their IP falls into the wrong hands. The Coca-Cola recipe, which has been a fiercely guarded trade secret for more than a century to deter imitators and duplicators, is just one example of how important it is to keep your company’s IP under wraps.

But in a world of data breaches and corporate espionage, how can you ensure that your IP remains safely under lock and key? In this article, we’ll discuss 5 best practices for protecting your company’s most important asset: its intellectual property.

At SecureDocs, our employees come from a variety of experiences and backgrounds, each with a unique set of skills and talents that align with our overall mission of providing simple, smart document management solutions.

We’re proud of the team we’ve assembled, and we think it’s about time you get to know the people that are innovative, agile, and committed to fulfilling the needs of our customers.

In this blog, we're checking in with Senior Software Engineer Stephen Crosby. Stephen plays a key role on the SecureDocs Engineering team and helps improve the way the platform functions, and in turn, the user experience.

According to a variety of studies, the failure rate of M&A deals is at least 50 percent, and may even be as high as 70 to 90 percent. With the risk of failure so high, both parties have an obligation to meticulously perform M&A due diligence and address any buyer concerns before they snowball into real problems.

In this article, we’ll discuss 5 of the top buyer concerns during the M&A due diligence process, so that you can anticipate and avoid them before they derail your next deal.

Preparing to sell your business is both exciting and nerve-wracking. The good news is that by following established best practices, you’ll have a much better chance of selling your business to the right buyer for the right price. Below, we’ll discuss 6 of the best tips to follow when you’re getting ready to sell your business.

Due diligence is a time-consuming yet essential part of mergers and acquisitions, giving the prospective buyer the chance to review information about the seller and its assets. By enforcing openness and transparency, due diligence allows both M&A buyers and sellers to lower the financial and legal risk of participating in the transaction.

In some respects, a lengthy due diligence process is a good thing: it ensures that buyers have the time to fully understand what they’re getting into. But far too often, a due diligence process that stretches on for too long can threaten and even derail an M&A transaction. The longer a deal goes on, the more likely it is that this “honeymoon” phase will wear off, and the easier it will be for the buyer to find an excuse that serves as an escape hatch from the deal.

The good news is that you can follow a few best practices to shorten your own due diligence timeline and give the transaction the greatest chance at success. Below, we’ll discuss 4 tips for speeding up the M&A due diligence process.