The Acquisition Manager is responsible for helping a department or company increase sales for both short term and long term. Their role involves finding and researching prospective purchase deals, negotiating the purchase terms and contract, implementing, and finalizing the purchase. He/she works to increase a company’s revenues by acquiring new customers.
Education/Experience Requirements A successful candidate must possess a Bachelor’s degree in finance, marketing, business management or any business-related fields and at least 3 years experience in sales, commercial lending or other relevant field. Certification is optional, but managers who wish to become a senior acquisition manager must complete a master’s degree in a business-related field.
Generally, they have common core tasks that they are responsible for. A list of these duties has been compiled and provided below:
- Evaluate - review potential or proposed acquisitions to ensure that they are a good fit for the company strategically and financially
- Negotiate - negotiate contract terms and purchase price in order to get the best possible deal for their company while also making sure it is beneficial to the seller
- Develop Strategy - to ensure continued growth and profitability, acquisition managers should create long term purchasing strategies. These strategies also aid the decision making process as it relates to acquisitions.
- Produce and Maintain Reports - company executives frequently review analysis, deal prep, and inventory management reports prior to and after acquisitions. Acquisition managers are responsible for creating and maintaining these reports.
- Manage Records - keep record files that include: items purchased, item costs, inventories, and product performance.
Skills Strong interpersonal, negotiating and organizational skills, proven marketing and sales skills, exceptional oral and written communication skills, ability to deal effectively with people and communicate clearly in non-technical language; vast knowledge in financial institution procedures and policies, superb research skills, proven leadership skills, cultural awareness to support international teams and ability to keep up with technologies and networking trends.
- Communication – they interact with company executives and varying levels of staff as well as connect and network with professionals outside of the organization
- Organization – acquisition managers work on several projects at once and handle multiple contracts and vendors simultaneously
- Detail oriented – contracts must be thoroughly reviewed prior to signature to ensure all the terms agreed to are included in the documents and there is nothing that may be adverse to the company
- Analytical – acquisition managers analyze data from numerous sources in determining the acquisition strategy and in researching and finding purchase deals
- Math Skills – they use statistics and consumer math such as applying discounts and interest in the purchasing process
Specific work elements Marketing a company’s products or services to prospective businesses and high-net-worth clients, identifying opportunities for marketing services offered by the company; performing administrative follow-ups to resolve customer problems, meeting with specialists to discuss technical products, perform consulting about mergers and acquisitions, researching potential client’s portfolio and industry to be prepared in negotiations, forecasting business cases, and building business-to-business partnerships with clients, among others.
Ready for your job description to do some good?
Writing a great job posting is just one aspect of finding the best operations director for your non-profit. Check out Staffer.cc for help with the hiring and interviewing process.