He enumerated the steps involved in executing a deal and from there on to the completion of the merger. He explained how the process of due diligence before the merger requires extensive role of HR, and how it can significantly alter the course that the prospective deal would take, by influencing valuations through human capital metrics.

While talking about M & A failures, he warned the students against using statistics from western countries. “There is hardly any research or, for that matter, mergers in the domestic context and it will be pre-mature to juxtapose the western context onto ours,” he said.

“All M & A’s begin with some tangible business need”, he stressed, and “hence it is important to view HR only as a spoke in the wheel of organizational wheel”.