Are You A CEO Or Senior Executive That Is Determined To Succeed In The New Economy By Partnering With, Investing In Or Acquiring A Technology Company?

What is your biggest challenge to leading your company into the digital world?

In This Breakthrough Book For Senior Executives, You’ll Discover:

“A must read for senior executives looking for new ideas and fresh insights on innovation. In Go Tech, or Go Extinct, Cuatrecasas illuminates the challenges of transformation and how we all need to think differently about the opportunities ahead.”
Professor Klaus Schwab,
Founder and Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum and author of The Fourth Industrial Revolution

It's Happening In Your Industry, To You And All Of Your Competitors

In Go Tech, or Go Extinct: How Acquiring Tech Disruptors Is the Key to Survival and Growth for Established Companies, Paul Cuatrecasas shares his revolutionary approach to transforming legacy companies into forward-thinking industry leaders through the strategic acquisition of disruptive technology companies. As the founder and CEO of Aquaa Partners, Cuatrecasas has facilitated more than forty-five global merger and acquisition transactions involving technology companies and ranging in size from $1 million to $1.5 billion.

Leveraging insights gained from his one-on-one meetings with C-suite executives of over 300 large corporations during 2018 and 2019, Cuatrecasas explains why so many corporates are failing at innovation and why technology companies represent the new secret formula for non-tech corporate incumbents to delight their customers and leave their competition in the dust.

Go Tech, or Go Extinct is an insider’s guide to the opportunities available for established companies willing to embrace rapid change without sacrificing their core goals. More encompassing than a “how-to” handbook, this resource is designed for ambitious C-suite leaders eager to implement the future-focused actions vital to survive and thrive. Armed with the same priceless wisdom that Cuatrecasas uses to create exponential returns for his clients, you’ll identify and seize smart ideas on how to invest and acquire to radically improve your positioning.

“If you’re going to read one book this year to better understand the future of M&A, this is it. In Go Tech, or Go Extinct Paul Cuatrecasas offers a new lens on risk-taking and how to transform an established incumbent company. Smart, practical and street-smart, this is the leadership book for the next generation.”
Stéphane Pere,
Executive Vice President, The Economist Group

A Personal Note From Paul Cuatrecasas

I have been advising on tech deals before anyone even knew what a website or email was. We did deals using only a landline telephone, fax, voicemail and a calculator, but it worked.

My first M&A deal as an adviser in my own firm was in 1993, when I advised the $3 billion UK-based information-technology company ICL (now Fujitsu ICL) on the sale of its 50 percent stake in electronic-data-interchange company INS to the other 50 percent shareholder, GE Information Services. I’ll never forget flying in from London to the US East Coast, jetlagged, only to go up against two GE executives twenty years my senior and be beaten up on valuation and price. They weren’t having any of the numbers I used to prove my case. I was shaken and a little stirred, but I hung in there and we got the deal done. ICL remained a client of ours for the next ten years, so I’m assuming that they were pleased with the price we achieved (and the twenty ICL deals and strategic advisory projects that followed).

Over the following twenty-five years, I have witnessed the emergence and explosive growth of the internet, email, the mobile phone (2G, 3G, 4G), text messaging, client-server computing, integrated circuits, the smartphone, video-on-demand, application software, satellite communications, mobile apps, the cloud, e-commerce, photonics, you name it. I’ve also worked with hundreds of different management teams and entrepreneurs, as well as thousands of different investment teams ranging from private equity and venture-capital investors to hedge funds, family offices, and individual high-net-worth investors.

What I can see now is that business has changed forever. We have gone from “business as usual” to “business as exponential.” Companies that don’t see this and don’t adapt quickly to the exponential trends are doomed to have to exit, or to go extinct.

From this experience I’ve accumulated over the years, I believe the next ten years, from 2020 to 2030, will be all about two mega-developments:

If the non-tech incumbents get it right, then they can improve every line item of their profit-and-loss statements (P&Ls) while also dramatically enhancing the customer experience. If they get it really right, then they could actually exponentialize their market value (or market capitalization), potentially achieving valuation levels that approach those of the tech companies themselves.

If you’re a CEO and you get this right, you will have protected your customers, employees, and shareholders (as well as your own job). In addition, your company should be able to at least double its market cap, no matter the size, at a fraction of the cost of the traditional way to grow your market cap: capex and opex. I believe the ROI over a five-year period for any technology-company acquisition should be at least 10x the level of investment.

Senior executives at almost all mid-sized to large corporates are focused with laser-like intensity on achieving the monthly, quarterly, and annual revenue and profit goals, often at the expense of everything else, including the longer-term strategies on which the company’s survival depends. It doesn’t help that tech companies are an unknown and that the acquisition of a tech company feels like a high hurdle for any traditional company to overcome, especially when there are still so few case studies on which to base research. Scarcely any incumbent companies are willing to be trailblazers, even though it’s clear that the leading companies in most industries are trailblazers.

Today, the pattern of non-tech incumbent corporates acquiring tech companies is very real. It is happening—in every industry, in every developed nation—and it is becoming urgent. Given the pace of change, you have until 2021, which is just before 5G will become a major industrial force, to decide whether or not to become a fully technology-enabled company. Once you decide, you have to move quickly; your competitors have already begun, and your own transformation could take several years. If Walmart, GM, and McDonald’s can do it, so can you. Any company can do it.

I hope that, after reading this book, you embark upon the journey to find the right tech company that’s a perfect fit for you—before your competition does. As Lee Iacocca, former CEO and savior of Chrysler, said, “Apply yourself. Get all the education you can, but then, by God, do something. Don’t just stand there; make it happen.”

About Paul Cuatrecasas

Paul Cuatrecasas is a entrepreneur, investment banker, and strategic advisor to CEOs, senior executives, boards and shareholders of companies operating in or interested in the Technology and Digital industry sectors.

He is on a mission to help large, established, non-tech companies partner with technology companies to avoid being blindsided by exponential change. For over 28 years, he and his firms have been helping these companies find the new strategies and tools they need to survive. It’s something he cares deeply about.

His clients’ success is based on a willingness to bring to the table what other experts don’t, won’t, can’t, or are afraid to. Paul and his team will do what it takes to create a win-win deal, even if it means being contrarian or upsetting traditional thinking.

He has condensed what he’s learned from advising on over 50 TMT M&A transactions around the world worth over $25 billion and on over 70 corporate finance advisory and strategic consultancy assignments for large corporates, start-up tech companies and leading private equity firms, into the book Go Tech, or Go Extinct.

In the book Paul shares what he’s learned from personally conducting one-on-one meetings with C-level executives from over 300 Fortune 1000 companies, as well as the client work executed with several of these corporates.

Working with Paul gets you on the tech company M&A battleground with expert advice and guidance on how tech entrepreneurs & founders think, how they feel, and how they make decisions – particularly the big decisions.

In all of his work Paul promises street-level straightforward advice, proven fact-based tactics, and a departure from traditional business-as-usual thinking and culture.

Paul Cuatrecasas is a entrepreneur, investment banker, and strategic advisor to CEOs, senior executives, boards and shareholders of companies operating in or interested in the Technology and Digital industry sectors.

He is on a mission to help large, established, non-tech companies partner with technology companies to avoid being blindsided by exponential change. For over 28 years, he and his firms have been helping these companies find the new strategies and tools they need to survive. It’s something he cares deeply about.

His clients’ success is based on a willingness to bring to the table what other experts don’t, won’t, can’t, or are afraid to. Paul and his team will do what it takes to create a win-win deal, even if it means being contrarian or upsetting traditional thinking.

He has condensed what he’s learned from advising on over 50 TMT M&A transactions around the world worth over $25 billion and on over 70 corporate finance advisory and strategic consultancy assignments for large corporates, start-up tech companies and leading private equity firms, into the book Go Tech, or Go Extinct.

In the book Paul shares what he’s learned from personally conducting one-on-one meetings with C-level executives from over 300 Fortune 1000 companies, as well as the client work executed with several of these corporates.

Working with Paul gets you on the tech company M&A battleground with expert advice and guidance on how tech entrepreneurs & founders think, how they feel, and how they make decisions – particularly the big decisions.

In all of his work Paul promises street-level straightforward advice, proven fact-based tactics, and a departure from traditional business-as-usual thinking and culture.

“Go Tech, or Go Extinct is packed full of interesting insights from someone who practices what he preaches. Highly refreshing and stimulating, I was immediately moved to consider applying some of the ideas in my company.”
Michel Denis,
Chief Executive Officer, Manitou Group

Are You A CEO Or Senior Executive That Is Determined To Succeed In The New Economy By Partnering With, Investing In Or Acquiring A Technology Company?

What is your biggest challenge to leading your company into the digital world?

In This Breakthrough Book For Senior Executives, You’ll Discover:

If you’re a senior executive focused on driving innovation and leveraging technological change to your advantage, then Go Tech, or Go Extinct is a must-read.
Stéphane Rey,
Chief Technology Officer, Lombard Odier Investment Managers
Go Tech, or Go Extinct’ is a tour de force, written by an entrepreneur who’s been in the trenches and lives it, every day. This book deserves to be read by every CEO of large, traditional corporates everywhere.
Paul van Doorn,
Former Chief Executive Officer, KPN Mobile
This is so much more than a theoretical exploration into how big corporates can stay competitive in today’s frenetic landscape. This is a look inside the leading tech acquisition expert’s crystal ball — along with the entire dollars and sense business case behind why forward-thinking corporations need to take action and why they must do it now.
Angelique Rewers,
Chief Executive Officer, The Corporate Agent
Go Tech, or Go Extinct is a practitioner’s masterpiece in explaining both the “why” and the “how” of building a future-proofed company. This book really provoked my thinking with new ideas and different strategies that we can apply in our portfolio companies. More importantly it opened my eyes to the folly of not having an answer to the challenge and opportunity that technology presents in today’s business environment. Every decision maker needs this book.
Lyndon Lea,
Founder and Managing Partner, Lion Capital
Cuatrecasas delivers a structured and pragmatic approach on how to deal with the challenges and opportunities that technology offers to incumbents. This book is packed with insights and new perspectives, backed up by original research. Immensely valuable reading for the C-suite and all decision-making executives.
Antonio Cano,
Chief Operating Officer and Member of the Board of Directors, Ageas
A refreshing new perspective on how traditional companies can create value in the digital age. Cuatrecasas shows there are many ways to skin a cat. New thinking for a new era, this book is a breakthrough. It comes at just the right time.
Saleem Asaria,
Founder and former Chief Executive Officer, Cambian Group plc
A fresh thinking, fact- and experience-based book, on how digital transformation can contribute to exponential growth and how technology can create value also to non-technology companies. I highly recommend this book, especially for senior leaders engaged into the digital age.
Alain Brouhard,
Group Chief Information Officer and Executive Committee Member, Coca-Cola HBC
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