thesis about pronunciation

Academia.edu no longer supports Internet Explorer.

To browse Academia.edu and the wider internet faster and more securely, please take a few seconds to  upgrade your browser .

Enter the email address you signed up with and we'll email you a reset link.

• We're Hiring!
• Help Center

The Impact of English Pronunciation on Effective Oral Communication

2019, International Journal of Science, Engineering and Technology Research (IJSETR)

The title of this paper is the impact of English pronunciation on effective oral communication. Therefore, in this paper, the researcher aims to explore whether the Sudanese secondary EFL learners' weakness in English pronunciation is regarded as a main obstacle for them to speak in English. Consequently, the researcher investigates the relation between pronunciation and oral communication in English and tries to show that pronunciation is one of the most important elements of effective oral communication. In spite of the important of English pronunciation skill in the field of language learning and teaching as one of the most important elements of effective oral communication, English pronunciation is still an area of teaching which is often neglected by English EFL teachers and learners at secondary schools in Sudan. Therefore, learners at secondary schools in Sudan have many problems with pronunciation in English when they try to speak in English. To that end, this paper focuses on areas of pronunciation problems that face learners at secondary school in Sudan, which lead to serious breakdown in oral communication in English and then tries to find solutions to them so as to ensure effective English oral communication. Thus, the researcher describes the causes behind the problems of pronunciation that the Sudanese learners of English at secondary schools face while trying to speak in English and the ways to cope with them. In this paper, the researcher, followed the descriptive analytic method and used a questionnaire as a main tool for data collection. The data gathered from the questionnaire are analyzed qualitatively. The results of the study displayed that the Sudanese secondary EFL learners' weakness in English pronunciation is regarded as a main obstacle for them to speak in English.

Related Papers

English Language and Literature Studies

Elkhair Hassan

Abdelmadjid Benraghda

Majority of Arab EFL students reach the university with generally poor English and bad pronunciation in particular. Students in Arab countries have little opportunities to speak English where Arabic is their native language. Since correct pronunciation is very important to avoid misunderstanding when communicating with others and to build self-confidence when trying to speak in front of other people, the current paper investigates the reasons for Arab EFL students to face problems in English pronunciation. The participants were 10 Preparatory Intensive English (PIE) students of University Malaysia Pahang (UMP). Using an in-depth qualitative methodology which is individual interviews, all interviews were audio-recorded with the participants’ consent. The participants were undergraduate Arab EFL students who completed their high school and they do not have exposure to English language. All recorded interviews were analyzed manually. From the data analyzed some emergent themes were fou...

Mohammad Shariq

BAIUST Academic Journal

The study was conducted to test the impact of factors on English pronunciation competence and oral presentation performance of the tertiary-level EFL learners in Bangladesh. The data was obtained from eighty students and thirty teachers from the departments of English in four Bangladeshi private and public universities. The experiment research was based on the survey of a self-developed Likert scale questionnaire and independent t-test. The results were analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS). The independent t-test was statistically significant. Therefore, we rejected the null hypothesis. The independent t-test and the survey results showed a significant negative effect of factors on the ESL learners' pronunciation competence and English oral performance. The findings call for further research regarding what methods and techniques can be used to develop learners' pronunciation competence and English oral performance. Cite: Noor, L. (2021). Factors Affecting EFL Learners’ English Pronunciation Competence and Oral Presentation Performance: A Study on Tertiary Level in Bangladesh. BAIUST Academic Journal, 2(1), 174–188.

English Language Teaching and Linguistics Studies

Magdaline Nkongho

The present study aims at investigating the pronunciation components in the prescribed English Language Syllabus for High Schools as well as the pronunciation instruction in some selected High Schools in Moundou, Chad, in order to determine the impact on learners’ production with respect to this phonological feature. The content analysis method was adopted for the investigation. Data were drawn from consultation of the National English Language Syllabus for High Schools in Chad, and 44 English Teachers’ logbooks for the 2021/2022 academic year. These logbooks were collected from 6 Government High Schools in Moundou. Two research questions guided the collection of data which were later on classified, put in numerical data and analysed within the framework of the Factors Affecting Pronunciation Theory. Results of the study revealed a total lack of pronunciation prescription in the English language syllabus and a zero percent representation of pronunciation related lessons in English l...

International Journal of Research in English Education

Meisam Ziafar

Sabri T . S . Ahmed

This study was designed to investigate the spoken communication difficulties encountered by the fourth-year EFL students of some rural faculties of Aden University and the factors that might negatively contribute to their poor acquisition of spoken communication proficiency during their learning of English in these faculties to reach some suggestions and solutions that may help in changing the current situation and enabling the concerned EFL programs produce proficient speakers of English. The data were collected through varied instruments, namely students' questionnaire (n = 120), teachers' questionnaire (n = 23), students' interviews (n = 30), speaking skill teachers' interviews (n = 4), students' spoken communication proficiency assessment rubric (n = 42), classroom observations (n = 6), and an assessment of speaking skill syllabi. The collected data were analyzed by using the SPSS 21 st version and manually. The results revealed that the majority of the students encounter fluency and automaticity related difficulties and lack of communication strategies. Moreover, some students also share one or more difficulties with these two major ones, such as phonological difficulties, comprehension difficulties, sociocultural difficulties, lack of discourse knowledge, affective difficulties, and lexical and grammatical difficulties, respectively. Though the majority of the students seem to have mastered a somehow sufficient level of grammar and vocabulary, many of them cannot put their lexical and grammatical knowledge into use orally. It has also been revealed that several factors are responsible for students' poor acquisition of spoken communication proficiency. These factors can be categorized into five types, namely a. factors related to the students themselves, namely students' lack of language learning strategies to develop spoken English and lack of integrative motivation, b. factors related to student's past education, namely students' poor English level when they joined the concerned faculties in addition to the traditional learning habits they brought from their pre-tertiary education, c. factors related to students' environment, namely lack of exposure to spoken English provided by the environment, d. factors related to teaching methodology, such as lack of communicative activities, majority of the students are rarely engaged in spoken activities, mother tongue use in English classes, no language laboratory or ICTs, low qualifications of some teachers, i.e. a semi-traditional teaching setting is still dominant in most classes, and e. curriculum-related factors, namely lack of time devoted to teaching spoken communication skills and the overuse of non-English subjects. As per the results, this study has provided some suggestions and solutions that will help in changing the current situation and enabling the concerned EFL programs to produce proficient speakers of English. To get a soft copy of the thesis, e-mail me to [email protected]

Asian Journal of Humanities and Social Studies

jalal ahmad

Mr. Ahmed Ismael sefaldin Aldikheri

Abstract This study is an attempt to investigate Errors committed by Sudanese EFL learners in consonants pronunciation. Since pronunciation is a very problematic aspect of language; it is worthy to investigate. The study aimed at identifies errors committed by Sudanese EFL learners in consonants pronunciation as well as to explore the impact of mother-tongue interference and spelling-pronunciation inconsistency. Moreover, to classify errors committed by Sudanese EFL learners in consonants pronunciation into types. The study adopted quantitative and descriptive-analytic approach. The data of the study was gathered by a pronunciation test. The test was applied for (40) second year students majoring in English language at Alzaiem Alazhari University. Simple Random Sampling is the technique to draw a representative from the study population. The study achieved several findings the most important of these are; a certain English consonants are difficult to pronounce for Sudanese EFL learners. The sounds were attributed to errors committed by Sudanese EFL learners are /p/, /b/, /f/, /v/, /t/, /d/, /ʧ/ and/ʤ/. They were also encountered errors by inserting a vowel sounds to break up the consonant clusters. They dropped the last sound that occur in consonant clusters syllable-final position and there were substitution of some sounds. Mother-tongue interference and spelling-pronunciation inconsistency was appeared most frequently and seemed to be major factors that constitute errors in consonants pronunciation. In the light of these findings the study recommended the following: First, teachers should recognize the problematic sounds and teach students how to pronounce those sounds correctly. Second, according to the importance of pronunciation as essential part of learning English, textbooks should included pronunciation lessons and activities to be same as lessons in other skills. Third, tools for practicing pronunciation should be offered at schools, universities and so on. Fourth, Sudanese EFL learners of English should check the dictionary to correct pronunciation of difficult words. At last but not least; as language teachers, it is necessary to teach pronunciation and its problems to students from the early stage of education.

مجلة جامعة كركوك للدراسات الإنسانية

Anmar Saeed

Apart from accuracy, fluency is one of the issues that concern language learners and teachers on parallel grounds. Fluency is generally defined as the rapid, smooth, and effortless use of spoken language. This study aims at suggesting a method and a set of techniques that can be employed in the pronunciation classroom to work on training Iraqi learners of English to learn and use some aspects of connected speech, viz. weak forms, sentence stress, linking and elision, and accordingly developing their fluency skills in speaking English. It basically draws on using a communicative approach with the following characteristics: first, maintaining a learner-centered teaching, encouraging pair/group work, and employing practice through using activities and tasks. The suggested method involves proceeding through three stages of practice: mechanical, meaningful, and communicative. Mechanical practice is a controlled type of practice carried out through repetition and substitution activities; meaningful practice is also a controlled practice through meaningful choices of items; and the last stage, communicative practice involves using language within real communicative contexts. The suggested techniques are also set into three stages in consonance with the stages of the method.

RELATED PAPERS

Coco Barrozo

Y. Benguigui

Glaucia Campregher

Bernhard Lange

European Journal of Paediatric Neurology

Mirjana Perkovic Benedik

Tamer Tellikursun

Lizel Kennedy

Liberabit: Revista Peruana de Psicología

Mariana Cremonte

Carbohydrate polymers

Parbeen Singh

Fertility and Sterility

Sigrun Kjøtrød

Muhammad Tauseef

Hector Eustaquio Altamirano

International Journal of Adhesion and Adhesives

Roberts Joffe

Psychiatry Research: Neuroimaging

UTTAM KUMAR

mashuri syauqi

Journal of Physics: Conference Series

Kazuyuki Inubushi

Quarterly Journal of Islamic Education

Semi-annual Journal of Islamic Education

Cornell University - arXiv

aelita skarzauskiene

Charlotte Lecluze

Jay Jegathesan

RELATED TOPICS

•   We're Hiring!
•   Help Center
• Find new research papers in:
• Health Sciences
• Earth Sciences
• Cognitive Science
• Mathematics
• Computer Science
• Academia ©2024

• Dictionaries home
• American English
• Collocations
• German-English
• Grammar home
• Practical English Usage
• Learn & Practise Grammar (Beta)
• Word Lists home
• My Word Lists
• Recent additions
• Resources home
• Text Checker

Definition of thesis noun from the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary

• Students must submit a thesis on an agreed subject within four years.
• He presented this thesis for his PhD.
• a thesis for a master's degree
• He's doing a doctoral thesis on the early works of Shostakovich.
• Many departments require their students to do a thesis defense.
• She completed an MSc by thesis.
• her thesis adviser at MIT
• in a/​the thesis
• thesis about

Want to learn more?

Find out which words work together and produce more natural-sounding English with the Oxford Collocations Dictionary app. Try it for free as part of the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary app.

• Very difficult

IPA : ˈθiːsɪs

Have you finished your recording?

Learn thesis pronunciation with video

Phonetic spelling of thesis

the-sis 0 rating rating ratings Fabiola Mertz thee-sis 0 rating rating ratings Delpha Jacobi

Thanks for contributing

You are not logged in..

Please Log in or Register or post as a guest

Meanings for thesis

An opinion of a speaker who tries to prove it. 0 rating rating ratings Kailash Sheth

Synonyms for thesis

Show more fewer Synonyms

Learn more about the word "thesis" , its origin, alternative forms, and usage from Wiktionary.

Quiz on thesis

{{ quiz.name }}

{{ quiz.questions_count }} Questions

Show more fewer Quiz

Collections on thesis

-{{collection.uname}}

Show more fewer Collections

Wiki content for thesis

Show more fewer Wiki

Examples of in a sentence

Show more fewer Sentence

thesis should be in sentence

Translations of thesis

Show more fewer Translation

Trending news on thesis

Show more fewer News

Add thesis details

thesis pronunciation with meanings, synonyms, antonyms, translations, sentences and more

Which is the exact pronunciation of the name mary pierce, popular collections, manchester united players list 2020, french words, bayern munich squad / player list 2020-21, spanish vocabulary, popular quizzes.

Trending on HowToPronounce

• LinkedIN [en]
• moisés [en]
• LAWRENCE WONG [en]
• Jerry seinfeld [en]
• Jocelyn [en]
• Sam Rubin [en]
• Mikhail [en]
• neurodivergent [en]
• Steve buscemi [en]

Word of the day

Latest word submissions, recently viewed words, flag word/pronunciation, create a quiz.

• More from M-W
• To save this word, you'll need to log in. Log In

Definition of thesis

Did you know.

In high school, college, or graduate school, students often have to write a thesis on a topic in their major field of study. In many fields, a final thesis is the biggest challenge involved in getting a master's degree, and the same is true for students studying for a Ph.D. (a Ph.D. thesis is often called a dissertation ). But a thesis may also be an idea; so in the course of the paper the student may put forth several theses (notice the plural form) and attempt to prove them.

Examples of thesis in a Sentence

These examples are programmatically compiled from various online sources to illustrate current usage of the word 'thesis.' Any opinions expressed in the examples do not represent those of Merriam-Webster or its editors. Send us feedback about these examples.

Word History

in sense 3, Middle English, lowering of the voice, from Late Latin & Greek; Late Latin, from Greek, downbeat, more important part of a foot, literally, act of laying down; in other senses, Latin, from Greek, literally, act of laying down, from tithenai to put, lay down — more at do

14th century, in the meaning defined at sense 3a(1)

Dictionary Entries Near thesis

the sins of the fathers are visited upon the children

thesis novel

Cite this Entry

“Thesis.” Merriam-Webster.com Dictionary , Merriam-Webster, https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/thesis. Accessed 18 May. 2024.

Kids Definition

Kids definition of thesis, more from merriam-webster on thesis.

Nglish: Translation of thesis for Spanish Speakers

Britannica English: Translation of thesis for Arabic Speakers

Britannica.com: Encyclopedia article about thesis

Subscribe to America's largest dictionary and get thousands more definitions and advanced search—ad free!

Can you solve 4 words at once?

Word of the day.

See Definitions and Examples »

Get Word of the Day daily email!

Popular in Grammar & Usage

More commonly misspelled words, your vs. you're: how to use them correctly, every letter is silent, sometimes: a-z list of examples, more commonly mispronounced words, how to use em dashes (—), en dashes (–) , and hyphens (-), popular in wordplay, the words of the week - may 17, birds say the darndest things, a great big list of bread words, 10 scrabble words without any vowels, 12 more bird names that sound like insults (and sometimes are), games & quizzes.

Pronunciations of 'thesis'

Pronunciation of 'thesis'.

Quick word challenge

Quiz Review

Score: 0 / 5

Wordle Helper

Scrabble Tools

• Cambridge Dictionary +Plus

English pronunciation of thesis

Your browser doesn't support HTML5 audio

(English pronunciations of thesis from the Cambridge Advanced Learner's Dictionary & Thesaurus and from the Cambridge Academic Content Dictionary , both sources © Cambridge University Press)

Word of the Day

a computer program designed to have a conversation with a human being, usually over the internet

Searching out and tracking down: talking about finding or discovering things

Learn more with +Plus

• Recent and Recommended {{#preferredDictionaries}} {{name}} {{/preferredDictionaries}}
• Definitions Clear explanations of natural written and spoken English English Learner’s Dictionary Essential British English Essential American English
• Grammar and thesaurus Usage explanations of natural written and spoken English Grammar Thesaurus
• Pronunciation British and American pronunciations with audio English Pronunciation
• English–Chinese (Simplified) Chinese (Simplified)–English
• English–Chinese (Traditional) Chinese (Traditional)–English
• English–Dutch Dutch–English
• English–French French–English
• English–German German–English
• English–Indonesian Indonesian–English
• English–Italian Italian–English
• English–Japanese Japanese–English
• English–Norwegian Norwegian–English
• English–Polish Polish–English
• English–Portuguese Portuguese–English
• English–Spanish Spanish–English
• English–Swedish Swedish–English
• Dictionary +Plus Word Lists
• All translations

To add ${headword} to a word list please sign up or log in.

Add ${headword} to one of your lists below, or create a new one.

{{message}}

Something went wrong.

There was a problem sending your report.

Words and phrases

Personal account.

• Access or purchase personal subscriptions
• Get our newsletter
• Save searches
• Set display preferences

Institutional access

Sign in with library card

Sign in with username / password

Recommend to your librarian

Institutional account management

Sign in as administrator on Oxford Academic

thesis noun

• Hide all quotations

What does the noun thesis mean?

There are eight meanings listed in OED's entry for the noun thesis . See ‘Meaning & use’ for definitions, usage, and quotation evidence.

thesis has developed meanings and uses in subjects including

Entry status

OED is undergoing a continuous programme of revision to modernize and improve definitions. This entry has not yet been fully revised.

How common is the noun thesis ?

How is the noun thesis pronounced, british english, u.s. english, where does the noun thesis come from.

Earliest known use

Middle English

The earliest known use of the noun thesis is in the Middle English period (1150—1500).

OED's earliest evidence for thesis is from before 1398, in a translation by John Trevisa, translator.

thesis is a borrowing from Greek.

Etymons: Greek θέσις .

Nearby entries

• thesaurus, n. 1823–
• thesaury, n. a1639–1708
• these, n. a1600–48
• these, pron. & adj. Old English–
• Thesean, adj. 1815–
• Theseid, n. 1725–
• Theseium, n. 1819–
• these-like, adj. 1644–
• thesial, adj. 1654
• thesicle, n. 1863–
• thesis, n. a1398–
• thesis-novel, n. 1934–
• thesis-play, n. 1902–
• thesmophilist, n. 1644–
• Thesmophorian, adj. 1891–
• Thesmophoric, adj. 1788–
• thesmothete, n. 1603–
• thesocyte, n. 1887–
• thesp, n. 1962–
• Thespian, adj. & n. 1675–
• Thespianism, n. 1914–

Thank you for visiting Oxford English Dictionary

To continue reading, please sign in below or purchase a subscription. After purchasing, please sign in below to access the content.

Meaning & use

Pronunciation, compounds & derived words, entry history for thesis, n..

thesis, n. was first published in 1912; not yet revised.

thesis, n. was last modified in March 2024.

Revision of the OED is a long-term project. Entries in oed.com which have not been revised may include:

• corrections and revisions to definitions, pronunciation, etymology, headwords, variant spellings, quotations, and dates;
• new senses, phrases, and quotations which have been added in subsequent print and online updates.

Revisions and additions of this kind were last incorporated into thesis, n. in March 2024.

Earlier versions of this entry were published in:

OED First Edition (1912)

• Find out more

OED Second Edition (1989)

• View thesis in OED Second Edition

Please submit your feedback for thesis, n.

Please include your email address if you are happy to be contacted about your feedback. OUP will not use this email address for any other purpose.

Citation details

Factsheet for thesis, n., browse entry.

Developing an effective M&A blueprint for insurers

At its core, programmatic M&A  is not a volume play; it’s a strategy for systematically acquiring small to midsize businesses, services, and capabilities and for effectively integrating them as new businesses or capabilities. Companies that adopt this approach to deal making , including a select group of insurers in both the life and property and casualty (P&C) sectors, have generated superior excess TSR by focusing on a series of smaller acquisitions to diversify product offerings or add new capabilities—rather than traditional financial-sector M&A goals that emphasize building scale.

About the authors

This article is a collaborative effort by Alex D’Amico , Oliver Engert , Jay Gelb , Sean O’Connell , Kurt Strovink , and Liz Wol , representing views from McKinsey’s Insurance and Strategy & Corporate Finance Practices.

It’s an approach insurers should consider. Deal making in the sector is likely to be brisk in the coming years as insurers seek to grow and diversify their earnings. Life insurers face ongoing challenges to sustaining growth in core life and annuity businesses; they also remain focused on improving ROE profiles by divesting or reinsuring legacy blocks. Meanwhile, P&C carriers are likely to seek bolt-on deals of companies that enhance their presence in growth markets and offer attractive cross-cycle ROE.

To support a programmatic approach to M&A, acquirers need to canvass a large number of potential acquisitions—as many as two to three times more than they did several years ago. But in our experience, many insurance carriers are facing that volume of activity with little more than the most basic framework describing the how and why of their M&A strategy. In a recent informal poll of insurance executives who focus on strategy, business development, and M&A, 1 Our informal poll, completed in the fourth quarter of 2021, solicited input from 12 North American insurance executives, representing traditional carriers as well as newer entrants. Seven of the 12 respondents reported closing at least one or two deals per year over the past five years, with none of them characterized as large deals. we found that some believe they have relevant capabilities in place given their frequent engagement in M&A (Exhibit 1). Yet few of these rise to the level of what we would define as a fully developed M&A blueprint . Without such a blueprint, companies will find it hard to distinguish between through-cycle opportunities  (during both upcycles and downturns) that are consistent with their corporate strategy and low-hanging opportunistic deals available in the marketplace that are not. Furthermore, without a developed M&A blueprint, insurers are more likely to pursue ad hoc synergies around each target with hit-or-miss returns.

A robust M&A blueprint addresses where, why, and how a company will undertake a systematic program of acquisition. It lays out well-defined themes and criteria that are explicitly grounded in strategy, builds conviction and alignment of stakeholders, and sets clear boundaries and integration plans. The result is that companies can be both more proactive and more opportunistic at identifying potential acquisition targets and will be better prepared for negotiations and integration. As important, an effective M&A blueprint will be an invaluable tool for executives communicating a compelling story, both internally and to investors, about the company’s deal-making strategy and its vision for the future.

Where and why

The foundation of any M&A blueprint is an explicit articulation of how M&A aligns with and furthers a company’s growth strategy. Companies that acquire businesses expecting to refine the strategic rationale later are unlikely to reap the rewards of programmatic deal making. So are those that see smaller acquisitions as malleable building blocks to be pieced together ad hoc, that take an opportunistic approach to M&A, or that proceed without a pressure-tested integration playbook.

For companies considering acquisitions, an M&A blueprint should target specific growth themes and boundary conditions that reflect a comprehensive self-assessment of a company’s competitive advantages as well as the compelling strategy requirements for its business model that make it well suited to pursue M&A in a specific area. For example, a personal lines P&C carrier’s corporate strategy included enhancing customer growth through a digital engagement platform. Confident in the company’s ability to rapidly scale new businesses, managers decided that a program of M&A to acquire the various components of an integrated, direct-to-consumer platform would be the best way to accelerate domestic growth and support international expansion.

Identifying growth themes

An effective blueprint for programmatic M&A identifies at most three actionable M&A growth themes. 2 Even experienced programmatic acquirers are often unable to focus on more than three M&A themes. Even so, companies with highly distinct business units, such as life and P&C insurance, could identify more than three themes. But in general, for carriers new to this approach, focusing on one or two M&A growth themes to start with could be more beneficial. These themes should be areas where the company can add value to targets and needs M&A to deliver its strategy. They might include, for example, themes leading to superior product manufacturing capabilities across life and annuities as well as personal and commercial P&C lines, the ability to operate effectively in multiple international markets—which can be difficult to achieve through organic growth—or opportunities to target smaller companies with differentiated offerings and niche areas, including asset management or specialty commercial P&C lines.

A vague M&A blueprint with an unclear link to strategy tends to lead to overly broad objectives for deal making. “Increasing our digital focus,” for example, is not specific enough to help executives identify potential M&A targets. A more actionable objective might be framed as “improving underwriting methodology by acquiring companies with expertise in areas such as data analytics, intelligent pricing, antifraud, and telematics.”

Converging around the top one to three areas where M&A can most substantially advance the organization’s strategy takes some planning. Getting a group of executives to agree on a shortlist of M&A themes is bound to evoke some friction. If you were to go around the table at the next strategy meeting and ask your company’s senior leadership team to identify the organization’s top M&A themes, you’d likely end up with a long list of ideas. That’s acceptable, at first, because such an exercise can serve as a mechanism that compels everyone to take a closer look at their data, assumptions, and biases—a process that elevates awareness and understanding. But eventually, the most effective M&A blueprints also reflect alignment and conviction among senior leadership (including business unit leadership and the business development team) around a shortlist of M&A themes.

Among the North American insurance industry M&A executives we polled, the two most common objectives of pursuing deals are the acquisition of new capabilities and the expansion of product and service offerings. Less relevant acquisition rationales included expanding geographically, realizing economies of scale, and acquiring undervalued companies.

The CFO of one leading insurance company successfully focuses the carrier’s M&A agenda around a prioritized set of growth and capability themes. Close collaboration between the CFO’s team and business unit leaders enables the company to identify top acquisition candidates—which is a big factor in their success at conducting due diligence on dozens of potential targets each year. This company successfully completes multiple bolt-on deals per year, many of which are privately negotiated transactions cultivated through proactive sourcing rather than well-known opportunities in the marketplace. In addition, the CFO’s team uses its playbook to create value and meet integration targets, which maintains capabilities, improves the cost structure, and typically includes a boundary condition of achieving earnings accretion within 12 months.

Setting boundary conditions

One aspect of this assessment that is often overlooked is an explicit acknowledgment of the market and organizational forces that define the boundaries of a company’s deal making in terms of size, type, and pace. The most concrete boundary is probably how much capital an insurer has on hand or can raise to fund a program of acquisitions—including capital not just for funding acquisitions but also for integrating and scaling each asset.

Boundary conditions might also include financial metrics such as those reflecting an insurer’s growth targets, margins, earnings, or ROE. If a carrier is only anchored on certain return metrics, such as ROE or ROIC, to track ongoing performance of an acquired asset, then high-growth, early-stage companies often look less attractive. Alternatively, if an insurer is willing to look at an array of metrics based on the asset profile—such as ROE or ROIC for mature assets versus top-line growth for early-stage innovators—then it will have a greater degree of freedom for deal making. Finally, even softer assessments of organizational and cultural fit, financial limitations, or regulatory boundaries can further narrow the scope of potential targets.

Establishing these boundary conditions early—with explicit agreement from the CFO and the board—can help put teeth into investment commitments and align everyone on negotiable and nonnegotiable terms. Consider, for example, the case of one personal lines carrier. Over the years, the company had a generally successful track record of acquiring large insurers to add new brands and customer segments. However, these acquisitions were seldom fully integrated, resulting in unwieldy productivity metrics and a collection of separately maintained corporate functions, such as finance and HR. This M&A strategy worked reasonably well until the company realized its loose approach was not scalable. The insurer addressed this issue by resetting both its organizational and M&A approaches and refining its methodology to implement a series of boundary conditions for acquisitions linked to tightened integration parameters. These included centralized corporate functions that created additional efficiencies, rather than maintaining separate corporate functions for each company it acquired. As a result, the company is now able to effectively pursue growth through M&A.

Programmatic acquirers must give careful thought to how they plan to pursue M&A—a critical part of the M&A blueprint to advance their strategic plans.

How: A foundation for action

Programmatic acquirers must give careful thought to how they plan to pursue M&A—a critical part of the M&A blueprint to advance their strategic plans. This process includes constructing a high-level business case to identify the objectives and preliminary integration plans for each area. It also includes identifying the right capabilities and resources for each part of the deal-making process, as well as plans for tailoring the approach for each specific deal. Plans may need adjustments to reflect each deal’s sources of risk and whether value opportunities will come from consolidation, capability building, or new business opportunities, for example.

Business case to identify objectives

Once priority M&A themes and boundary conditions are established, the next critical step is to develop a granular road map for execution. The road map should identify how an acquisition would create value and create screening criteria to prioritize potential targets—within the boundary conditions of feasibility and availability.

Once the business case is developed at the theme level, carriers need to develop a plan for each identified acquisition candidate, including a top-down growth plan, capital and cost synergy assumptions, risk mitigation, and a determination of the investment needed to scale the asset. An effective business plan should be continuously refined based on the target’s relative size, its level of similarity with the acquiring business, and, as acquirers learn more about an asset, its working culture.

It is important to recognize that in a seller’s market, buyers face the risk of overpaying for an attractive asset. A critical way to reduce this risk is to apply the discipline of developing an M&A blueprint inclusive of a theme-level business case. This process is designed to enhance the due-diligence process and allow organizations to avoid making costly mistakes that are inconsistent with their growth strategies.

Capabilities and execution

Part of the self-assessment involved in developing an M&A blueprint is a review of the company’s internal talent; its capabilities; and the time needed to evaluate, pursue, and execute M&A deals, both before and after a transaction. If there are unknowns, what are the gaps that need to be addressed?

We recommend that companies develop a comprehensive integration playbook as part of the overall blueprint, including key activities for each area (such as value capture, cultural integration, and revenue synergies) and specific leadership roles that must be filled for a successful transaction. This includes senior sponsors in the organization, ideally business unit leaders who own initiatives and assign working teams against them.

At least half of the carriers we polled have playbooks centered on the initial stages of a deal, including target identification, due diligence, valuation, and integration planning checklists. But most of them lack guidelines about tailoring execution—a critical factor in the most effective acquisitions  (Exhibit 2). In particular, based on different deal archetypes in insurance, acquirers might have different perspectives on who leads across five critical design areas of merger integration:

• Governance: Who leads the overall value creation planning and business case development and review, and how they do it?
• Leadership: Who coordinates the integration and organization effort across ideation, business case development, approval, and rigorous tracking?
• Scope: What do we integrate, and to what extent, to realize the value aspiration?
• Speed and pace: How fast should we go, and how coordinated should the effort be?
• Culture and talent: How will we handle people?

One leading global player with a history of delivering strong M&A returns employs a highly disciplined, sponsor-oriented approach to deal making. The CFO assigns leadership roles to specific executives, who have ultimate responsibility for deal execution and integration. This approach ensures speedy decision making, which unblocks pain points and helps deliver a deal’s full value.

Building conviction

Embarking on a program of M&A requires conviction, commitment, and buy-in from internal and external stakeholders alike. An effective M&A blueprint, when developed collaboratively, can ensure that competing viewpoints are heard inside the company and that risks and opportunities are thoroughly vetted. This better prepares the CEO to communicate with the board but also enables the acquisition team to seek the support of its acquisition targets.

Embarking on a program of M&A requires conviction, commitment, and buy-in from internal and external stakeholders alike.

Drafting the M&A blueprint

An M&A blueprint isn’t something a single executive can draft—and it isn’t much use if it’s developed after the fact to confirm the hypotheses supporting an exciting deal. The best blueprints reflect senior-level coordination between corporate-strategy and corporate-development executives whose collective alignment helps build conviction in their decision to commit capital to transactions. When alignment is established, the process becomes efficient because executives are not debating which types of deals to target. This alignment occurs in no small part due to a transparent and unambiguous approach from the CEO.

After one deal failed to cross the finish line, a mutual insurer’s CEO and head of M&A conducted a six-week exercise to assess and strengthen the company’s M&A approach. As a result, the company aligned its growth themes and developed a process to scan for broadened opportunities—enhancements that led to a threefold increase in the number of potential acquisition candidates. The new blueprint increased the company’s confidence in deal making and ultimately led to multiple equity investments in companies that generated substantial financial returns and turbocharged capabilities.

Your reputation as an acquirer

For programmatic acquirers, today’s competitive M&A landscape has characteristics of a seller’s market. Small and midsize companies with innovative technology, next-generation products, undeveloped intellectual assets, or even well-honed capabilities in underserved markets can have multiple suitors—and they’re often interested in more than just the bottom-line sale price. As a result, acquirers need to make longer-term investments to build conviction in acquisition targets. Yet nearly half the carriers we polled lack a clear owner for proactive target cultivation, and only one-third of carriers regularly establish relationships with potential M&A targets.

Some acquirers maintain lists of potential acquisition targets and cultivate relationships with them, and we expect more companies to begin following suit in the next year or two. This development will change the job responsibilities of carriers’ most senior executives, including the CEO. For example, one global insurance industry leader keeps an extended list of close to 100 potential acquisition candidates. Executives update this list quarterly and actively reach out to candidates to cultivate them for potential fit and deals. Senior leaders will need to allocate greater portions of their time to cultivating acquisition candidates. As a result, they need to have time blocks (appropriately leveraged in coordination and collaboration with others) focused on developing long-term relationships with targets that might ultimately lead to acquisitions.

The most successful acquirers also take the long view on establishing and supporting their brand identity as a desirable buyer. Companies known for treating people fairly after an acquisition—as well as caring about the knowledge they bring to the enterprise—often enjoy an advantaged position among competing acquirers. A robust M&A blueprint should explicitly address a company’s reputation as a buyer, how that reputation will play out in the acquisition process, and how the acquisition team might use the blueprint as a screening criterion in cultivating acquisition candidates.

Programmatic M&A is a strategy for systematically building new businesses, services, and capabilities and effectively integrating them to build something that did not exist before. The companies that use a programmatic approach create deal flow linked to their conviction in their corporate strategy, understanding of their competitive advantage, and confidence in their capacity to execute.

Alex D’Amico and Kurt Strovink are senior partners in McKinsey’s New York office, where Jay Gelb , Sean O’Connell , and Liz Wol are partners; Oliver Engert is a senior partner in the Miami office.

The authors wish to thank Shaun Ayrton, Cristian Boldan, Alok Bothra, Deniz Lenger, Aria Mason, Yves Vontobel, and Andy West for their contributions to this article.

Explore a career with us

Related articles.

A better approach to M&A in North American insurance

The insurance trends private-equity investors should understand in 2021

Why private equity sees life and annuities as an enticing form of permanent capital