In past years, there always was a dichotomy: either companies were only on premise, storing their crown jewel data on site, or companies ran certain applications in the cloud. Now, hybrid clouds are on the rise.  This means there are three options now.  

In M&A, data rooms are typically private cloud based storage of highly confidential data during due diligence. Data from other phases are usually stored on site. With all these changes happening and the clear need to manage M&A processes,  where should company store their data about  all phases of the M&A process ?

On premise?

The safest way to store mission critical data is to store them on premise.  locked up.  This is perfect for a the early phases. As soon as more people get involved from inside and outside the company, during due diligence and post merger integration, this approach is not perfect. 

in the cloud? 

Cloud storage makes perfect sense for trustfully giving restricted access to people from different companies. For most companies, this is needed during due diligence and following phases. But many companies also interact with third party companies even before due diligence. 

Requirements for M&A process tools

Customers rule. An end-to-end process tool must respect that. No matter if  customers choose on site, private cloud or public cloud, vendors of end-to-end process tools should give customers a choice. The customer should decide where to store data.