M&A Integration, Not Business as Usual

As soon as an organization decides to acquire another, it deviates from BAU (Business as Usual). Every strategic, operational, and tactical action must focus on maximizing deal value and minimizing risks. Over the years spent in M&A, I have seen executives and management teams making the mistake of communicating to employees, customers, and partners that the M&A transaction will maintain status quo or BAU and nothing will change. This approach and statement cannot be more misguided with risks of creating credibility issues with all stakeholders.

The first step is about planning the integration and rallying the organization around the IMO (Integration Management Office), the IMO ensures the deviation from the status quo is smooth and all safety nets are in place while navigating the changes due to integration. The M&A Integration process is vastly different from the other transformation efforts or organization changes.

Let us examine some of these differences below, a lot of these principles are even counter intuitive to the steady state operations or even transformation efforts.

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One dimension of complexity during M&A can be defined by the volume and velocity required for decision making, speed and quality of decision making is critical for the success of an M&A integration.