In M&A, it is important to ensure that you don’t devalue the value of the deal. You must therefore be patient and plan and develop your processes. I’ve found that the most frequent problems are relating to people – how they react to change and how they resist it and what they do when things don’t go as planned.
One of the most important tasks we provide to our clients is to assist them in setting an approach that allows them to spot potential issues early on and react quickly to them. This can be done by having weekly IMO meeting and functional work streams to review the progress made and escalate issues and risks to SteerCo.
Once the method for tackling problems is established It’s crucial to concentrate on the execution. This means ensuring that the team understands what it’s required to achieve and how it will be evaluated, and when. It also means clearly stating accountability (i.e. the ownership of the final results) and the authority to make decisions for the entire company.
It is crucial that the CEO and senior managers are able spend at minimum 90% of their time in the core areas and not be distracted by integration activities. A good way to do this is to select an experienced leader to oversee the Decision Management Office (IMO), who can triage decisions and oversee the work streams. This person could be from the company that is acquiring it or be a rising star in the merged company with the backing of their boss.