M&A Integration Processes and Issues

In M&A, it is important to not devalue the worth of the deal. You must therefore take time to plan and establish your processes. From my experience, the most frequent issues are around people, how they respond to change and their reluctance to right personal property insurance change and their reaction when something doesn’t work the way they planned.

We help our clients set up an organization that allows them to spot potential issues early and respond quickly. This can be done by holding an annual IMO meeting as well as functional work streams to monitor the progress made and escalate issues and risks to SteerCo.

When the strategy for dealing with issues is established It’s essential to focus on execution. This means that everyone knows what they’re expected to accomplish and how it will be measured, and when. It also means clearly stating accountability (i.e. taking ownership of end results) and decision-making authority for the entire integrated company.

It is essential to ensure that the CEO as well as senior management are able to spend at least 90 percent of their time focusing on core business concerns and avoid getting distracted by integration tasks. One way to accomplish that is to appoint an experienced leader to head the Decision Management Office (IMO) who will be able to triage decisions and oversee the work streams. It could be someone from the acquisition company or an emerging star within the newly formed company who has the support of their boss to make this commitment.