Merger and Acquisition Success Depends on People

Your firm wouldn’t commit to a merger or acquisition without extensive analysis by your most senior executives. But research shows that when mergers fail, they do so because of the firms' inability to realize the forecasted synergies. ISR's M & A survey – what we call a Corporate Cross-Match – helps merging organizations realize these potential synergies by profiling the workplace issues that represent barriers to integration. Equipped with this intelligence, integration teams can tackle their biggest hurdles first.

Download the Corporate Cross-Match brochure.

Key Benefits of the M & A Survey

Reduce the risk of failure through cultural due diligence
Our Corporate Cross-Match breaks down the cultures of combining entities so that cultural differences that might disrupt integration activities can be identified and overcome. The cultural due-diligence process allows management to set a target culture and track the progress of both organizations in reaching that target. For example, when evaluating the organizations' management styles, an M & A survey may evaluate the following pairs of characteristics:

• Bureaucratic v. Entrepreneurial
• Reactive v. Proactive
• Innovative v. Conservative
• Risk-Taking v. Risk-Avoiding
• Strategic v. Tactical

Based on this knowledge, managers can implement policies to encourage a management style that they have determined will best benefit the new organization.

Help firms integrate rapidly
Research suggests that in successful mergers and acquisitions most integration and change activities occur within the first nine months after the merger. Because our Corporate Cross-Match profiles the workplace and cultural differences between the combining entities, the survey allows integration teams to focus on their biggest challenges and the critical paths to success.

Retain key talent
By including items that ISR has found to influence employee engagement, an M & A survey can help the leadership team determine what actions must be taken, if any, to retain the key talent needed to drive the merger to a successful completion.

Avoid loss of focus on markets and customers
When mergers create distractions and uncertainty around job security, it's easy for employees and management at both firms to lose focus on successful business practices, particularly those that require an outward focus on customers, competitors, and the market for the firms' products and services. ISR’s M & A surveys can empower management and help them feel a part of the new entity. By asking key managers at both firms to evaluate critically the market strength of combined product portfolios, and the vulnerabilities of the new firm, the company engages the managers and makes them active partners.