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Business Development

Guidance for successful integration

In the current growing market many businesses are in the process of either acquiring or planning an acquisition as part of their overall development plans. 

An effective and efficient integration process is critical in ensuring the rapid realisation of benefits of any acquisition and we could devote a very lengthy article on this topic alone. The notes below highlight some key best practices and typical issues that you may face. If we get sufficent interest in this topic we will add a few further articles to cover off specific elements ranging from assessing a potential target organisation thru to completing the integration stages and driving transformation to extract maximal ROI.

Integration tips

The approach you adopt to an integration will vary in line with your target operating model post acquisition (e.g. a group vs. a single entity). The following list of key areas provide a checklist of topics to be addressed in any integration exercise:

  • Integration checklist – create as early as possible during due diligence group it by topic (e.g. Finance, marketing, sales, operations etc.). Review it with all key stakeholders regularly as things will get missed
  • Integration team – build a joint team from both organizations.  Ask the newly formed team to list and prioritize issues affecting both sides, and to make recommendations and set timelines.
  • Data room – it is absolutely critical to establish a secure shared area that contains plans, reports, reference material and other documents to encourage collaboration and consistency
  • Communicate – encourage the team to meet regularly to discuss progress and agree joint plans
  • Organization –establish one that fit the needs of the combined organization rather than just extending an existing one
  • Controls – avoid centralised controls that may demotivate acquired management and teams
  • Motivate – identify way to promote good behaviors in supporting the integration
  • Terms and conditions – ensure these are carefully considered, particularly where one set of terms are more generous than the other

 

Common issues

It’s also worth noting the most common integration issues to ensure that your plans effectively address these:

  • Communications – to customers, employees, shareholders and regulatory bodies. (Make sure you control all communications.)
  • HR issues such as relocation and severance packages, alignment (or not) of benefits and salaries, and training requirements.
  • Operational – issues such as integration of telecoms, movement of equipment, and consolidation of back office and customer-facing functions.
  • Sales and marketing – issues such as customer integration and communications, pricing, website integration and branding.
  • Financial – including financial reporting integration and consolidation of banking, sales and purchasing accounts and other functions.
  • IT – integration (or not) across platforms such as websites, order entry through invoicing, and various secondary platforms.

 

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