Caution: Merging

  Change Management   Communications Management   Decision Making   Leadership   Manufacturing   ProjectsAtWork  

Merger-and-acquisition-related projects pose daunting challenges to executive leaders, not the least of which are conflicting agendas and compressed timelines. Understanding and anticipating four “enduring M&A realities” can smooth the transition and help companies achieve the intended strategic benefits.

Fueled in large measure by global economics, and on a more granular level by consolidation across a range of industries, the volume of merger, acquisition and divestiture-related projects is expected to increase in the coming decade. As industry consolidation and reconfiguration gain momentum, companies face a daunting management challenge: to avoid the historically high failure rate of mergers, acquisitions and divestitures. Various academic studies have shown that, across all industries, as many as 65 percent of all M&A-related projects fail to deliver on time or on budget, or to achieve the anticipated strategic benefits.

There’s little reason to believe that things have changed, or that the current generation of companies will improve upon M&A’s low return on investment. Some observers even suggest that M&A’s ROI will likely deteriorate further — given the low number of transactions and related experience over the past decade.

First-hand M&A experience notwithstanding, there are a number of enduring "realities" …

Please log in or sign up below to read the rest of the article.