A cardinal rule in M&A is to ensure that you don’t destroy value, which is why you need to take the time to build your processes and plan to deal with the possibility of things going wrong. My experience personal property insurance buying guide has shown that the most frequently encountered issues revolve around people – how they react to changes and their reluctance and how they respond when something doesn’t work as planned.
One of the primary things we do for our clients is to help them set up a process that allows them to recognize potential issues early on and address them promptly. This can be done by having a weekly IMO meeting and working streams to evaluate progress and escalate issues or risks to the SteerCo.
Once the method of addressing issues is established, it is important to focus on the implementation. That means making sure everyone knows what they’re required to achieve, how that will be evaluated, and when. It’s also important to clearly define accountability (i.e. ownership of the final outcome) and the authority to make decisions for the entire business.
It is essential that the CEO and other senior managers can focus at minimum 90 percent of their time on their core tasks and not be distracted by integration tasks. A good way to do that is to appoint an experienced leader to head the Decision Management Office (IMO) that can make decisions and manage the work streams. This person could be from the acquired organization, or it can be an emerging star within the newly formed company who has the backing of their boss to make this commitment.