Functional integration: have you seen one function be successful, another fail?
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Functional integration: have you seen one function be successful and the other fail?
I’ve seen functional integration be very successful for one area (for example Finance or Engineering for example) while be very unsuccessful for another (Sales or HR for example).Often this had a lot to do with
1) the speed of decision-making: the earlier you create clarity the better. This can vary greatly from one function to the next.
2) C-level and other executive engagement: the more invisible and uninvolved a functional leader is, the worse it’s function integration will go.
3) communication: the more the involved teams and its leaders understand that you cannot overcommunicate, the better.Have you seen this difference in integrations between functions during one acquisition integration?
Yes, I’ve absolutely seen this split between functions during the same integration. In several deals, Finance, IT, and other process driven functions integrated cleanly and on plan, while customer facing or commercially oriented functions struggled for months.
One example stands out:
While the some of the core systems integrations (Finance, IT) landed as planned, the combined HQ’s “standard services model”, including delivery approach, operating practices, and billing processes dragged on for more than a year. The root cause wasn’t technical at all. It was cultural.
What went wrong had very little to do with process design and everything to do with leadership and culture:
• Lack of cultural integration with the acquired company
The acquired leadership team never truly aligned to the parent company’s operating philosophy. On paper they agreed; in practice they continued running their legacy model and quietly resisted the new one.
• No clear direction or empowered leadership from the HQ integration lead
Decisions were slow, ambiguous, or revisited repeatedly. Without a strong functional sponsor, the integration team couldn’t enforce the future state model.
• Inconsistent communication and messaging gaps
Because communication wasn’t coordinated or reinforced, the acquired leaders filled the void — often with misinformation that undermined the integration plan and created confusion across teams.
• Result: one function integrated flawlessly, another stalled indefinitelyFinance and IT hit their milestones. But Sales, Services, and Billing remained fragmented, creating customer friction, internal tension, and a prolonged period of operational instability.
So yes, I’ve seen functional integration succeed brilliantly in one area and fail in another within the same acquisition. And in my experience, the differentiator is almost always the same: clarity, leadership engagement, and cultural alignment, not the complexity of the function itself.
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