PMI Challenges

I have experienced first had a “failed” acquisition of a start-up by a large medical device manufacturer. It was clear in this failure there simply was no integration lead or team, or if there was, they were distracted with larger problems in the business.

Without strategic direction and a clear way the start-up would fit into the existing business, the start-up R&D team was pulled into a huge number of projects that did not appear to have strategic value. In the space of two years, there was therefore no appreciable change in the start-ups core product and its capabilities were overtaken in the market by competitors. The core product was too hard to sell and hence the medical device company collapsed the start-ups sales team.

The key challenge of PMI is to be able to execute on and protect the original business case. Once an acquisition is done, it is sometimes difficult for those who were not on the deal team to truly internalize the rationale. It also difficult for certain constituencies to execute on what was planned.

I have found that the integration of IT systems, processes, assets, and organizations all to be hard work. However, the integration of cultures and leaders are the most challenging of them all. I believe this is because they are rooted in behaviors. Changing behavior is hard work, it requires specific coaching and transformation skills, and unfortunately it is either not seen as valuable or left to HR to handle and HR professionals are typically not skilled in doing this work.