[Jenny EwenParticipant]

If you acquire a company and at the time your company is going through an internal transformation (org design, branding, technology, etc), should you delay the integration until the transformation is more stable, or fold the acquisition into the transformation?

[Mateusz MłynarczykParticipant]

As as branch manager I was directly engaged in process of an acquisition and an internal transformation conducted simultaneously for one of the Polish banks . It was a hard time, but in my opinion this was an appropriate approach. When you combine these two projects, you allow new people within an organisation to have an impact on transformation, what enhances their adaptation there.
Naturally, this is only a general opinion, an each case needs independent opinion on feasibility.

[KaraParticipant]

This is a great question. I haven’t had any experience in this situation, but I think there might be some great advantages to integrate all at once. This way you can really evaluate best practices, might find gap areas that would need to be addressed later if you delayed integration, and you get buy-in quicker from both organizations. Change is uncomfortable, so if both organizations are moving their cheese at the same time – it feels more equal in the feelings and work being done. Will it be more difficult to tackle both at once? Absolutely. Could it result in an even more successful integration? Possibly.

To Mateusz’s comment above, each case would needed to be independently evaluated.

[Lisa FawnsParticipant]

My organization are in this situation right now, we are on a multi year transformation journey to implement a new ERP, change our processes, culture and organizational structure. Our approach for the M&A activity was to look at the business case to either leave them as is, integrate some functions or force them through the transformation journey at the same time as us. We have opted, so far, to integrate some functions but not to impact their ERP. The cost to undertake partial integration vs. the benefits that can be achieved is well worth the time and effort for both organizations; however, the risk to business continuity if we attempt to implement a new ERP while we are still trying to figure out structure, processes, the actual tools to be used, is too high since they will add 33% more users and risk operational loss. Our activity is through a Joint Venture who will continue to operate independent but we will consolidate some functions so this scenario also plays into the decision; long term they will move to our ERP so we are not operating two systems (IT is a function to be consolidated) but we will avoid changing their culture.

[Lisa FawnsParticipant]

My organization is in this situation right now, we are on a multi year transformation journey to implement a new ERP, change our processes, culture and organizational structure. Our approach for the M&A activity was to look at the business case to either leave them as is, integrate some functions or force them through the transformation journey at the same time as us. We have opted, so far, to integrate some functions but not to impact their ERP. The cost to undertake partial integration vs. the benefits that can be achieved is well worth the time and effort for both organizations; however, the risk to business continuity if we attempt to implement a new ERP while we are still trying to figure out structure, processes, the actual tools to be used, is too high since they will add 33% more users and risk operational loss. Our activity is through a Joint Venture who will continue to operate independent but we will consolidate some functions so this scenario also plays into the decision; long term they will move to our ERP so we are not operating two systems (IT is a function to be consolidated) but we will avoid changing their culture.

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