Mergers & Acquisition Projects
Managing Post-Merger Integration
Two mail, delivery and advertising organisations merged, to create a greater regional presence, deliver cost efficiencies, and to combine their expertise to create synergies through new offerings. As part of the integration planning, they jointly developed a capability model of the new merged organisation. This helped them to consolidate their core capabilities, and also identify where capabilities needed to be strengthened to deliver the new services identified at the point of merger. A useful by-product of the modelling work was the creation of strong personal relationships across the new organisation and a shared understanding of the direction and plans for the merged organisation.
Developing Management Structures to Integrate Acquisitions
The expansion by acquisition of this engineering mini-conglomerate from £30m to over £250m left the CEO with a problem. At £30m he knew most of the employees personally. As the company grew by acquisition, he was no longer able to manage through personal relationships and had to increase and improve the organisational relationships and management structures necessary to manage the company. Our consultant helped him design the management structures to manage the increased complexity of the growing company.
Rationalising the Divisional Structure in a Growing Group
This group had grown by acquisition from nine to around thirty subsidiaries. These had been assigned to divisions on a political basis to try and keep the divisions the same size. This complicated the interactions between the subsidiaries both in the market place and between operations. An analysis of market and operational concerns helped in the development of a divisional structure that optimised the co-ordination between the subsidiaries and between the divisions. This helped the divisions to develop coherent strategies that were integrated into an overall group strategy.
Integrating Acquisitions into a Group Structure
A group had been developed from a parent company and two acquired new business units, but the board found that there was considerable friction between the original company and the two new units. An analysis of the governance structure showed that the group management viewed the whole business as synonymous with the original parent business. This meant that the strategy of the group and group’s resources tended to be focused on the parent company, and the other units in the group were neglected. The project showed the need for a strategic capacity for each of the three units and for the integration of these into a strategy for the group as whole entity.