Mergers & Acquisitions

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  • 1.  Collaboration and Knowledge Sharing During M&A Integration

    Posted 2024-02-12 15:05

    How do you leverage the best practices and learnings from two different organizations merging together to improve your processes, products, and services? What are some examples of cross-functional collaboration and knowledge sharing that you have facilitated or participated in that you thought went well? Or maybe it didn't go so well and you have recommendations for what not to do. 

    Thanks in advance! 



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    Leslie Ellis
    leslie@meaningfulchangeconsulting.com
    Founder & CEO
    Meaningful Change Consulting, LLC
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  • 2.  RE: Collaboration and Knowledge Sharing During M&A Integration

    Posted 2024-02-13 12:04

    Hi Leslie,

    This is a really great question, I'll share what we do at my company. Shortly after close each function has an As-Is conversation to document and discuss how things are done currently at both organizations. We have a series of questions that prompt discussion to capture current states, and how they are similar and dis-similar at the two companies. This informs the decision of what will future state look like, but also critically, what change management plans will need to address on that journey. Here some example questions:

    "What is the key work you do, and who does it?"

    What does the group do? Where are they located?

    To what extent are the top activities/sub-functions centralized? Shared? Co-located?

    If you have more than one primary axis (e.g., regional vs business or solution line), what is the reporting line for colleagues?

    "How do decisions get made?"

    What are your key functional committees? 

    What are the mandates and participants of these committees?

    "Other function specific topics"

    What are you most proud of?

    Is there anything unique about the way your function is managed or organized?

    We've found this to be a great exercise and hope to hear how others approach this.

    Becky 



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    Becky Persak
    Aon
    Head of M&A - Leadership, Culture & Change
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    Original Message


  • 3.  RE: Collaboration and Knowledge Sharing During M&A Integration

    Posted 2024-02-14 09:38

    We do a similar exercise as Rebecca. We have a form to assess the culture of the two companies to fill in - using a Likert scale of 1-5 on where they lie on the spectrum. This helps us see where there are strengths to lean into and learn from as well as gaps to fill. Topics include: 

    • Communication
    • Training & Development
    • Rewards
    • Decision Making 
    • Risk Taking
    • Planning
    • Teamwork
    • Management Practices

    For instance, under Decision Making we may have, Analytical/cautions to Intuitive/daring & under Communication - Filtered to Open/candid. 



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    Dawn Feltner
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    Original Message