Strategie

Integration management

Starting point

The purchase and integration of companies and parts thereof have gained in strategic importance. The number and the value of transactions are bound to increase further.

At the same time, experience shows sobering results: approximately 60 to 80% of all mergers do not fulfil expectations. The potential synergies were too ambitious, the expected effects cannot be realised or the effects are reduced by the costs of integration.

The results would appear even more doubtful if one were to factor in the non-economic aspects of human capital, which do not appear on balance sheets but are the drivers of the financial capital market.

Causes

The reasons are varied:

  • (Too) high purchasing price, too high integration costs and subsequent cost reduction programmes
  • Cultural discrepancies: the more disparate the cultures, the higher the risks
  • Tensions and destructive internal competition
  • Indirect downgrading of key staff
  • Dominance of strategic aspects, downplaying of emotional issues
  • Controversy regarding compensation, job security, investments, overheads, site objectives
  • Irritation among customers and suppliers due to uncoordinated market alignment

Consequences:

  • Sabotage of cross-functional positions
  • High costs due to dual structures and parallel processes
  • Staff fluctuations, in particular of key staff
  • Loss of reputation among customers and suppliers
  • Declining job satisfaction
  • Reduced innovation potential

Procedures

Closer and more detailed investigation shows clear differences between types of integration:

A very reliable and successful process is

  • when a new company is created within the framework of a "best-of-both" strategy

Less successful is

  • symbiosis by partial integration as part of an expansion strategy or
  • absorption after full takeover as part of a completion strategy.

The concept of "installed dynamics"

Die Dynamik im Integrationsprozess beruht auf dem erzeugten Druck ineinander greifender stimmiger Elemente.

The dynamics in the integration process are based on the generated pressure of interlocking coherent elements.

The success factors alignment, coaching and team development are of particular importance here.