Managing Post M&A Integration

IBM's stunning takeover of Lotus was what sensitised me to such transactions. Having been a participant of two acquisitions so far, I have a ground up perspective on the way these are handled by managements. I have seen some superlative communication effort from top management in the form of bi-monthly stand-in meetings with all employees for sharing of recent highlights, immediate plans and most importantly an open Q&A session. But then I have also seen, amused, some basic rules - mostly involving communication - being ignored. With some expected not-so-happy results.

Nowadays, M&A seems to be the in-thing and 'global consolidation' the theme. Tata-Corus, Mittal-Arcelor and Vodafone-Hutch-Essar are spectacular ones in the recent Indian context. And I've yet to find someone who will not find Googles acquisitions anything but mind boggling.

To conclude, inorganic growth is a great strategy for the top-line but only successful integration - through emphatic empathetic communication - will help realize a happy bottom-line. I'm in the midst of a third, lets see how it goes !