MERGER AND ACQUISITION INTEGRATION PLANNING

When your firm makes a significant investment in an acquisition of any size, you want to ensure that you will maximize the value of that investment, and that means effectively integrating the acquisition into the your firm. Employing a process parallel to the strategic planning process proves extremely successful:

• First, establish a future vision of the combined and integrated firms, in as much descriptive detail as possible.
  
  
• Then, identify the issues or problems that could stand in the way of integration, including tangible and physical issues, organizational matters, support systems, work processes, cultural differences, communication, and of course, issues revolving around people.
  
  
• Set quantitative goals that will function as targets to measure the effectiveness of the integration process.
  
  
• Develop general strategies and specific action items—with tasks, champions, and deadlines—to move toward the future vision of integration positive and deliberate one step at a time.