Mergers & Acquisitions
According to Harvard Business Review, 70-90% of M&A’s fail*. And the reasons are usually to do with people.
Treating people like box ticking is the most common cause of Merger and Acquisition failure. Often, huge amounts of attention are given to aligning technologies and commercials, while not enough is spent on aligning people and processes, beyond developing new visions and values.
This is not enough – there are multiple ‘people’ factors working in tandem that need to be planned for before, during, and after the project, including:
Operational integration planning, readiness and execution
Bespoke and off the shelf strategic facilitation and training
Understanding and optimising the business operating model
Culture redesign and re-development
Correctly addressing functional strategic differences
Anticipating third party interference – union, regulator, media etc
Your people are your most important asset. And they are more important than ever during an M&A.
Losing just one key person due to poor change design can lead to massive unforeseen problems, if not outright failure of the entire deal. That’s why a holistic view of your culture and operations must be undertaken, right down to the individual level – and must be operational before, during and after the M&A takes place.
We optimise 4 critical phases of ‘people’ support required for successful M&As.
Preparation →
Ensuring the change leaders are adequately prepared to lead teams into the M&A.
Pre-transaction. →
Development of a change readiness and mobilisation plan, spanning all members of all teams.
During the transaction→
Thorough strategic stakeholder governance, engagement, and tactics deployment.
People and culture due diligence across operating model design and organisational effectiveness,
Employee Relations, and process mapping.
After the transaction →
Aligning leadership and inducting teams.
Post transition initiatives, such as people and culture strategies, restructures, leadership coaching, capability development and communications.
How do we make your M&A a success?
It’s all in the design.
Across any major organisational change, applying a ‘systems thinking’ approach to strategy and ‘human-centred design thinking’ to tactics is key.
That’s why we are big on design and big on tactics, as opposed to a traditional process-driven approach. By using operating model design methodologies, we develop blueprints and a transition plan for the transaction that ensures people are informed, aligned and clear on the new entity.
Strategic Diagnosis
We do →
We apply systems thinking, design thinking, and capability blueprints to firstly define and narrow the specific changes required.
You get →
A detailed report on the outcomes, with a recommended approach for how to proceed.
Organisational Roadmap
We do →
Using proprietary methodologies we create a change roadmap that includes target design, change clarity, readiness and mobilisation.
You get →
A bespoke blueprint and “Switch Plan” containing detailed information on all the tactics and sub-projects we would typically facilitate pre and/or post project:
- People and culture transition strategy
- Leadership coaching, team alignment, effectiveness and integration
- Organisational restructure and integration transitions
- Technology and process adoption and integration
- Process (re)design and procedure standardisation
- Quality/performance improvement
Tactical Implementation
We do →
Together we execute and track your “Switch Plan”, covering all aspects of the M&A, from preparation to post-delivery, tailored for your organisation and people.
You get →
Bespoke, practical, measurable tactics and processes delivered within the unique culture and cadence needed to succeed.
Are you about to embark on an M&A change?
Let’s talk about how to make it successful.
Case Study.
Aligning a government and privately owned business to deliver a $2.1b rail project.
No.8 Consulting was engaged to stand up the team and part ways from its former government service mentality, to a commercial and customer service mentality and way of working. After exposing operational risks, we were able to mobilise people and process tactics to fast-track and deliver critical staffing needs and ensure the successful staffing, and ultimately delivery of the project.
