Mergers and acquisitions are often viewed as a scary change — and there’s good reason for this.
Studies have revealed that between 70 and 90 percent of mergers and acquisitions fail.
And according to OrgMapper, two common reasons for this failure are poor communication and poor integration.
These probably aren’t statistics you want to hear if you’re currently working on a merger or acquisition. But if you address these problems pre-merger, the outcome can be great!
This article will dive deeper into those two common reasons for failure. Plus, we’ll highlight a tool that helps solve these problems so you can streamline your merger and acquisition strategy.
Common merger & acquisition growing pains
Communication and integration processes are often where companies fall short during mergers.
There may be misunderstandings and delays if there isn’t good communication throughout your M&A strategy. This leads to a breakdown in trust between teams and individuals — which can be challenging to repair.
Integrating two different systems, processes, and procedures can also be a major challenge. If there isn’t good coordination between the teams responsible for integration, you may end up with duplicate effort or even failures in critical systems.
These issues have ripple effects that impact things like:
Knowledge loss
Siloed information can easily get lost and overlooked during this big transition. Plus, if you lose talent during a merger, you will lose their know-how if it wasn’t properly documented.
Disjointed tech stacks
When integration isn’t done right, tech stacks become hard to maintain long term. You may find that you have duplicate SaaS. Half of your employees may be using one tool, and the other half may be using another, even though both have the same functionality.
Revenue leakage
A disjointed tech stack can lead to this next problem: revenue leakage. When you are focused on bigger cash flow, it’s easy to overlook these smaller expenditures that add up over time. Without properly evaluating and combining tech stacks, you may end up paying for multiple tools that solve the same problem. Or you may be overpaying for a tier you don’t need.
Slow onboarding
When companies don’t consolidate their two knowledge bases, training newly acquired employees can be more difficult and time-consuming. New employees will have to dig through 2 totally different knowledge bases to find what they need.
2 tools for merger and acquisition strategy support
If you’re going through an M&A, you’ll first want to look into GoLinks.
GoLinks is a knowledge management tool that lets you create short, memorable go links to surface cross-company knowledge and prevent knowledge leaks.
For example, a long Google Docs link like this:
https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1yVcZihiShg ❌
Can become a short, memorable link like this:
go/presentation ✅
Here are some ways GoLinks can help you seamlessly navigate a merger:
Create one source of truth
During M&As, you may find that the two teams are using a different tech stack; while you take the time to combine and remove tools, you can use go links to make navigation easier.
For example, employees may have a hard time finding specific resources if they don’t know what folder or tool they live in. To solve this problem, you can create go links such as “go/one-pagers” — so even if an employee doesn’t know exactly where these one-pagers live, they can still find them with ease.
Unify your knowledge-sharing experience
During this major transition, it’s important to keep employees in the know about everything that is going on. With go links, you can easily share updates with your team as processes evolve and change. For example, you could create a go link like “go/merger-updates” to keep everyone in the loop with what’s going on.
Consolidate your tech
Once you are ready to start consolidating your tech stack, GoLinks can give you usage data that lets you see top-used SaaS and underutilized tools. It also will help you quickly spot duplicate tools. With this knowledge, you can quickly decide which tools to cut or combine.
Another tool that can be incredibly helpful during M&As is Profiles. Profiles is a people platform that helps remote teams connect with coworkers, visualize connections, and cultivate a culture of recognition.
Here are some ways Profiles can help you during a transition:
Keep track of new reporting structures
Profiles automatically syncs with your HR platform to pull in team reporting structures. As your teams merge and change, employees can easily visualize relationships within your org by zooming in on departments and leaders. By adding this level of transparency, you’ll build trust with employees.
Easily find coworker information
When joining a new company or rearranging roles, it can be hard to remember who exactly does what. With Profiles, employees can easily search for teammates and find information such as job title, location, time zone, and contact info.
Navigating the complexities of M&As with GoLinks
If you’re considering a merger or acquisition, you’re probably excited about all the new sales opportunities, market reach, and cost synergies you can achieve. But don’t forget about the tools that can help you out along the way.
GoLinks allows you to centralize your knowledge base and helps employees find and share the information they need to do their jobs. Schedule a demo with us and see how it can improve your knowledge management.
