Do not use these approaches to fill gaps in your planning because finding, acquiring, and integrating another organization is not easy. The time you lose chasing an acquisition can be put to good use achieving real-time internal growth. Don’t expect a huge financial lift the first year following an acquisition. Expect and plan for five years before you see a profit from the acquisition. That’s considering everything going as planned. This lag time must be calculated into your goals. Lastly, don’t underestimate how much resistance to change you’ll encounter from the two merging cultures. Instead of going forward you may in fact lose ground. Mergers and acquisitions are not ruled out for establishing big financial goals. They are discouraged unless you know exactly what you are doing and understand the true financial implication.
Plenty of work takes place on the “what you are buying” but none on the “who you are buying.” The syllabus of an unnamed but well-known multibillion-dollar international company reflects this approach. The parent company acquires an average of twelve companies a year, and even with extensive training the results are considered dismal. The company is running about 100 percent in its failure to successfully merge the acquired companies’ cultures into the parent’s. Talking to mergers and acquisition teams about the dangers of post-culture integration is like talking to a Martian. We are speaking two dissimilar languages in two separate contexts. Merger teams are typically number crunchers who have little understanding of people issues. If you plan to buy a company or merge with another business, the very least you can do to prevent pain is to develop a post-merger cultural integration plan.