Achieving Post-Merger Success: A Stakeholder's Guide to Cultural Due Diligence, Assessment, and Integration

It's been said before, but the authors of this practical guide say it again, and what is more, offer logical solutions. "Most mergers and acquisitions fail for the same two basic reasons," they write. "First, a failure to assess the potential impact of attempting to merge and integrate the cultures of the companies involved, and second, a failure to plan for systemic and systematic and efficient integration of those cultures." As principals at the Vector Group, a group of consulting firms, they focus their book on three areas: the organizations' M&A readiness, so-called cultural due diligence and assessment and—for optimal coexistence after the ink has dried—cultural alignment and integration. The cultural due diligence section, for example, outlines both qualitative and quantitative ways to take stock. A CD is included with the book along with sample worksheets.