Conduct Cultural Integration in M&A with Confidence

P.R.O.M.I.S.E. – A highly reliable M&A Cultural Integration Framework

Culture impacts an integration massively in multiple ways, It can impact both positively as well as negatively. It can bolster collaboration between teams, accelerate new solution development, realizing of synergies. On the other hand, mismanaged culture can lead to animosity between individuals, rise of politicking as well as introduce significant delays in an integration.

Failed harmonization of culture is consistently cited as the top reason for M&A integration failures. As the number of acquisitions in the knowledge-centric industry continues to rise exponentially, culture is going to become key for the success of most integrations.

Culture is not easy to measure as it defines “the way things get done here” and it is not a solitary element. Culture is a manifestation of people, leadership and organizational behavior. And these behaviors are driven by various factors.

By managing and maneuvering these cultural factors, organizations can harmonize and steer culture in an M&A integration.

Cultural Integration Benefits

Drives Strong Employee Engagement
Catalyst for collaborative value creation
Significantly reduce implementation risks
Accelerate realization of financial expectations and integration timelines

Challenges with Cultural Integration

Measuring Culture is a problem

Inconsistent Leadership commitment

Rapid acceleration of Employee issues

Leaders find it difficult to measure culture in quantitative terms. The main reason is that culture is symbolic behavior based on multiple factors. These factors, however, can be influenced, managed and controlled.

Many business leaders are known to manage their business by numbers. Due to immeasurability associated with culture, leaders find it difficult to assign the right level of commitment as well as consistency that is required.

Employee issues are intrinsic to any M&A integration. In the absence of robust cultural framework, these issues can get out of hand very quickly and leadership may not have adequate preparation to address these issues.

Who is this for?

Whether you are a Corporate Development leader, Integration Leader, HR Leader, Finance Leader, Supply-Chain Leaders, SME (Small and Medium-Sized Business) Leader, M&A Leader, Strategy Leader, Business Owner or C-Level Executives, this framework will allow you to acquire and culturally integrate companies reliably and confidently EVERY TIME!

P.R.O.M.I.S.E. - Cultural Integration Framework

Culture has been viewed as an immeasurable element of an organization by many business leaders. People have viewed it as a single element instead of a combination of elements. The best way that organizations use is “the way we do things here”.

Culture is a manifestation of several organizational factors. If culture of an organization needs to be changed or harmonized, it needs to start with bringing about changes to organizational factors.

Our cultural integration framework is based on 7 most-impactful factors that contribute to an organizational culture.

Our 7-factor framework is known as P.R.O.M.I.S.E. framework

PROMISE Cultural Integration Framework in M&A, Fifth Chrome

People and Professional Development
Skills, Capabilities and Professional Maturity development required for matching the desired/harmonized culture as a result of an acquisition
Rewards, Recognition and Incentives
Compensation and Benefits, the practice of rewarding and recognizing people, driving consequence management and incentivizing people to change
Organizational Hierarchy and Leadership Styles
Leadership behavior, organizational bureaucracy, hierarchical protocols, politicking and other manifestations resulting from specific hierarchy types
Management System
Organizational governance, policies and procedures, operating rigor, communication, business updates, performance measurement and management
Innovation and Critical Thinking
Degree of openness and freedom to challenge status quo, stability vs flexibility, command-and-control, critical thinking for continuous improvement
Strategic Future
Desired organizational state in the future and its corresponding aspirational state
Employee Experience
Employee environment, office space, office benefits, career development opportunities, mentoring, opportunities to develop skills, stretch assignments

Our M&A Cultural Integration Solutions

Training and Workshop

We have designed specific training and workshops based on PROMISE framework. We standard flagship training is a 3-day training which includes that is divided into 6 modules along with 6 mini-workshops and solving a specific business case. We start with setting the stage and aligning leadership on various critical elements needed for cultural integration and then walk through step-by-step, PROMISE framework to create a cultural integration design from start to finish for any type of integration.

We also design bespoke cultural integration training based on our client’s specific requirements in addition to our flagship training.

We design specific workshops on diverse sets of elements related to culture as well as facilitate client workshops related to culture, people, leadership and culture.

Coaching and Mentoring

In this personalized program, we provide mentoring to develop capabilities as well as mentor practitioners during an active implementation. Our packages are usually created for a fixed duration (3-month intensive, 6-month, or customized duration).

The program focuses on building cultural integration capabilities in an organization and includes training, workshops, and a series of mentoring meetings.

Culture Assessment and Due Diligence

Our team of experts can help with conducting cultural assessment and due diligence in the pre-deal stage. Cultural mismatch consistently pushes integrations to failure. Our assessments are quite comprehensive and include the most impactful factors that contribute to the existence of a certain type of culture. By identifying specific critical factors for a given acquisition (or for a deal target), businesses can make informed decisions and take appropriate measures accordingly.

Program Design & Implementation

Together with our clients, we configure a cultural integration design by translating strategic M&A objectives as well as future aspirational culture into specific and relevant cultural integration objectives. On the basis of translated objectives, we design the cultural integration by using PROMISE M&A Cultural Integration Framework.

Cultural Integration Design include current cultural assessment (acquiring and acquired company), stakeholder management, understanding business future state and related aspirational future culture, implementation roadmap, cultural management roles and responsibilities, mobilization, communication, change management and program management.

Consulting and Advisory

We offer cultural integration consulting and advisory services. The services include providing advice on different aspects of M&A cultural integration and harmonization including but not limited to cultural integration design, cultural leadership, people and culture assessment, setting up cultural integration capabilities, program implementation, and stakeholder management.

Cultural Integration Playbook

Cultural integration playbook is the document that codifies the organizational processes that should be followed for cultural harmonization and integration. Playbooks provide a sound base that can be easily followed by professionals to implement post-merger cultural integration. Playbooks are highly recommended for serial acquirers.