In our experience, the energy, dedication, and focus of a
company's leadership team plays a huge role in the success of
any merger and integration.
And traditionally, executives have paid the most attention to
the financial and people aspects of mergers.
But in today's digital age, technology and data have moved
to the center of successful integration planning and
management.
Technology and data play vital roles in driving progress on a
merger throughout the entire integration journey and beyond.
But the specific focus on technology and data evolves over
three time horizons.
For the first hundred days, the focus is on business continuity.
From day 100 through the first or second year post merger, the
focus shifts to business integration while laying the
foundation to unlock future business transformation.
The focus then shifts again towards using technology and
data to power business ambitions.
Meanwhile, technology and data also play an integral role
across the entire integration timeline in supporting cost
synergies
for the integrating enterprise. There are four main priorities
to ensure technology and data are at the center of the
post-merger planning and management processes.
First, bring technology and data into formal integration,
governance, and steering.
BCG does this by building a business tech enablement team
right within the integration management office.
This team coordinates and prioritizes all tech-related
integration and transformation activity among multiple
stakeholders.
Second, engage business and technology leaders on the
integration and transformation agenda right from the start.
And third, build multifunctional platform and product teams that
include both business and technology talent to design and
plan the post-merger integration.
And finally, develop goals for the combined organization's
business and tech agenda holistically by working with
business leaders and tech leaders to co-create a combined
direction to achieve business goals including digital and AI
use cases.
By putting tech and data at the center of integration, planning,
and management, leaders can gain a better understanding of the
business's ambitions and achieve value more quickly.