M&A cultural integration gaining more prominence

Only a quarter of companies making mergers and acquisitions (M&A) in the UK take account of organisational culture differences when devising their integration plans, according to new research.

Global consultancy firm, Mercer, surveyed some of the world's leading HR executives in a series of workshops. Just 25 per cent said that their companies had provisions in place to deal with the integration and management of business culture.

Though their plans were not on paper, however, the executives did all demonstrate strong awareness of the issues facing the culture and talent of companies when in M&A situations. Nearly all respondents said that they were concerned about the risk of top talent leaving the company following an M&A transaction, with some 46 per cent admitting that they were "very concerned".

Peter Baynham, UK Head of M&A Consulting at Mercer, said, "Many organisations recognise that a clash of organisational culture can be a barrier to successful integration. The problem is, they often don't know what to do about it. They often don't have the tools or techniques to know where to start."

Two-thirds of the executives said that "people issues" were given a greater priority in M&A situations than they were one or more years ago.