What are the integration methods after merger and acquisition?

Merger and acquisition integration plays a very important role in enterprise merger and acquisition. American statistics show that the financial situation of about 50% to 80% M&A people is depressing. The first-class academic and commercial research institutions have analyzed and studied M&A's behavior in recent decades, and found that the following phenomena may appear after M&A: the reduction of the commitment and dedication of M&A's management and employees leads to the reduction of M&A's productivity; Ignoring different cultures, management and leadership styles leads to increased conflicts; The gradual loss of key management personnel and employees generally occurs within 6 to 12 months after the transaction is completed; The customer base and market share are destroyed; About one-third of the merged enterprises were sold again within five years, and almost 90% of the mergers and acquisitions did not achieve the expected results. These phenomena are closely related to the unsuccessful integration after the completion of mergers and acquisitions. The following introduces financial integration, human resource integration, asset integration and corporate culture integration in turn.

Corporate culture is the sum of common consciousness, values, behavioral norms and standards followed by all members through social practice under certain social and economic conditions, and it is a unique cultural management model with value as the core formed by enterprises in their own development process. The so-called corporate culture integration is to merge, split, strengthen and weaken different corporate cultures, thus forming a new corporate culture.

First, the importance of corporate culture integration

Corporate culture shapes the management mode and concept of the enterprise, and affects the values and thinking mode of employees. Merger and acquisition is a major adjustment and change of different enterprise organizations, which will inevitably have a strong impact on people's inherent way of thinking and values, and bring great discomfort to employees. This is the inevitable result of corporate culture collision. This kind of collision will often bring many problems to the integration after the completion of mergers and acquisitions. If these problems cannot be properly handled, it may lead to the failure of mergers and acquisitions. In 2002, Lenovo acquired Hampton Consulting, which led to the departure of many former executives and a large number of consultants in Hampton. The reason lies in the serious conflict between the corporate cultures of the two sides. Hamp is a knowledge-based enterprise with equality and higher freedom as its corporate culture, while Lenovo is generally regarded as a strong control enterprise based on market ability. The differences and conflicts between two different corporate cultures have led to a large number of employee turnover. However, in the case of HP merging Compaq in the same year, the result was quite different. Why can the merger of HP and Compaq be a great success? One of the most important reasons is that the cultural integration of the two is very successful. HP and Compaq have very different corporate cultures. HP is an old enterprise with a history of more than 60 years. Its corporate culture is the way of HP: loyalty to customers, trust and respect for individuals, pursuit of Excellence, emphasis on team spirit and encouragement of creativity. Compaq is a young computer manufacturer. Compaq's corporate culture pays more attention to business orientation, and its first goal is to seize the market quickly. Compaq is quick in decision-making and flexible in operation, with no emphasis on procedure and quick action. When HP integrated Compaq's corporate culture, it absorbed the essence of Compaq culture and established a stronger corporate culture. This new culture inherits HP's principle of honesty and develops the characteristics of flexible and quick decision-making in Compaq culture, which makes this controversial merger case achieve remarkable results. Therefore, the integration of corporate culture is one of the keys to ensure the success of mergers and acquisitions.

Second, the content of corporate culture integration

Enterprise culture can be divided into two parts: ideology and enterprise system.

Ideology includes three parts:

1. Corporate values. Refers to the basic beliefs and ideas that enterprises advocate in the process of pursuing commercial success. The projection of enterprise values is the fundamental starting point of enterprise management. Some enterprises may regard "profit" as their own values. When "innovation", "service" and "profit" conflict, they will naturally choose the latter. Similarly, other enterprises may hold different values such as "enterprise value lies in innovation", "enterprise value lies in service" and "enterprise value lies in educating people".

2. Business operation mode. It refers to the principles formed in the process of enterprise management to deal with people, people and things, and various interests. Specifically, it includes the handling of the relationship between employers and employees, consumers and producers, enterprise interests and employees, current interests and long-term interests, and mutual interests among enterprises, as well as the attitude towards product quality, operating procedures, technology development and transformation, standardization, quota, measurement, information, cost, finance, planning and other issues.

3. Enterprise thinking mode. This is a relatively fixed view and viewpoint of enterprises on what happens in social life and business process.

Ideology is a hidden factor in corporate culture, while corporate system is a dominant factor in corporate culture. Enterprise system is a normative and mandatory culture that enterprises give employees a certain direction in order to ensure the success of their operations. The core of enterprise system is enterprise management system. Management system is a variety of rules and regulations formulated by enterprises in production and business activities that can guarantee certain rights, including personnel system, financial management system, production management system, democratic management system and all other rules and regulations.

Third, the specific operation of corporate culture integration.

1. Find out the similarities and differences in corporate culture between the acquirer and the target enterprise.

The culture of any two enterprises will be different, just as there are no two identical leaves in the world. Corporate culture differences exist in various aspects, such as values, management methods, ways of thinking, management systems, social reputation and so on. When integrating corporate culture, we should first analyze the cultural differences and similarities between the acquirer and the target enterprise, so as to provide decision-making basis for the next integration work. Therefore, the acquirer should understand the culture of the target enterprise from various channels. These channels include exhibitions and presentations held by the target enterprise before, articles on internal materials of the target enterprise, introductions and reports of the target enterprise by the news media, and opinions and evaluations of other enterprises on the target enterprise. After mastering the cultural characteristics of the target enterprise in detail, the acquirer can hire professionals to analyze and compare the culture of the target enterprise and the corporate culture of the acquirer, and draw the similarities and differences between them. Sometimes, in order to make this analysis more intuitive, professionals often "draw" the corporate cultures of both parties to the merger, that is, use charts to express the similarities and differences of cultures, and provide a visual analytical basis for the integration of corporate cultures.

2. Find out the main obstacles to cultural integration

The main obstacle to cultural integration is the key factor that may play an important role in the process of cultural integration, which can be a person's system, an interest group, the original enterprise and so on. With the implementation of cultural integration steps, the main obstacles will become a very active factor. In the process of cultural integration, the conflict between old and new cultures is inevitable. Therefore, the prediction and monitoring of the main obstacles is a problem that must be paid attention to in cultural integration.

3. Integrate the corporate cultures of both parties

After analyzing the similarities and differences between the corporate cultures of the two sides and the main obstacles to cultural integration, the acquirer will carry out the actual integration work. We should pay attention to the following issues when integrating the corporate cultures of both sides: (1) Cultural transplantation should be based on the actual situation of the target enterprise. Culture can't exist and transplant alone, but must rely on the actual situation of the enterprise. If the target enterprise has a strong sense of rejection of the new culture to be injected by the acquirer, the acquirer should modify the transplanted culture according to the situation of the target enterprise. The culture of the target enterprise must have reasonable elements suitable for the business environment, which should be regarded as a part of the foundation of cultural integration and cannot be completely abandoned. The acquirer should find ways to make it complement the mainstream culture of the acquirer and play a role together; (2) The acquirer should also meet the material needs of the employees of the target enterprise. Corporate culture pays attention to the construction of spirit and system, and does not directly solve the material needs of employees. The acquirer can not blindly preach and manage the employees of the target enterprise abstractly, but also must use material as the guarantee of cultural integration; (3) Cultural integration should not be rushed. In the initial stage, the integration of corporate culture will often encounter resistance from employees of the target enterprise. It takes time to find a way of integration acceptable to the employees of the target enterprise and subtly complete the cultural integration. Trying to carry out the reform overnight and drastically will only aggravate the prejudice and dissatisfaction of the employees in the target enterprise, which is not conducive to the stability and smooth progress of the integration work; (4) Take different methods according to different employees. Cultural integration requires the cooperation of all employees in the target enterprise. Therefore, the acquirer should adopt different strategies according to different employees. For senior managers, the acquirer should adopt a relatively direct way, through face-to-face analysis and communication, make them fully aware of the crisis in enterprise development and the necessity and importance of integration, and explain to them the future prospects of the enterprise and their potential interests. For ordinary employees, the acquirer should pay attention to enhancing communication and deepening trust. Because they know little about the overall situation and the situation is unclear, they are afraid and resist reform; (5) do a good job in publicity. In the process of cultural integration, especially when injecting excellent culture into the target enterprise, we should do a good job in publicizing the employees of the target enterprise. Buyers can use various publicity methods, such as slogans, newspapers, radio and television. At the same time, according to the characteristics and requirements of the publicity object, the production and dissemination of publicity content. In addition, the propaganda work must be clear, specific and repeated. Only when it is clear and specific can it be understood by the employees of the target enterprise and avoid misunderstanding; Only repetition can impress the propaganda target. Of course, the propaganda of new culture must not be arbitrarily exaggerated, but must be realistic; (6) Finally, cultural integration must follow the people-oriented policy. No matter what strategy the acquirer adopts for cultural integration, it must adhere to the humanistic thought of caring and caring for people, and cannot put the development of enterprises above the development of people. This also requires the acquirer to pay full attention to the employees of the target enterprise in the process of cultural integration, respect their feelings and opinions, create good conditions for their personal development, maximize the subjective initiative of employees, and help the target enterprise achieve transformation.