Lois Melbourne

<p>In a perfect world, mergers and acquisitions are as easy as two good companies coming together to form one bigger, better organization. Unfortunately, the reality is that as many as two-thirds of all mergers and acquisitions fail to achieve the anticipated benefits. <br /><br />Although the challenges posed by M&A projects are numerous and often unpredictable, there is at least one element that can be effectively managed to help reduce the risks and get the job done faster - workforce integration. <br /><br /><strong>The Common Thread in M&A Failures</strong> <br />M&A projects are prone to failure for a variety of reasons, including: <br />" An inability to understand and cope with differences in corporate cultures; <br />" Lack of speed (completing mergers quickly is vital to achieving cost savings/economies of scale and retaining valuable workers); <br />" Failing to follow a logical process for quickly putting the best managers in the right positions; <br />" Unclear and incomplete lines of communication, both for planning and for pre-merger workforce discovery; <br />" Failing to plan for and mitigate the costs of merging; <br />" Failing to manage exponentially-increasing data and/or convert that data into trusted and useable information. <br /><br />Without exception, each of these factors relates directly to workforce information and, more specifically, obtaining it quickly enough to make a difference. This means having the ability to share it, talk about it easily to obtain consensus, and use it to objectively determine what the new workforce should look like and put the best people in the best jobs. <br /><br /><strong>Demystifying Workforce Integration</strong> <br />Workforce integration is only as complex as the manual, redundant processes that companies often rely on to "share workforce information. Extremely slow and prone to error, these antiquated methods are justifiably frightening and are therefore best deemphasized or abandoned in favor of an automated and collaborative solution that integrates workforce information, extracts that information, and easily shares it for fast decisions (and for detailed, fast planning regarding people and the budgets that support them). <br /><br />With a more user-friendly workforce integration solution in place, companies can perform careful due-diligence on the people in the organizations they plan to acquire or merge with, including abilities, experience, career paths, performance reviews and where the employees see themselves in the future. This makes it possible to create a new strategic vision based on the strengths and weaknesses of the two merging organizations. In addition, key managers in both companies can be quickly identified, motivated, retained and properly placed. <br /><br />Ultimately, the HR information of both organizations can be integrated quickly and validated for accuracy so that global or holistic HR reporting can go to executive decision makers. As a result, the workforces are integrated deliberately and swiftly. However, this can only happen if companies tap into with a proven workforce planning and management solution - one that's collaborative, web-based and designed specifically to help companies plan and execute significant workforce transitions. <br /><br /><strong>Workforce Planning and Management Solutions <br /></strong>The visualization, modeling and collaborative capabilities of a robust workforce planning tool help streamline and lend collaborative logic to restructuring decisions, dramatically reducing risk as well as time and money spent in transition. Specifically, this entails: <br />" Visual drag-and-drop modeling for faster, better decisions; <br />" Centralized workforce information to provide one-click information access for expedited improved decisions; <br />" A collaborative online workspace that enables teams to submit proposed organizational models for specific areas of the organization; <br />" Mass updates that can be automated and passed to the various workforce systems of record; <br />" Audit and change reporting; <br />" Management of any type of hierarchical data, including person-to-person, position-to position, organizational units and cost centers; <br />" Truly intuitive self-service that allows for decentralized validation and management of organizational data; <br />" Workflow and notification capabilities that support company policies, procedures and processes; <br />" Keeping the workforce planning solution synchronized with the various source systems in order to account for the ongoing business changes during the M&A integration lifecycle; <br />" An ability to confidently secure the data. <br /><br />The ideal time to put a workforce management solution in place is before a merger or acquisition occurs. Naturally, such foresight is not always possible, but when it is, planning ahead can reap some very attractive advantages, including increasing a company's prospective value in a future M&A situation. In addition, having a robust workforce management tool in place serves as a continuing source of strength, efficiency, productivity and cost savings for your own growth and reorganization activities. <br /><br /><em>This informational data sheet has been developed by Irving, Texas-based Aquire, Inc., the leader in visual workforce management solutions. The original is available at </em><a href="http://www.aquire.com/press/datasheets/mergers_and_acquisitions_data_sheet.pdf"><em>http://www.aquire.com/press/datasheets/mergers_and_acquisitions_data_sheet.pdf</em></a><em>. For more information on Aquire, visit </em><a href="http://www.aquire.com"><em>www.aquire.com</em></a><em> or </em><a href="http://www.orgpublisher.com"><em>www.orgpublisher.com</em></a><em>.</em>  </p>