In many cases, realizing a deal’s full potential depends on how, and how well, the companies integrate their backbone systems—the enterprise resource planning (ERP) applications that run their core operations.
Various market forces have combined to drive a growing volume of merger and acquisition activity in recent years. Many deals fail, however, often due to inadequate execution of the integration strategy.
Strategic transaction objectives should always guide the integration strategy, including decisions about and design of the key business systems that will run the organization(s) going forward. Enterprise resource planning (ERP) systems are critical to the operations of all businesses and should receive explicit focus during integration planning and execution as they can make or break the ability to deliver on the deal’s intended value.
Given the array of ERP options that exist in today’s marketplace, including evolving cloud-based applications, buyers and/or merging organizations should devote special focus to the ideal business and ERP integration strategy for each unique situation.