StreamLine: The ABC of a Merger (A) Story of the Merger, (B) Building the New Organization, (C) The Bumpy Road of Transformat

The actual facts are hard to come by. A figure often cited in the press states that roughly two-thirds of all mergers and acquisitions do not pay off. A less pessimistic figure, attributed to Mercer Management Consulting, reveals that of 152 M&As that took place between 1994 and 1999, 70 under-performed while the remaining 82 outperformed. Still, the odds of success are not good. So why do companies forge ahead with M&As despite these warnings, and how do the companies that do succeed escape becoming yet another statistic? In this new series of cases, Professor Quy Huy and Ramina Samii provide a step-by-step analysis of a technology merger, showing how company managers successfully navigated the treacherous waters of culture clash, relocation, and internal power struggles by managing employees’ emotions.