Successful Management of Mergers & Acquisitions: Development of a Synergy Tracking Tool for the Post Merger Integration

In Business Development, Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A) have become an increasingly attractive growth opportunity among companies over a long period of time. Nowadays, there is hardly a day where current developments of ongoing M&A transactions or speculations about presumed M&A deals cannot be followed in the daily press. It is proved that a huge number of M&A did not deliver on their promises. The majority of failed M&A are a result of mismanagement during the Post Merger Integration (PMI) when processes have to be adjusted, personnel need to be teamed up and corporate cultures have to be reconciled. This study deals predominantly with aspects of synergy management whereby the main focus is on synergy tracking as a support function of the synergy management. An emphasis is on the analysis of realization efforts that need to be done by the management during the PMI. To provide a solution and ease the aforementioned issues of synergy realization, a synergy tracking tool, which serves as an effective support instrument during the PMI is developed.