What went wrong in these acquisitions – purely cultural challenges relating to people or were other factors at play?
You could call it culture. But services firms have a unique set of characteristics and challenges when it comes to integration. It has to do with the fact that our primary asset walks out the door every evening. And that is what one is acquiring. Even though we are acquiring a customer base, ultimately our ability to build our customer base is tied to the people. If we cannot retain them, then the value of the firm disappears quickly. So, it is all about attracting, retaining and integrating the people into a structure that makes sense. In most services firms, one has an organisation structure into which merging another entity becomes a challenge. In fact, I would argue that if, say, a services company is acquiring a consulting company it will be a largely complementary acquisition. As organisation structures will not overlap that much, integration should be easier in some respects. But if two firms that are largely in the same business merge, you will have far greater overlap of the o
