Integration management and functional integration teams: Human resource function: This function is at the heart of These stakeholder teams manage the formal integration the people part, which impacts not just their function, but process, building on the preliminary and business wide any other area where people are a factor — which is nearly integration strategy. They typically use culture work to help everything. For their own role, assessments create the develop an accurate understanding of the complexity of the input for people decisions and change plans, not just for integration and therefore better estimate the costs of the their function, but how they can help other functions and integration, resources needed, changes needed and how workstreams in their people and change work (HR’s role will to best time or phase the changes. However, integration be the subject of a future article). strategies are complex and can vary enormously. The magnitude of change expected Just a review of the goals in one deal on the leaders, talent and employees surfaced the tension that may occur is directly related to the integration in allocating and prioritizing resources strategy. Our integration strategies and the talent needed to achieve these have evolved over the years. It used to goals. For example, the talent needed be that we fully integrated them into to stabilize the business was much the us. But we realized that was more of same pool as we identified to achieve a ‘convenience’ for our organization, the value goals, and achieve the and less about growing and synergy goals, and be heavily involved developing what we bought. Now our in the formal integration process. strategies are deal specific, and can We had many of the same people on vary enormously, from one extreme multiple parallel initiatives, sometimes where the seller is assimilated into the requiring them to be in different time acquired business unit to the other zones at the same time. This was just end of the spectrum where we keep not feasible. We just did not have those it stand-alone as a new business unit planning the separate goal initiatives, with most of its existing identity and talk this through with each other. The way of doing business kept intact. In same ‘stars’ were being picked for these cases, integration is limited to multiple teams.” our ‘non-negotiables,’ such as areas Corporate development leader and HR Integration of financial reporting, back office leader during a review of “who does what” infrastructure, legal requirements and executive incentive plans.” Corporate development Building the business case for culture in M&A 9