In reviewing just a few of these components, you can see why M&A professionals are horrified when they hear the statement “Nothing much will change” during deal discussions. But connecting and coordinating all the above pieces and When we first started, we’d get keeping them connected throughout the whole deal life cycle pushback from leaders who reckoned is a big challenge. The specific M&A challenge, as the saying that most of these things can only goes, is that “Knowing what to do, is not the same as deciding delay getting the deal consummated, what to do, and that’s also far different from actually doing it.” seeing them as problems without immediate solutions, and problems for the integration team to solve. We quickly fell back into our old ways. Issues were worked in siloes and all the interdependencies got lost. What started off as strategic became very tactical. Everyone was responsible but nobody was accountable.” Corporate Development 12 willistowerswatson.com