| |SEPTEMBER 20168Consultants ReviewIN MY OPINIONTo Do M&A Right!By Ravish Sharan, Assistant Manager - Corporate M&A, Larsen & Toubro LimitedLarsen & Toubro Limited is an Indian multinational conglomerate headquartered in Mumbai. L&T offers technology, engineering, construction, manufacturing and financial services and has global operations. Ravish has around 5 years of managerial and engineering experience in Indian conglomerates and MNCs. He has been handling formulation and execution of M&A strategy at L&T.usiness historian Alfred Chandler proposed his thesis in 1962, observing that successful companies evolve their organizational structures based on their strategies. But not all businesses are same and not all strategies are replicable. And when it comes to M&A, it is even more difficult to untangle cause and effect. Though it might be true that the organization which shifts from a functional, monolithic organizational form to a more loosely coupled multidivisional structure dominates the growth trajectory, but the challenge has become more complex. M & A's differ from "normal" change processes as their very nature requires establishing a new corporate identity and a methodology for cultural integration. Serial and even less frequent deal-makers are eager to sustain momentum and growth by applying the leading practices and knowledge they've gained from previous transactions. But not all deals are the same. Alignment of human resource capabilities with merger specific objectives, change management and handling of integration processes along with a sound communication strategy are the differences between a successful and a failed merger. One of the reasons that so many companies fall behind at managing integration and cultural differences is lack of resources and formalization. When the deals are global, the cultural aspect is magnified for not only organizational cultures mixing, but also national cultures. Finally, B
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