Leadership in Post-Merger Integrationsprozessen

The merger of two companies means a reinvention of the firm while operations are ongoing. This requires management skills that go far beyond those necessary to meet ordinary management challenges. Therefore management needs to pursue an effective leadership strategy in order to control the post-merger integration process. The article presents a real life case study and subsequently discusses critical success factors for an effective leadership of post-merger integration processes. These critical success factors are speed of integration, development of an integration master plan, delegation of relative autonomous leadership competence to local management, integration of an HR-audit into due diligence, effective communication and a proactive risk management.