Seamless synergy through IT integration: An empirical study of success factors in post-merger scenarios

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Volume Title

School of Business | Master's thesis

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Date

2025-04-28

Department

Major/Subject

Mcode

Degree programme

Master's programme in Information and Service Management

Language

en

Pages

84

Series

Abstract

Mergers and acquisitions have long been a widely used mechanism for corpora-tions to achieve growth, diversification, synergies and competitive advantage. In today’s dynamic and digital business landscape, the role of technology in any business function has become one of the main issues and the role only keeps growing. For businesses to stay competitive and to avoid failures in their M&A efforts, it is crucial to be able to address the modern complexities of integrating the enabling technologies of the merging entities. This study revolves around critical success factors for efficient information systems integration in mergers and acquisitions. The research was conducted through an extensive literature review followed by qualitative semi-structured interviews of professionals involved with M&A IT integration projects. The findings of this thesis emphasize that an effective IS integration involving IT, business and people is a core factor in attempts to realize intended synergies of the M&A project. Unified executive leadership, adequate governance structure, thorough but flexible planning aligned with business strategy and mature integration capabilities were identified as key drivers in efficient integration projects. In addition, this thesis discusses the conditional factors such as process harmonization, external consultants and cultural fit, which were identified as major influencing factors that can affect the outcomes positively or negatively, dependent on if they were addressed. Importantly, agile and adaptive approaches to integration were noticed to improve integration performance, challenging the dominant perception that synergy seeking M&As require strict control and potentially emerging a shift in IT integration practice.

Description

Supervisor

Liu, Yong

Keywords

post-merger integration, information systems integration, mergers and acquisitions (M&A), strategic alignment, change management, agile integration

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Citation

Permanent link to this item

https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:aalto-202505153702

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[gradu] Kauppakorkeakoulu / BIZ