Has your company recently been involved in a merger? Or did it acquire capabilities to strengthen its position in the market? M&As are commonplace in today’s business environment.

The true challenge in these M&A deals lies in ensuring that these new capabilities are seamlessly integrated to support the broader organizational strategy. One professional services company found itself at this crossroads after a series of strategic acquisitions, aiming to solidify its market leadership and enhance its service capabilities.

This professional service company had made a high-profile acquisition of a niche player eighteen months earlier. As a result, the workforce increased by 11%, and its service portfolio was completed with new capabilities for its new and existing clients.

The so-called winning-in-the-market feeling after this M&A deal didn’t happen. On the contrary, eighteen months after the deal, the responsible partner couldn’t deliver the expected results and prove the return on investment to the Head of the Country. This acquisition was hailed as the cornerstone of their market leadership strategy.

The partner needed to drive the integration in a different direction.

The partner realized he had been blindsided. He understood – luckily in time – that recognizing the culture wasn’t just about what he could see and observe. He needed to make the invisible visible to identify areas of improvement and make informed decisions for successful integration. He brought on Innovisor’s team for these insights and an action plan to accelerate the path to excellent integration.

In just two weeks, the partner received exactly what he needed – an action plan that helped him and his company transform the integration into a tangible business impact. It became clear that the acquired capability had remained siloed, isolated from the rest of the company, and had yet to contribute meaningfully to new business growth.

Innovisor’s thorough and rapid diagnostic confirmed what was suspected: the acquisition had not fully been integragred into the company’s operations. The acquired entity remained in a silos, leading to lack of added value and missed synergies across the broader organization.

Two critical obstacles were identified that hindered the company’s ability to execute its “winning-in-the-market” strategy effectively:

1. Siloed Operations

Despite the acquisition, most new business continued to be generated and developed within existing, siloed service capabilities, limiting cross-functional innovation and collaboration.

2. Limited Cross-Collaboration

Cross-collaboration between service capabilities was occurring primarily at the managerial level, with minimal integration or cooperation among teams at other levels of the organization.

To overcome these challenges and fully capitalize on the acquisition, the company implemented several key initiatives:

1. Establishment of a Centralized Bidding Function

A new bidding function was created to manage major bids across all service capabilities, ensuring that the company could leverage its full range of expertise and integrated services in every new business opportunity.

This function was composed of five highly central non-managerial individuals from each of the respective capabilities. By working on this cross-functional task, they not only enhanced the company’s coherence with 8% but also ensured the company’s resilience to the market needs and requirements were addressed with expertise and knowledge to beat any of their competitors.

2. Leadership-Driven Integration

Senior leadership took direct responsibility for integrating the acquired company, actively engaging in strategy activities and connecting key players across the organization to break down silos.

3. Enforced Cross-Collaboration through Resource Planning

The company revamped its internal resource planning processes to prioritize cross-collaboration, ensuring that resources were allocated in a way that encouraged teamwork across service capabilities.

These targeted actions quickly began to pay off. The company started winning new business at an accelerated pace, as it became more effective in integrating and communicating its entire service portfolio into its client offerings. By breaking down silos and ensuring that its acquisitions were fully integrated, the company regained its competitive edge and solidified its position as a market leader.