Post Merger Integration - The Cost of Misalignment

Taking Control of Collaboration in Post-Merger Integration

Post-merger integrations depend on more than a clear transition plan, coherent systems, defined frameworks, clean org charts, and defined governance.

They also rely heavily on collaborative success across organisational boundaries. How do the different people and teams actually work together?

Just Eat - A very public integration failure - $6.5 billion in shareholder value destroyed when Grubhub was sold in 2025 for just $650 million, down from the $7.3 billion acquisition price in 2021.

Despite years of trying, they never truly integrated their operational networks, technological platforms, or corporate cultures.

Your org chart is only part of the solution. The real work happens through informal networks, the people who actually solve problems, share knowledge, and make decisions when systems break down.

Most integration failures aren't execution problems. They're intelligence problems, where critical decisions about combining organisations are made, without understanding how they actually work.

What's Missing? Traditional PMI focuses on synergy tracking and milestone delivery. But where's the visibility into:

• Who teams really rely on for critical decisions?
• How knowledge actually flows between legacy organisations?
• Which informal relationships drive performance?
• Where cultural friction is building beneath the surface?

A Different Approach... Organisational Network Analysis maps how collaboration really happens through structured surveys, so you can track your organisational system over time.

The real value isn't just the data, it's the conversations it opens. Teams can step back from symptoms and reflect on the human system itself, without assigning blame.

Failed integrations don't fail gradually, they fail catastrophically. Talent leaves in clusters when their support networks are dismantled. Innovation stops when informal knowledge-sharing disappears.

Network analysis costs thousands. Integration failure costs billions.

So if we can measure financial synergies, operational milestones, and cultural alignment - why do we leave collaboration to chance?

What's your experience? Have you seen integrations succeed or fail based on the invisible networks that actually make organisations work?