CASE STUDY #4 :
Merging two companies

Real life solutions that have been designed and provided by MRE Consulting Group and allied firms.

A manufacturer of office supplies has its' home office on the East Coast.  They have manufacturing in Central America, and in Asia. After purchasing one of their major suppliers in the Mid-Western US, a year later they were still having many difficulties in properly combining the corporate cultures and information systems.  They asked us to help.

In actuality, there was no real plan to examine the two corporate cultures and information systems in advance.  This is often very difficult to do from the inside, because of perspective issues.  It is very hard to be objective about one's own operation.  This lack of impartial study of the relative strengths, weaknesses, and obstacles to integration was the core problem as we saw it.

After spending enough time to interview all of the key personnel at the parent company, including gaining a full understanding of their organizational structure, methods of operation, and the flow of information, we next spent a few days doing the same thing at the acquired firm.  Upon presenting our findings, the CEO of the parent company expressed some surprise and great interest that the systems of the acquired company were largely superior to his own!  We presented a plan to merge the information systems and run the two companies as one company. Ultimately the parent company moved its' home offices to the city the acquired company was in, a reversal of roles that became obvious once the facts were looked at impartially.