Is M&A part of your growth strategy? Three tips to help maximize your potential benefits.

With Amazon’s buyout of Whole Foods, Disney’s acquisition of several 21st Century Fox assets, or CVS Health’s acquisition of Aetna, merger and acquisition (M&A) waves continue to ripple across different industries and geographies.

What are you doing to stay competitive?

Most organizations struggle to achieve the desired value from M&A’s because their framework (methods, tools, and practices) do not reach the required levels of quality or effectiveness. Whether you are considering M&A as a growth strategy or you are trying to maximize the benefits of a recent M&A, the following three tips can help ensure your organization realizes the full value of an integration.

Map your customer journey

Mapping a customer’s journey provides a holistic view of all customer interactions, from a customer’s perspective, and enables organizations to support growth-oriented decision making throughout the integration. A bad customer experience (CX) in today’s viral society can negatively affect your organization’s ability to integrate and see a return on value. Don’t be the next casualty of poor customer service — get serious about your customer experience.

Mapping the CX journey includes:

• Definition of the current state of your CX
• Design and testing of new customer experiences
• Development of a future state CX road map

Establish an Integration Management Office

An Integration Management Office (IMO) is a temporary project management office (PMO) that drives the people, processes, and technology required to quickly obtain benefits from your M&A. According to Garner Industry Research, “organizations who establish standards for project management, including a PMO with suitable governance, will experience half the major project cost overruns, delays and cancellations of those that fail to do so.[1]”

The maturity of an IMO can vary across organizations and evolve based on the needs and objectives of your integration.

Quick self-assessment: What level is your IMO?