7 Tips for Surviving a Merger or Acquisition

When the economy goes south, merger and acquisition activity goes up, as companies seek efficiencies and economies of scale to weather the storm.



By Rich Casselberry

December 31, 2008 — CIO — The company I work for recently announced a joint venture with a much larger company. While calling this business transaction a joint venture makes it sound harmonious and collaborative, the reality is, it's probably an acquisition. My firm does a few hundred million dollars in annual revenue with 900 employees; the other firm is almost twenty times our size. They outsource their entire IT organization; ours is almost entirely in house. We actually looked at outsourcing our IT department to the same company that manages their IT a few years ago and decided to continue to run it ourselves. We felt we would get better service and could do it for about 20 percent less than what it would cost to outsource.