cameron and green making-sense-of-change-management

The applicationsCASE STUDY OF SUCCESS: ISPATIspat is an international steel-making company which successfullypursues long-term acquisition strategies. It is one of the world’s largeststeel companies and its growth has come almost entirely through adecade-long series of acquisitions.Ispat’s acquisitions are strictly focused. It never goes outside its corebusiness. It has a well-honed due diligence process which it uses to learnabout the people who are running the target company and convincethem that joining Ispat will give them an opportunity to grow.The company works with the potential acquisition’s management todevelop a five-year business plan that will not only provide an acceptablereturn on investment, but chime with Ispat’s overall strategy.Ispat relies on a team of 12 to 14 professionals to manage its acquisitions.Based in London, the team’s members have solid operationalbackgrounds and have worked together since 1991.We have taken several different sources, all of which propose a set of rulesfor mergers and acquisitions, and distilled these into five learning points:• Communicate constantly.• Get the structure right.• Tackle the cultural issues.• Keep customers on board.• Use a clear overall process.Communicate constantlyIn the excitement of the deal, company bosses often forget that the mergeror acquisition is more than a financial deal or a strategic opportunity. It isa human transaction between people too. Top managers need to do morethan simply state the facts and figures; they need to employ all sorts ofmethods of communication to enhance relationships, establish trust, getpeople to think and innovate together and build commitment to a jointfuture. They also need to use all the avenues available to them such as:230