Basic tools of knowledge management in mergers and acquisitions

Knowledge management has a lot of potential goldmines to open up.
One of these goldmines, in the world of continuous mergers, fusions and take-overs is handling knowledge during the above processes.

Let’s take a simple case, but the same principles are applicable in more complex cases.

One company – on one side of the world – acquired by another company on the other side of the world. Companies, in the same industrial business, but with different knowledge, knowledge handling, knowledge maturity and structure. And this for all functions in the companies: technical, support, HR, financial: it’s all duplicated in one way or the other.

And the major hick-ups are not in solving the knowledge management using a technical solution.

People knowing me know it’s one of my crusades that knowledge management is not solved by selecting one tool and putting the knowledge in there. It’s proven enough that this simply does not work because of the dynamics of the knowledge itself, the people, the company, and the volatile environments.

Let me give a few hand-holds that can help to successful merge, fuse or acquire.

As – also for other knowledge management projects – the most important assets are the knowledge itself and the people handling this knowledge.

One tool that helps in all cases is assessing the knowledge maturity. Although (and despite we’ve developed such tools but not really commercialized them)  it is still under discussion how a culture can be measured and how precise such an assessment is, it certainly has value.

When two different cultures meet, it is important to not only understand each other’s culture, but also to know each other maturity on change management and knowledge handling.

Certainly when acquiring a company in a totally different culture, where you certainly do not know the associates of the other company, this is a quick and easy way to assess this associates up-to personal level if you would like.

Of course there are the strategies of optimizing processes, but deciding whose process will take over whose process is mostly depending on political decisions in the company – it is not always the best process.
But also here, it would be foolish not to learn from one another, doing quick assessments of each other processes. Taking a business case approach here will guide you to increase efficiency and effectivity in all cases. And in the worst case, the only added value is shared knowledge and increased awareness.

...and lot's more!

--- in case you want to know more – contact me !