Enterprises worldwide have seen a rash of mergers and acquisitions recently as economies continue to revive, and for such aggressive organizations, this tactic makes perfect sense. As these bruised and battered companies fight to maintain relevance within their industries, a solid M&A strategy offers an almost instant fix to lagging revenues or a narrow customer base, and provides a realistic approach to building corporate muscle, setting the stage for longevity. Along with such clear tangible benefits, merging two organizations also creates a formidable list of challenges that can threaten the core of any business.

In essence, every merger is executed to gain assets. Newly merged businesses may combine forces where the synergies exist, but may not necessarily share all resources. They often operate with separate offices, management teams and product development facilities, particularly when an acquired brand needs to be maintained separate from the parent company’s brand.

What is often overlooked as strategically unrecognized assets in any M&A is data -- data that represents the cash, customers, products and services acquired through the merger or acquisition. That data represents a tangible view of the customer, and maps out both the outward looking strategic direction as well as tactical directions for marketing, sales and information systems (IT) departments.

However, if companies are not prepared to smartly handle the new organizational structure and related processes, the deal itself may be rendered useless, or worse, become an economic albatross. The result can snowball – low employee morale creates unsatisfied customers, which leads to missed business opportunities – all of which impact the bottom line with the potential for millions of dollars in corporate losses. At the same time, market confusion over how committed the new entity is to an acquired brand can send resellers and major customers in search of new partners and vendors. Yet with any challenge comes opportunity. Organizations that do recognize the roadblocks to executing a successful M&A strategy can anticipate such landmines and prepare for corporate success down the road by leveraging one common thread…. data.

With any merger there may be strong synergies among corporate fundamentals, but rarely do two businesses operate the same – even among office locations. The importance of data is one constant. Data provides the key to understanding how each organizational structure is designed and executed, how corporate cultural issues are handled and how customers are managed. Leading analyst firms have cited poor data quality as the number one reason why customer related IT projects, such as CRM systems, fail to deliver. Ensuring the quality of such vital information as data is consolidated should be job number one when starting down the path to M&A success.