White Paper: Mergers & Acquisitions - Why Ignoring the People Dimension Results in Failure

According to investment analysts Dealogic, total 2015 global M&A expenditure could exceed $4.7 trillion, 34% higher than 2014 and exceeding the 2007 record. But whether growing sales or shedding costs, the challenge of extracting value remains - and history makes uncomfortable reading.

Surveys show that as many as 80% of deals destroy rather than create wealth, and there is a familiar pattern to these failures.

Too much of the wrong talk; structures that cling to the old and fail to facilitate the new; strategies that reward the wrong behaviours. Above all, insensitivity around culture and values.

Ultimately, any M&A is only as good as the organisational change programme that succeeds it - which is why people, not numbers, lie at the heart of success.