Bucking the M&A Failure Trend

It’s widely reported that more than 70% of mergers and acquisitions fail to deliver. With over 35,000 deals struck in 2024 alone (Mergemarket), that suggests around 24,000 fizzled out — an eye-watering level of disruption for companies, investors, and employees.

Why do so many falter once the ink is dry?

The hidden culprit: fragmentation

Look closely at why integrations stumble, and a single theme emerges: fragmentation.

• People splinter when leadership isn’t aligned.
• Processes fracture when two sets of rules are bolted together rather than harmonised.
• Systems clash when IT is left to stitch together incompatible platforms.

Too often, businesses treat integration like a crude patchwork — two companies stitched side by side, each defending its way of doing things. It’s like asking two interior designers to decorate half a house each, then hoping the results somehow look like one home. The outcome is confusion, wasted energy, and a workforce paralysed by uncertainty.

Cohesion starts and ends with the CEO

M&A isn’t a two-phase affair. Deal strategy and execution grab the headlines, but the hardest, most decisive stage is post-merger integration (PMI).

And here’s the uncomfortable truth: too many CEOs step back just when their presence is most critical. They hand integration to consultants, functional heads, or HR. As Baruch Lev and Feng Gu put it in The M&A Failure Trap: “When the going gets tough, everyone leaves.”

But walking away at this stage is fatal. Investopedia names limited leader involvement as one of the biggest risks. Boston Consulting Group is blunter: integration can’t be delegated. It must be lived, led, and embodied by the CEO.

Cohesion comes from the top. Without it, everything else unravels.

What leadership in integration looks like

So, what does this mean in practice? A CEO who wants the business to thrive post-merger must:

• Stay visibly and consistently engaged
• Make — and own — the tough calls
• Actively engage with both leadership teams and customers
• Control the integration, not outsource it

This requires constant dialogue, feedback loops, and tough judgement calls based on a clear information flow. Advisers can support — but the CEO must be the knowledge hub, the decision-maker, and the visible beacon of the new company.

The first order of business? Defining (or redefining) a shared vision and mission. If integration is to succeed, everyone — leaders, employees, and customers — must see the purpose, direction, and value of the new entity. Without that unifying compass, cohesion is impossible.

Culture: the most delicate challenge

If vision aligns minds, culture aligns behaviours. And culture, more than any system or process, is where integrations are won or lost.

Culture can’t be imposed, copied, or ‘fixed’. It must be cultivated. When one company’s culture steamrolls the other, resentment grows, morale sinks and attrition follows.

Handled carefully, however, culture can become the connective tissue of the new business. Shared values and aligned behaviours build a sense of belonging. They create not just a merged company, but a single, coherent organisation.

The CEO as designer

Ultimately, the CEO’s role is not just to close the deal but to design the business that follows. That means being:

• The creator of the new vision and mission
• The orchestrator of alignment across people, processes, and systems
• The decision-maker who doesn’t flinch from complexity
• The engager who brings both teams and customers into the fold
• The leader who sets the cultural tone

This is how to buck the M&A failure trend. By driving integration top-down, the CEO ensures the new company isn’t two mismatched halves stitched together, but one cohesive enterprise — built on a single design, with a single purpose, and a culture people believe in.

For CEOs navigating integration, this is your moment. The deal was only the prelude. What happens now is the true test of leadership. If you want clarity, cohesion, and a business that thrives, let’s talk. I’d love to help.