Merger Integration Challenges Report

This report investigates the merger integration challenges faced by Jefferson Wells, a professional services firm, and Manpower Professional. The research aims to assess the merger's impact on market positioning and the go-to-market strategy for the newly merged entity. The study employs both qualitative and quantitative research methods, including interviews with staff at various levels and the development of a questionnaire to identify key challenges. Secondary data from similar mergers will also be analyzed. The report will determine marketing and customer base issues, develop a strategy to mitigate these issues, and identify customer-valued features to maintain throughout the integration process. A Gantt chart outlines the project timeline, which concludes before the merged company's launch in May/June 2011.

Title
Merger Integration Challenges in the Professional Services Industry; - a study of a business merger
and the issues affecting Markets, Customers, Products and Services and Operations.
Background
Jefferson Wells is a professional services firm offering consulting services and experienced, skilled
resources, in the areas of Risk, Tax, and Finance and Accounting. The company was founded in 1995
in the Mid-West USA and has since expanded throughout the United States, and Internationally. It
now has over 50 offices in the USA, EMEA and Asia. Its EMEA offices are in London, UK; Amsterdam,
The Netherlands; Frankfurt, Germany, and Johannesburg, South Africa. The company is a wholly
owned subsidiary of Manpower Inc. (Jefferson Wells: Overview, 2010)
Manpower Professional is a sister company of Jefferson Wells i.e. another wholly owned subsidiary
of Manpower Inc, and it has been decided to merge the operations of Manpower Professional (MPP)
with Jefferson Wells to create a larger business focusing on the project and resourcing solution
needs of the Finance, Tax and Risk communities. The proposed merger also combines other
Manpower companies in IT services, Engineering and Healthcare. This project will focus however on
the specific issues in the merger of the finance and accounting companies, being Jefferson Wells and
Manpower Professional.
The merging of two companies causes a wide range of issues to be faced and worked on to create
the best, most effective solution. This project is looking into some of the main issues brought from
this merger in terms of the marketing aspects including the value proposition, target markets, key
customers and customer segments, resourcing, recruitment and the re-branding of the merged
company.
A Merger is a “mutually agreed decision for joint ownership between organisations” (Johnson et al,
2009, p.233). Generally with mergers, one organisation is typically more powerful and exploits this
influence over the other organisation(s). There are many reasons as to why companies decide to
merge with each other including; market domination, which also assists with their competitive
advantage, consolidation opportunities such as utilising other company’s strengths to balance out
one company’s weakness (Johnson et al, 2009).
Research Question and Objectives
The research objective is to assess how the merger of the two companies will impact the market
positioning and go-to-market message for the new merged company. The project will seek to answer
the following key questions:-
 “What is the new go-to-market Value Proposition” for the merged company?
 “How does this differ from the Jefferson Wells proposition”
 “What main market opportunities does the merger create?”

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 “What key operational implications does this raise, specifically focused on Service delivery”
The project will look at the enhanced Value Proposition of the new organisation, the re-branding of
the company, and ways in which to market the new brand, to retain existing clients of both
organisations, and also to exploit the new company’s value proposition to attract new clients.
The objectives of this consultancy project are therefore to:
 Determine the issues that the merger will cause in terms of marketing and the company’s
value proposition, and the customer base issues that come with this.
 To develop a strategy which will combat these issues and in theory will produce a positive
outcome from the merger as measured by higher profits, a strong retained and enhanced
client base and high employee retention.
 Identify what features the customers value the most from Jefferson Wells and creating a
plan that keeps these factors consistent in value throughout the merging process
Research Method
The start of the research will begin with some “descriptive research” which will provide further
information and a better understanding of the particular issues and challenges that the Jefferson
Wells’ Management Team are facing as a result of the pending merger. This will give the basis of
my research to follow which will be “exploratory research” to focus on collecting data around the
key issues. (Brassington & Pettitt, 2003)
Once the preliminary research has been conducted and a good understanding of the issues has been
formed, the next step will be to focus the research on the specific companies and how it will affect
them. The research shall be split into two: Qualitative and Quantitative. Qualitative research
“involves the collection of data that are open to interpretation” (Brassington & Pettitt, 2003, p. 218).
Quantitative research “involves the collection of data that is quantifiable and is not open to the
same level of interpretation” (Brassington & Pettit, 2003, p. 218). This data will also be considered in
terms of primary and secondary data, to make it easier to organise into the research in which has
been personally conducted versus the data collected from other researchers.
The methods that will be used to research the problem in order to form a successful strategy will
include: interviews with the directors, managers and general staff of Jefferson Wells. This will help
give a clear view of how all staff members see the situation and give insight into the issues that will
affect each level of employees; once this has been completed a questionnaire shall be constructed
to bring to light the key issues raised from the interviews in order to identify what Jefferson Wells
and Manpower staff see as the greater challenges of the merger. The questionnaire will enable us to
put the data into numerical statistics, which gives us along with the interviews both the statistical
data as well as the reasoning behind it.
Secondary data will be collected and analysed. The data collected will be from companies who have also
merged with a sister, parent or competitive company to identify the problems they have faced in doing
so, and the ways in which they approached the problems to solve them. This will give
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indications of what will and will not work in terms of a strategy to use during the merging process.
Thus the information gathered will be collected, analysed, interpreted to identify key issues and
recommendations for these issues and finally concluded.
Gantt Chart
A Gantt chart is a useful way to schedule the tasks which needs to be performed during a pre-
determined time period. The advantages of a Gantt chart are “they provide a simple visual
representation both of what should be happening and of what actually is happening in operation”
(Slack et al, 2007, p. 307).
The timeline for this project must end before the end of March because the reveal of the merged
company will be toward May and June 2011, which leaves enough time to make adjustments to
solve the issues at hand. (See Appendix One)
Resources
There are not many resources that are required to carry out the project; they fall into 2 main
categories: access to key people who are willing to participate in the study, and academic collected
works. The people that will be involved in the research process include the staff of Jefferson Wells
and Manpower on all levels of the hierarchy. Also other directors and management consultants will
be approached whom are either going through a merger themselves or have been through one
previously. Finally the academic collected works that will be used include academic journals
regarding mergers, academic journals regarding the professional service industry, and books
involving the theory relevant to the research topic.
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References
 Slack, N., Chambers, S., Johnston, R., 2007. Operations Management. 5th Edition. Essex. Pearson
Education Limited.
 Johnson, G., Scholes, K., Whittington, R., 2009. Fundamentals of Strategy. Essex. Pearson
Education Limited
 Brassington, F., Pettitt, S., 2003. Principles of Marketing. 3rd Edition. Essex. Pearson Education
Limited.
 Jefferson Wells International, Inc. 2010. Overview. London: Manpower Inc. Available from:
http://www.jeffersonwells.com/About/Overview.htm (Accessed 30 November 2010)
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Appendix 1- Gantt Chart
Project Name Merger integration Challenges
Project Description Launching a New Branded Merged Company
Project Length 5 Months
Start Date 01/11/2010
Working Days Monday- Friday
Proposed End Date 10/03/2011
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Task Start Date November
Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 Week 1
Generation of Project Proposal 01/11/2010
Initial meeting with M.D
Gathering of initial information
Analysis of situation
Identify research question and objectives
Proposal to M.D
Conduct Research 15/12/2010
Gathering of Secondary Research
Interviews with Staff
Interviews with others
Development of Questionnaire
Analysis of Research 01/02/2011
Analysis of Secondary Data
Analysis of Interviews
Questionnaires to staff/ other companies
Analysis of Questionnaire results
Conclusions
Interpretation of all research analysis
Initial recommendations
Discussion with M.D
Finalise recommendations
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December January February March
Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 Week 1 Week 2 Week 3 Week 4 Week 1 Week 2
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