Acing mergers and acquisitions: Why your people are the real driver of deal success

Mergers and acquisitions are rising, especially among mid-sized companies and growing enterprises looking to scale quickly and strengthen their market position. 

The headlines usually spotlight deal size and financial strategy, but the biggest challenges of mergers and acquisitions are rooted in people and culture.

As Nathalie Berthelius, senior consultant and people strategy lead at Influence People, notes, “Senior leadership often underestimates how much the success of an M&A depends on how well managers and key employees understand, believe in, and can represent the new direction.”

For CFOs and CPOs, the post-deal phase is equally exciting and daunting. Bringing organizations together means unifying cultures, reconciling different systems, and making sense of new reporting lines. Layer in disconnected data, policy misalignment, and the pressure to show results fast, and even the strongest deals can stall.

That’s why aligning HR and Finance on a shared people strategy is critical. It’s the key to a smoother integration, stronger culture, and faster return on investment.

This article explores how people-first HR can unlock business-first outcomes, and how the right HCM platform can bring flexibility, insight, and structure to the entire M&A journey.

M&A chaos? Overcoming merger and acquisition challenges starts with people.

You built a strong business. The deal made sense on paper. But the real test of success begins after the paperwork is signed. That’s when CFOs and CPOs discover that it’s rarely people slowing things down—it’s the systems, workflows, and processes meant to support them.

Redundant tools and disconnected systems often leave HR, Finance, and Operations siloed in different spreadsheets or platforms, each speaking a slightly different “language” when it comes to reporting and planning. 

With limited visibility into new org structures, workforce planning becomes guesswork.

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Mergers and acquisitions often lead to manual, mismatched workflows across regions or sites. This delays essentials like onboarding, payroll, or approvals—exactly when speed and accuracy matter most. 

Add to that policy misalignment around time off, contracts, or compensation, and you have a recipe for confusion and greater compliance risk.  

And with delayed data syncs, leaders end up relying on outdated reports instead of real-time insights, making it difficult to address M&A challenges effectively. 

But with an HCM that connects data, workflows, and people operations across entities, leaders can unlock smoother integrations and give their people the infrastructure they need to succeed.

The integration gap: Where M&As lose traction

The biggest risks in an M&A aren’t hidden in the finances—they show up in day-to-day operations. Post-deal friction doesn’t come from a lack of talent or effort, but from gaps in alignment that ripple through systems, workflows, and culture.

Here’s where deals often lose traction:

• Disconnected systems. When one company runs remote-first and the other expects office-first, tech stacks and workflows rarely align, impeding clear decision-making and increasing risk.
• Inconsistent workflows. Onboarding, payroll, and compliance checks get held up when teams operate on different cycles, policies, or tools.
• Fragmented cultures. Recognition and feedback practices often differ across organizations, making it harder for people to engage, align, and perform during times of change.
• Siloed data. Without a single source of truth, HR, Finance, and Operations can’t access the real-time insights needed to plan confidently around costs, headcount, or workforce risks.

How people tech can help

These are planning problems that surface fast in the high-pressure environment of mergers and acquisitions. The good news is that they’re avoidable. 

With a single HCM to connect data, workflows, and compliance across entities, HR and Finance leaders can replace uncertainty with clarity. Instead of reacting to chaos, they can steer integration with confidence and give their people the structure they need to succeed through the transition.

<<M&A success doesn’t come from spreadsheets. See how HR and Finance drive integration together. Get the guide.>>>>

A shared plan for a smoother transition

Finance and HR leaders know that a signed deal is just the beginning. Turning strategy into results requires a common playbook that connects people priorities with financial realities. 

When both functions work from the same plan from day one, they can cut through complexity and accelerate transition. 

As Nathalie Berthelius says, “One of the most effective steps I’ve seen is when HR and Finance jointly define and prioritize ‘people-critical milestones’ early in the integration process …When these milestones are mapped alongside financial and operational goals—and communicated consistently—alignment accelerates and uncertainty drops.”

Here are some of the moves that matter most:

• Set cultural priorities early. Agree on the values and behaviors that will anchor the new organization, and communicate clearly what’s staying, what’s evolving, and why to prevent uncertainty from eroding trust.
• Audit and streamline systems. Post-deal environments often have overlapping platforms for payroll, time tracking, or HRIS. Finance and HR can work together to map the tech landscape, identify redundancies, and decide where to consolidate or integrate.
• Balance global standards with local nuance. Consistency is essential, but one-size-fits-all rarely works. Align on which processes must be standardized—like approvals, payroll, or performance reviews—and where localization is non-negotiable.
• Plan people and costs with connected data. Finance and HR often track workforce data separately, which creates silos. A unified system that combines headcount, costs, and workforce planning metrics gives both sides the same source of accurate data to plan effectively from.

How people tech can help

With a unified HCM that offers workflow automation, centralized dashboards, and role-based access, teams across the business can operate from connected data and shared goals. They’re better equipped to get the insights they need to move fast, protect culture through change, and accelerate the return on investment the deal was designed to deliver.

<<Overcoming merger and acquisition challenges starts with alignment. Discover how shared insights fuel smarter planning. Download the guide.>>

What successful M&A teams do differently

Not every deal delivers on its promises. The difference between stalled integrations and smooth ones often comes down to how HR and Finance work together. 

The most successful teams treat HR and Finance as a unified operating system for the new organization.

And the most successful M&A teams set themselves apart by:

• Building configurable workflows. Instead of patching together processes from two legacy systems, they create consistent onboarding, transition, and offboarding flows across locations and contract types.
• Reinforcing culture through recognition and feedback. Embedding tools for recognition and continuous feedback into daily work strengthens the employee experience and shared culture during integration.
• Segmenting people data for smarter planning. Teams slice data by geography, function, or tenure to make better decisions around resourcing and talent mobility.
• Sharing dashboards across HR and Finance. A single, shared dashboard with headcount, attrition, engagement, and cost metrics enables faster, aligned decision-making. 

<<One system. One truth. One plan. Learn how HR and Finance turn data into results. Get the guide now.>>

How people tech can help

An HCM platform designed for complexity can become the single system of record for people data, workflows, and decisions. This gives leaders the clarity they need to navigate change confidently and deliver stronger outcomes.

HR and Finance: The strategic duo behind every smooth transition

When HR and Finance work from a shared system, culture scales with structure, not in spite of it. People data becomes decision-ready, eliminating lagging reports and copy-paste guesswork. 

Workflows adapt quickly to new org charts, contracts, and policies. Compliance stays on track because policies, documents, and approvals move in sync. Risk goes down, too, so teams can focus on growth rather than troubleshooting.

This is exactly what modern HCMs are built to do—and how HR and Finance leaders use them to drive stronger outcomes together with a platform that connects the dots. Successful teams treat their HCM as the operating system for integration, not a glorified spreadsheet.

That symbiosis between leadership and tech turns post-deal complexity into clarity, speed, and alignment—so the value of the deal shows up where it matters: in the day-to-day experience of your people and the results you report to the board.

<<From culture clashes to compliance gaps—tackle merger and acquisition challenges with confidence. Download the guide.>>

Key takeaways

• Mergers and acquisitions unlock growth, but risks run deep. The biggest challenges of mergers and acquisitions rarely come from the financials. They emerge in daily operations.
• Acquisition challenges stem from systems, not people. Disconnected workflows, siloed data, and fragmented cultures slow down integrations and erode deal value.
• CFOs and CPOs need a shared playbook. Aligning on people priorities and financial realities helps cut through complexity and accelerate integration.
• HR and Finance together drive smoother M&A outcomes. From workforce planning and compliance to culture and communication, alignment creates clarity instead of chaos.
• The right HCM platform makes the difference. With connected data, automated workflows, and real-time insights, leaders can turn acquisition challenges into opportunities for a stronger culture, faster ROI, and measurable growth.