Mergers and acquisitions are often complicated, with many factors contributing to their failure—leadership changes, cultural clashes, unrealistic expectations, and even a loss of employee trust. But there’s one element that can address all these challenges: communication. 

A strategic communication plan is critical during a merger or acquisition to ensure transparency, build trust, and minimize confusion among stakeholders. It helps align employees, customers, and investors with the vision of the newly combined organization, reducing resistance and ensuring a smoother transition. Clear communication can prevent misinformation, maintain morale, and foster collaboration, ultimately driving the success of the M&A process.

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In this blog, we’ll explore how effective communication, powered by technology, can connect employees, build trust, and increase the chances of a successful merger or acquisition. 

3 Communication Tactics for Mergers and Acquisitions  

1. Clear, Concise and Consistent 

It’s no secret that successful mergers and acquisitions require communication. Internal communication professionals should deliver: 

• Clear messaging without fluff
• Concise language with bullet points and digestible paragraphs
• Consistent debriefs with timelines and milestones 

Honest and direct communication is the only way to keep employees engaged and involved in the process. 

Some firms tend to be shy on communication because change is unsettling, and the answers aren’t always easy or available. Instead, embrace the facts. Employees will accept ambiguous info if they’re able to ask questions. Employees don’t need all the answers all the time, just an environment that encourages dialogue. 

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2. Tell the story

Mergers and acquisitions require a change management strategy. People are more comfortable with change when they know the why behind it. Furthermore, the first collective question will be, how will I be affected? Companies have a responsibility to put their workforce in the best position to succeed, or at the very least, keep them informed. 

According to research by McKinsey, this is a crucial part of your announcement phase to ensure employees understand the strategy and vision behind the merger. Effective communication is crucial during the initial stages of a merger. 

By clearly articulating the strategic rationale, organizations can extend the merger's honeymoon period and ensure consistent messaging to employees, vendors, and other stakeholders.

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3. Internal Involvement

Speaking of employee involvement, this category carries weight on its own. Identifying internal change champions, managers, and employees, facilitates successful change management through communication. These groups spread the narrative throughout the company and drive two-way communication. 

A lack of internal involvement can lead to turnover. When Sprint acquired a majority stake in Nextel Communications for $35 billion in stock options, they were set to become the third-largest telecommunications provider. But Nextel executives and mid-level managers left in droves, citing company culture differences. Nextel employees were left out of decisions, and faced lengthy approval processes through Sprint executives. Three years later, Sprint Nextel posted a $29.5B quarterly loss and the stock received a junk status rating. 

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Mergers & Acquisitions + Employee Experience Technology

Communication and employee experience are tightly intertwined. Mergers and acquisitions fall victim to the risks of large-scale changes without the proper communication platform, channels and execution. Negative culture effects, high turnover, bad press and extended delays can all be tied back to communication problems.   

It’s especially true when teams are dispersed across different geographies, different offices, and even working remotely - this is where technology will be your best asset to reach all employees, no matter where they live or work.  

The ability to deliver timely, targeted and clear communication across a large employee base is possible with a modern employee intranet, especially one that is equipped with the ability to segment employees so you can reach them most effectively.  Leveraging this technology requires some planning. Consider the five-step merger and acquisition process and how a modern employee intranet fits into your strategy.  

Phase 1: Design and ramp-up 

The initial stage is confidential. Plans are formulating. People and infrastructure are set in place. The ramp-up period is the time to establish milestones, deadlines and goals.  

How to leverage the intranet: Create a ramp-up community with stakeholders and leaders who will help during this transition process. You can utilize private, confidential communities within your intranet where you can configure permission settings and robust collaboration features. This ramp-up community creates the foundation for the rest of the process. 

Phase 2: Announcement

The communication blast kicks off the formal merger or acquisition process. There’s plenty of work that occurs before this point, but the announcement broadens the collaboration and alerts the masses. 

How to leverage the intranet: Along with a clear and well-articulated plan, open communication exchanges help with employee morale and could prevent turnover. Don’t miss this step of creating a space on the intranet for two-way communication where employees can express concerns and ask questions. 

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Phase 3: Pre-close integration planning

The post-announcement phase is when many organizations make the mistake of under-communicating. Not all questions can be answered at this time. But employees, existing and new, are eager for information as it becomes available. 

How to leverage the intranet: This phase is an ideal time to create a steering committee community or a community for cross-department stakeholders. Community members can stay informed and provide input as the process moves along. 

Phase 4: Day 1 

The Day 1 phase is a culmination of the work and planning by everyone involved. Ideally employees are excited about the months to come and have a solid understanding about what’s next. 

How to leverage the intranet:  Provide the opportunity for team members to connect and celebrate the news via the intranet. These conversations build momentum for restructuring. 

Phase 5: Integration implementation 

The last phase is likely the longest. The work is not done when the merger or acquisition officially begins. New employees must integrate and the restructure or implementation process begins. 

How to leverage the intranet during a merger: This phase requires a new form of communication, not just planning and information sharing, but creating a sense of belonging. Create a space on your intranet for onboarding with resources about the company. Your intranet may even include the ability to set up video learning flow or email onboarding journeys where you can send an email series with information that new employees should know about the company. 

M&A Case Study: Just Eat Takeaway.com

Just Eat Takeaway.com is a leading global online food delivery company that was formed via a merger between Takeaway.com (founded in The Netherlands) and Just Eat (founded in Denmark). 

Just Eat Takeaway.com (JET) connects tens of millions of customers with over 250,000 restaurants across 23 markets. The merger brought 4,000+ employees from each side under one digital roof. Their internal communication strategy and platform, The Kitchen powered by LumApps, played an important role. 

Takeaway.com and Just Eat were similar organizations in terms of their business model, but differed from a digital communications perspective.

JET identified three areas that required a merging of resources and technology: 

• Functional workstreams (departments and teams) 
• Countries and platforms
• Cross-functional workstreams

Change management and communication were recognized as key elements within the last group. The legacy Takeaway.com business did not have an internal communications team, had very few channels for sharing information, and no central point person for messaging. 

This meant they had to be onboarded into the new intranet, called The Kitchen, before other post-merger plans were in place. The Kitchen allowed different teams to begin working together quickly. 

In June 2020, JET completed an audit of current tools, customizations, rebranding, training and testing. A microsite was set up two weeks prior for testing and feedback gathering. Lastly, JET ran a small campaign to inform employees about the change and introduce the new platform. 

How the intranet enhanced engagement at JET

Beyond a technical scale, The Kitchen helped JET maintain consistent communication with the employees and ease fears..  

With the help of their new intranet, JET addressed the following three pillars: 

• Help people understand the why (explain)
• Help to create a sense of belonging
• Help to create active advocates who love the business

Several months post-acquisition, JET recorded 83 percent of employees as active users of The Kitchen. Additionally, 75 percent said they felt involved and connected with the company. 

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