Does IT Matter When Companies Merge?

A group of financial services companies which had recently merged were questioned to determine how differences in IT systems affected merger implementation. Results showed that all but one of the companies believed the IT factor was the most important aspect at the pre‐merger planning stage. Post‐merger, generally IT seemed to be less important than expected, the systems differences had not slowed down company integration but new systems development was affected. Although not all companies had estimated systems mergers costs beforehand, none found these actual costs were higher than anticipated. In only one example was IT systems merger the main determinant of full company merger.