Mergers and acquisitions: A means to gain technology and expertise
M&A can provide companies with the opportunity to stay competitive, expand their global footprint, or enhance their service or product offerings whilst maintaining a high degree of control.
Our 2020 European Technology Index reveals:
When making an acquisition, companies are typically looking at a range of benefits:
- access to new technology (51%)
- establishing a faster presence in a market (45%)
- a defensive move to prevent competition acquiring an asset (44%)
- speedy acquisition of market share (40%)

Companies often face a number of challenges when integrating external businesses
The biggest drawbacks cited by senior directors rating acquisition of external business as a top issue included:
- requirement to integrate systems that may not be currently compatible (49%, but
70% in the public sector)
- requirement to make promised cost savings to justify acquisition (45%)
- diversion of financial investment from other projects (41%, but 50% in the public
sector)
M&A is likely to be an increasingly important aspect of long-term strategy in technology
From a technological perspective, respondents ranked the key challenges of any acquisition as:
- mitigation of skills gaps/integration of workforces (51%)
- securing budget to achieve integration objectives (43%)
- systems integration (41%)
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