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%)

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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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