Here’s the answer: The length of the transition period.

The longer you take to integrate, the closer you live to the edge. Disappointing deals correlate highly with slow consolidation.

Decades of merger experience prove this. The turtle may win the race in fairy tales, but not in the grinding, gut-wrenching, high-risk game of merger integration. We’ve been saying this for years, and it’s coming close to being accepted now as conventional wisdom. Here’s the problem—companies still demonstrate big differences of opinion regarding what “fast” really is.

Some organizations, we all know, are notoriously slow. They can speed up significantly, and still be dragging their feet to a dangerous degree. Who comes to mind? Utilities. Some insurance companies. Governmental agencies. Not-for-profit organizations. And some of America’s corporate giants that lumber along like cargo planes in a competitive world better suited for fighter jets.

In fact, even those companies that could consider themselves respectably fast...

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