Trissential Consultants Find Mergers or Acquisitions Fail to Deliver Savings

MINNEAPOLIS, Jan. 21 /PRNewswire/ -- Trissential, a management consulting company specializing in business improvement, finds that combining business systems such as enterprise resource planning and customer relationship management following a merger or acquisition, like the one now being discussed between Northwest and other airlines, takes on average twice as long and costs 50 to 100 percent more than originally projected.

"Not meeting the savings projections relates to the governance, management, and implementation of business system integration," said Michael Vinje, PMP, principal and vice president of Trissential's Project Management Practice. He adds that:

    -- Many times implementations lack linkage and traceability between the
       merger and acquisition consultant's projections and critical
       dependencies
    -- Governance committees do not have a window into the implementation and
       are unable to make timely, fact-based decisions

On the other hand, Vinje says that success is generally characterized by governance committees that:

    -- Base decisions on real-time data, possess sound expectations for
       results, and commit to a disciplined process
    -- Prioritize implementations over a realistic timeframe and allocate
       sufficient resources
    -- Are trained on and use decision making tools

"Leaders in these organizations know on any given day within 10 percent the time and cost status of each implementation," Vinje said. "All major projections are traceable through a database of dependencies."

Since it may require 6 to 30 months to raise the level of maturity required of the governance committee, project leaders, and implementation teams, Trissential recommends starting well before a merger or acquisition by:

    -- Assessing the project-management maturity of executives and the
       portfolio and project management (PPM) team across three broad
       indicators -- people, processes, and tools
    -- Developing a plan to rectify issues
    -- Implementing the plan using best project-management practices

For more information and a white paper on the issues of governance, project management, and execution following a merger or acquisition, call 952-595-7970 or write info@trissential.com.

About Trissential

Trissential, http://www.trissential.com, specializes in business improvement and IT project implementation for mid-sized companies. Trissential essentialists help companies achieve desired results through the alignment of strategy with efficient management and exceptional IT project implementation. Trissential, with offices in Minneapolis and Milwaukee, develops Projecy(C) brand project-management maturity tools.

     MEDIA CONTACTS:
     Michael Vinje
     Trissential
     952-595-7970

     Steve Sterling
     Sterling Public Relations
     952-935-0078