I had an interesting talk with a business friend of mine a couple of days ago
I shared with him some statistics that I had discovered

Following an M&A:

• 75% of M&As deliver the results expected
• Productivity drops 50% over the following four to eight months
• 50% of the top talent will leave within twelve months
• The stock price rises only 30% of the time
• Employee engagement falls by 40%

So the question needs to be asked; “Why do businesses do it?”

The answer is generally to expand into new product areas, accelerate growth in new regions, acquire technology, processes or people.
The reason that so few M&As deliver what is expected is, in my experience, because risk analysis isn’t made of the people issues.
It’s people issues that have the capacity to derail an otherwise potentially beneficial M&A.

Those businesses that do consider the people issues at a very early stage tend to be the ones that deliver most, if not all, of their expectations.

If you would like a free paper of this topic please email me at:
stephen@assimilating-talent.com

70% of graduate interviews now include a telephone interview and 42% of companies now use video conferencing interviews when seeking to hire senior executives.

These statistics came as no surprise to me but when a friend asked me for advice on both techniques I thought I would share the info with my blog followers. Here’s the first with ten tips on handling a telephone interview and within the next few days I’ll upload more tips on managing the video interview.

http:youtu.be/hihecyzGLzk

Readers of this blog will know that  have posted articles on businesses that make it difficult for customers to buy through ill-conceived processes. (See The Sales Assassins At Wickes)

Today my good friend Andy Lopata (The author of the International best selling book on networking “Recommended” posted this screen-save from his attempt to buy Olympoic tickets…Need I say more?