Being active in 190 countries around the world, mergers and acquistions are part of the business routine for the engineering conglemerate Siemens AG. A smooth integration process is vital for business success. Supporting this integration process is one of the tasks of Robert Gibson, senior consultant for training and projects at the Siemens headquarters in Munich, Germany. tcworld spoke to him about the challenge of integrating new corporate and national cultures.
Can you give us an example for the successful integration of cultures following a merger or acquisition that you have been involved in?
It is actually quite hard to define what successful integration is because it is debatable when the integration process is over. I think that we have sometimes over-optimistic ideas of how quickly the workforce can be integrated into the new company.
I’ve got one example of what I think is a success story, judging by the business success. This was a takeover of a small company from abroad with a few hundred employees by Siemens, with 400.000 employees. The original concern was that it would be difficult to integrate such a small company with highly qualified staff into a big company with a very complex organization. In addition, this was in an area of business with a lot of competition for qualified staff and the people in the company had other job ...
Read more after login
tekom members can log in directly with their "My tekom" access data.
You are not yet a tekom member, but would like to read one or more articles in full? Then you have the opportunity to register on the internet portal of the technical journal 'tcworld' without obligation. Once you have registered, you can select any three specialist articles and view them in full for a period of two months. The selection will then be deleted and you can select three new articles for the next two months.
As a tekom member you benefit from the following advantages::
- Online access to all articles of the trade magazine 'tcworld magazine'
- Exclusive specialist articles from all areas of technical communication
- Regular new articles from over 300 authors
- The technical journal 'tcworld magazine' as a printed edition
- Reduced admission prices to tekom conferences
- Membership fees for tekom publications
- Access to 'my tekom', the web forum with job offers / job requests, appointments, expert advice, service provider file and much more
Login
Registration
Promised: The trade magazine 'tcworld magazine' is the best we have. And we don't make the choice easy for ourselves. Every month, the editorial staff of the technical journal 'tcworld magazine' publishes the latest articles by renowned authors. This demanding selection is available exclusively to members of tekom (as usual, including the printed edition).
The trade magazine 'tcworld magazine' stands for intelligently prepared specialist articles, texts written to the point, informative content, surprising insights, international perspectives and communicates technical communication in an understandable, fast, clear and uncomplicated way - exclusively for you.
