Decision Support for Selecting an Application Landscape Integration Strategy in Mergers and Acquisitions

Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) represent a powerful strategic instrument increasingly applied in today’s business environment. Besides juridical, financial, and organizational challenges, it is crucial to rapidly integrate the existing application landscapes in order to capitalize the aspired synergies. Literature documents four commonly agreed strategies: ‘best-of-breed’, ‘absorption’, ‘co-existence’, and ‘new-build’. However, no consolidated set of criteria exists to ease the selection of an integration strategy most suitable for the merger or the acquisition. Based on the results of a literature study, this paper proposes four integration profiles enabling a structured decision support for selecting the appropriate application landscape strategy during M&A. Each profile comprises relevant driving factors and resulting consequences as selection criteria. The identified literature statements regarding the criteria are validated by means of 12 confirmatory interviews with M&A experts. Furthermore, collected findings from an additional exploratory interview part with the practitioners complement the devised strategy profiles.