Marketing

Human resources

Accounting

Economics

Computer science

Brand equity

Mergers and acquisitions

Rebranding

Business

Management

Value (mathematics)

Revenue

Finance

Machine learning

Business Horizons

The number and value of mergers and acquisitions (M&As) continue to grow, with record increases in the U.S. and Asia Pacific in 2015. Yet, despite calls from academic literature for more consideration of the human and behavioral factors in such massive change, there remains an inordinate focus on the financial or quantitative aspects. We connect the newer streams of research with efficiency and growth imperatives via an illustrative analysis of ANZ New Zealand's horizontal merger with The National Bank of New Zealand. ANZ successfully completed a brand and technology merger by prioritizing the customer, addressing employees’ socioeconomic concerns, providing enough time and resources to ensure efficiencies, and rebranding enriched customer services and revenues. The results were overwhelmingly positive and provide a useful template for how M&As should be executed in the future using a people-first approach.

Managing mergers: Why people first can improve brand and IT consolidations