Mass Merger - the Case of Aon Singapore
MASS MERGER
THE CASE OF AON SINGAPORE
Our case study deals with Mass Merger. Since the 90s, together with the globalization of business, Mergers and Acquisitions have developed at an incredible pace. Thus, companies from all over the world can be lead to work together as one single corporation. Moreover, the world has become interdependent not only economically, but also culturally, that is to say one culture may influence another one or different cultures can be mixed. It is then obvious that intercultural issues have to be solved.
In this case, we are going to talk about the Aon Singapore Merger process.
The Aon group is an American insurance services holding company. In the 90s, Aon acquired several insurance brokerage firms and entered an unprecedented merger process. Indeed, the group decided to get all the companies they acquired to operate together under the Aon name, in Singapore. That is why they had to face and manage intercultural issues.
What are these intercultural issues in our case?
At First, in the Aon merger process, they had to work out different ways of becoming one company. At this stage, cultural misunderstandings can already take place. Indeed, each of the merging companies had its own way of doing everything. For instance, how they hired staff to how they processed a claim. What’s more, they used different computer systems. Hence, misunderstandings occurred between the way people work and think. Thus, Aon had to either take into account these things, to make the merger process as acceptable as possible, or try to transmit a totally new way of doing things and take the risk of dissatisfying the employees.
Then, they had to make information as clear as possible. This is a communication issue. The way people communicate can be different from one company to another. The way people understand orders or advice can be different between companies. One of Aon’s main objectives was to create a common communication system to avoid
THE CASE OF AON SINGAPORE
Our case study deals with Mass Merger. Since the 90s, together with the globalization of business, Mergers and Acquisitions have developed at an incredible pace. Thus, companies from all over the world can be lead to work together as one single corporation. Moreover, the world has become interdependent not only economically, but also culturally, that is to say one culture may influence another one or different cultures can be mixed. It is then obvious that intercultural issues have to be solved.
In this case, we are going to talk about the Aon Singapore Merger process.
The Aon group is an American insurance services holding company. In the 90s, Aon acquired several insurance brokerage firms and entered an unprecedented merger process. Indeed, the group decided to get all the companies they acquired to operate together under the Aon name, in Singapore. That is why they had to face and manage intercultural issues.
What are these intercultural issues in our case?
At First, in the Aon merger process, they had to work out different ways of becoming one company. At this stage, cultural misunderstandings can already take place. Indeed, each of the merging companies had its own way of doing everything. For instance, how they hired staff to how they processed a claim. What’s more, they used different computer systems. Hence, misunderstandings occurred between the way people work and think. Thus, Aon had to either take into account these things, to make the merger process as acceptable as possible, or try to transmit a totally new way of doing things and take the risk of dissatisfying the employees.
Then, they had to make information as clear as possible. This is a communication issue. The way people communicate can be different from one company to another. The way people understand orders or advice can be different between companies. One of Aon’s main objectives was to create a common communication system to avoid
Bibliography: Intercultural Management Course Reader by Barbara Cucka, Winter Term 2009