When Does a Business Merger Make Sense?

Mergers make sense where two organizations have an overlap of their mission. That’s true whether it is for-profit or not-for-profit. They also have to have cultures that will mesh well, personalities. If they don’t and the world is filled with mergers – and I can name some law firms that merged, and didn’t work out, and they’re not around anymore. It takes some real up front work to do a merger, or to buy another company if it’s on the for-profit side, but you have to do your homework first. Does this make sense from a business standpoint? Is it going to make you a better organization? Sometimes you’ll run into a case where two weak organizations are thinking about merging. That doesn’t make sense because what you do is you wind up with one larger, weaker, organization and it doesn’t help anybody.