BP

M&A history: The British Petroleum and Amoco merger in 1998 was the largest industrial merger in history.

Integration insight: After wasting three months struggling to agree on everything, BP?the larger of the two companies?finally decided to use its systems as the default, keeping only Amoco’s SAP system.

Equifax

M&A history: Frequently acquires small credit companies.

Integration insight: CIO Owen Flynn looks for cultural differences between Equifax and the company it is acquiring, and suggests that they might be an early warning that there will be problems integrating the systems.

J.P. Morgan Chase

M&A history: A product of the 2001 merger between financial giants J.P. Morgan and Chase Manhattan.

Integration insight: There was one person in charge of the project who was able to make quick decisions to help speed along the integration. The companies ended up defaulting to the Chase systems.

Royal Bank Of Canada

M&A history: Royal Bank acquired Centura Bank in 2001.

Integration insight: CIO Martin Lippert says you aren’t just acquiring a company but its intellectual assets as well, and he suggests that you pick and choose from the other company the systems that can help your business.

Waste Management

M&A history: Product of the 1998 merger between Waste USA and Waste Management.

Integration insight: Proved (the hard way) that you need to understand the relationship between a scalable architecture and successful integration. The inability to recognize that before the merger ultimately led to the removal of the entire executive team.