How to achieve synergy?

 Many companies have recently had acquisitions or new partnerships established. In general, it is the purpose to achieve synergy. However, synergy is not achieved by extensive calculations of possible benefits by headquarters. On the shopfloor(s) there will be a few things that have to happen. Products and services of the parties involved must be understood, and where possible integrated or harmonized.

In harmonizing many companies encountered a number of complications. Examples of these complications are the differences in business processes, differences in (product) definitions and that IT systems differ. So even if you want to collaborate, the complications will thwart you.
What is the solution? Use standards for all definitions and map your business processes based on these definitions. Also capture the underlying business rules per business process. With this set, and of course a bit of support tooling like YMYT, you can make the comparison between the parties involved. Then choose the best practice, and start applying it. Finally you will grab the profits that headquarters had calculated long before !!