Every natural phenomenon in the annals of mankind, gave them a set of opportunities to thrive. The resilience exhibited by humans during extraordinary circumstances paved the way for enterprise and innovation. This unique habit of survival made them excel among its co-habitants on this planet for millions of years. While many species face extinction, some survive through and amongst one is the human race.

Likewise in the business world, many companies face extinction and disappear but some of them thrive and come through successfully and go on to lead the industry for decades. Let us look at some of those examples which used mergers or acquisitions to transform business practices and emerged victorious.

1. 1998: Asian Financial Crisis (Exxon and Mobil)

During the Year 1998, the ASEAN economies were under the grip of severe financial crunch. Their currencies depreciated and the constant volatile market made foreign institutional investors (FIIs) withdraw their investments from the zone. With the lack of demand for fossil fuels from ASEAN nations, the OPEC countries were struggling with the plummeting oil prices.

In the testing time, surprising the world oil markets, the top two major petroleum producing Corporations in the United States – Exxon Corp. and Mobil Corp. announced their merger in 1998. From their merger

• Cash liquidity problem got diluted, as cash reserves was better utilized by investments in the economy
• The American consumer benefited through the economies of larger scale production
• Crude oil fluctuations were normalized through hedging

2. 2000: Dotcom bubble (E-Bay and PayPal)

During the late 1990s, the cash cow in the market happened to be Internet based companies. The uninterrupted cash flow is equated to inordinate speculation at the Stock Exchange. The dot.com companies graph gradually showed the bell curve performance and scripted them to the oblivion. With the crash, many online shopping companies witnessed the closure of their services to the customers.

However, one of the reputed and biggest auction sites online went on its shopping spree by acquiring digital payment provider PayPal in 2002. Their wedlock perfected the objective to facilitate online payment using the platform and facilities of eBay.

3. 2008 Financial crisis (Google and Android)

One of the great crises having a global impact after the Great depression of 1930 is the financial crisis 2008 snowballed with the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers and US subprime mortgage crisis, leaving the financial system off gear.

However, during the same time there was a triumphant merger between tech giant Google and Android, an inconspicuous start-up company whose acquisition consolidated Google as the top search engine site on the planet. Android technology was utilized to fuel the new operating system exclusively for mobile services by Google. With cash registers starting ringing with the merger and statistically proven a sizable figure of new mobile phones sold were powered by Android.

4. 2019 Covid Pandemic (UiPath and Cloud Elements)

This pandemic is a challenge presented two ways, one is a straight challenge to the medical fraternity and the other is economics of operation. Albeit circumstantial, the wheels of the economy cannot come to an abrupt halt. It needs to mobilize its forces at least at a minimalistic level. This challenge is posed to Industries from small to medium to large global conglomerates. Business tried to function through by introducing two new concepts.

1. Work from Home – Even though this existed before the pandemic, this became the norm for several industries post pandemic. WFH became a new lubricant applied to keep the industrial wheels running.
2. Robotic Process Automation – Automation was the emerging new trend before the pandemic, but the Covid 19 pandemic hastened its role in the business world. This became the most important tool in automating routine jobs having less or no human intervention, thereby switching the available workforce to do more meaningful jobs.

In this backdrop UiPath the leader in the robotic automation industry has announced its merger with Cloud Elements. Will UiPath be the biggest winner in the merger act during Covid crisis, like Google, Ebay and Exxon during the earlier crisis?

Only time will tell, but we at Integra as a specialist accounting automation provider, see a lot of potential in this announcement. Do you want to discuss automation in your business? Contact us today for a free consultation.