Communication is key to achieving sustainable growth after the deal closes, reveals the Head of Strategic M&A Integrations at SD Worx.
Like many, it was pure coincidence that brought Csaba Farkas-Pall to the M&A industry. His career started as a teacher and trainer, responsible for developing learning materials for adults in Hungary’s financial services industry. In 2022, Csaba joined HR and payroll services provider SD Worx as a consultant, supporting strategic projects such as post-merger integrations by utilising his history of developing people and his Master’s degree in political science.
For Csaba, this was the fastest way to learn and grow as a person. “You need to listen to people, understand their pain points, know what they want, brainstorm with them, problem-solve with them,” he clarifies. “And the fact that you can do that with business leaders who have already achieved so much, I think, is the perfect environment to flourish.”
He also saw it as a great opportunity to add value: “I like creating standards, processes and structures. When we first started integrating acquired assets into the SD Worx group, we weren’t sure how best to approach them. So, we put all of our heads together to create a standard, efficient way that gets better and better over time.”
In 2024, Csaba became the M&A integrations lead at the company, and this year (January 2026), he was appointed as its head of strategic M&A integrations. Their shared mindset of continuous improvement has kept Csaba at SD Worx. “I didn’t know much about finance, legal, marketing, or corporate structures when I first joined the company, but I had access to all the information I needed, and if I asked a question, people were willing to answer me,” he says.
Even after so many years of performing integrations, Csaba adds, every acquisition comes with its own lessons that have to be incorporated and implemented. “We have a comprehensive playbook on implementing acquisitions, which can be tailored based on the size, strategy and speed of the integration.”
Whenever he starts a new integration, he shares this playbook with the people involved as a starting template. “We sit together, define what is applicable and necessary, put it on a timeline, and then we have an integration plan,” Csaba explains. “But this is just the plan… we also have to make sure it is easily adopted without disrupting the people who are working on it or the business itself. This is where flexibility comes in, as you may need to change, reshuffle and reprioritise things based on the challenges and opportunities you are facing.”
Communicate, communicate, collaborate
One of the playbook’s key takeaways for Csaba is to communicate as soon as possible, even if the picture isn’t 100% clear. “The worst thing you can do in any integration is say nothing, because that creates room for guessing and self-interpretation,” he says. “It’s much more difficult to bring people back to your idea and strategy if they have gone off on their own tangent.”
He recommends using the 80-20% communication rule: “You have 80 percent of the context to start communicating about strategy and ambition, and then you can tackle the rest of the 20 percent with everyone, together, in the coming months.”
Only once you have everyone on board and working together can you really build synergies and put the company on a common growth track. “There is no such thing as over-communicating, in my opinion, especially in the first month of an integration,” Csaba emphasises. “You need to repeat the message over and over again. Approach it from all the different angles.”
The more people understand your plan, he adds, the more people are on board and happy to execute it. “Buy-in is one of the most important KPIs or engagement metrics to determine the success of an integration.”
Silence as a measure of merger success
Csaba believes that the best way to track people’s sentiments is to collect feedback through continuous conversations. At a project management level, this means asking questions like: “Are we still aligned with what we want to do? Do we still interact with each other? Are we able to communicate well with each other?”
And, with a team spread across multiple locations, Csaba also ensures SD Worx has employees on the ground, working with and listening to the people impacted by the integrations. “We ask them whether they are still on board with the strategy, whether they are having fun and whether they still see the opportunities. This helps to ensure that any risks or frustrations are visible sooner rather than later,” he shares.
In most of the integrations Csaba has been involved with, he has seen a similar curve in people’s behaviour: “Following the initial communication, wherein you share the potential and the opportunity of the integration, there is a lot of excitement and curiosity as expectations escalate. After a few months, if things don’t change as drastically or quickly as people thought, there will always be a slight dip in sentiments.”
But if you continue to communicate clearly and honestly, you can keep people engaged throughout the process. “One of the warning signs that the deal is derailing is complete silence,” Csaba cautions. “If nobody’s joining meetings and nobody’s curious about the next steps, it means they’ve probably lost interest or trust in the integration.”
Deals don’t close at signing
Mergers usually fail when integrations don’t receive the same attention as dealmaking, which is considered more ‘sexy’. “Once the deal is signed, you take a picture and think it’s done. But while this is certainly an important milestone, it will take time and effort to align the culture and on a joint growth strategy,” Csaba says.
He reiterates that a good integration involves a bit of business transformation as well as value creation to realise the opportunities promised when making the deal. “It doesn’t have to be an expensive exercise or department. You can start simply by listening to the other party, aligning with them and building trust.”
From there, you create a high-level plan with few deliverables and little complexity. “Even if it’s a three-step plan, it still gives some comfort to the people and can unite them,” Csaba concludes.
Csaba will be sharing more insights from SD Worx's integration playbook at the upcoming M&A Strategy Forum on 24 September 2026 in Antwerp, during which we will discuss the decisions, frameworks and lessons that enable organisations to build successful acquisition strategies over time.
