On paper, mergers and acquisitions are excellent business opportunities. The acquiring organization is able to obtain a new list of customers, diversify its offerings and, at times, market to new demographics. However, doing so isn’t easy, particularly if it involves departmental consolidation and the shuffling of personnel. Oftentimes, custom application development may be needed in order to create a system capable of managing congregated data.

Data is a key component of business operations. When companies come together, two completely different data sets must be merged, which can present a number of complications pertaining to duplicate, or even worse, lost information. It takes skilled professionals and quality business systems to manage acquisitions properly.

Take, for example, Google’s acquisition of Motorola, which was confirmed this past summer. On paper, this is a great move for the search giant turned tech provider because it allows Google to develop its own mobile devices the way Apple has.David Balto, a former FTC antitrust official and senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, told the Associated Press that the move should only benefit Google’s position in the mobile technology market.

“If anything, antitrust regulators may see the deal as a boost to competition,” Balto said. “Android is such a crucial competitor to the iPhone in particular, that allowing Google to buy Motorola Mobility will likely produce even more innovation in smartphones and other devices.”

However, the move could be extremely risky because there is a significant risk of data being mismanaged – whether it is duplicated or lost – during the process. Should Google lose pertinent information, the cost to the organization could wipe out any financial benefit of such a merger. Business ventures must be managed with pristine efficiency. In these cases, a FileMaker-based database software system is ideal, because it lets organizations control their information and consolidate it to its simplest format.