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The merger came before Uber's own deal with Didi, back when Uber and Didi were the two largest players in China and a third company, Quadi, trailed behind them. Didi and Quadi decided to combine, and the two companies began merging their HR systems.
Each side had about 2,000 employees. Lining up the records showed that roughly 200 of those people appeared on both lists, paid by each company at the same time.
Two rivals fighting over the same riders and drivers had 200 people wearing both hats. The overlap surfaced only because the merger forced the two payroll systems side by side, in a market where the competition was heated, deep, and gnarly.
Why was China's ride-hailing market so crowded?
Didi Dache and Kuaidi Dache, the two biggest taxi-hailing apps in China, merged in February 2015. Tencent had backed Didi, and Alibaba had backed Kuaidi, so the merger joined two rival camps of investors. The combined company was first called Didi Kuaidi and was renamed Didi Chuxing in 2016. Uber had entered China in 2014 and competed against both before and after the merger.
Why do mergers start with combining HR systems?
Before two companies can operate as one, they need a single list of who works there, what each person is paid, and who reports to whom. Payroll, benefits, and legal employer records have to line up, so the two systems are compared record by record. This work is part of what practitioners call post-merger integration. Human resources and IT systems are usually among the first things combined.
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