Mergers and Acquisitions: Scaling The Inorganic Way.

INDUSTRY:
High Tech

PAIN POINT:
No daily business process in place, First-time Acquisition.

THE STORY:
A successful high tech company was about to make their first-ever acquisition, and was still at a stage where they hadn’t implemented systems or process into their company culture. To scale (both through this acquisition and beyond) to meet their goals of being a $1B company would require different ways of working system-wide. We used this acquisition as a template to both standardize and implement work processes (in regular people words we lead each part of their business through the process of creating charters, work plans, status reports and a smooth workflow).
We helped to break down silos and implemented meeting operating principles that reinforced collaboration. The teams made their Day 1, Day 30 and Day 90 milestones, and had planned out work for the remaining six months of the year. Critical cutovers, such as email, payroll, and benefits, went off seamlessly. Not only had they grown, but they had done so while becoming a stronger, more cohesive team.

WHY OUTSIDE HELP:
Knew they didn’t know what they didn’t know.

STRATEGY:
Worked with teams to create new business processes and systems for both the existing company and the new acquisition that complement each others goals, teams, and strengths by creating charters, work plans, status reports. To help break down silos, we implemented meeting operating principles that reinforced collaboration (looking for interdependencies, aligning work plans to sequence cross functional items, celebrating success within and across teams).

RESULT:
Successful legal, financial and organizational merger, navigating all the hiccups and milestones that come with change, leaving their teams newly empowered to carry on the vision of this new team on their own through the inevitable hiccups that come in the future.

The Landscape Had Changed, The Organization Needed to Catch Up

INDUSTRY:
Multifaceted Retail/Merchandiser

PAIN POINT:
Consumer habits were changing, the company evolved the strategy, and they needed a reinvention which considered the changing times and technology

THE STORY:
Following an updated corporate strategy and senior leadership changes at a global retailer/merchandiser, teams were instructed to figure out how the new strategy would be implemented for them. Within the division that managed all direct to consumer sales (store, web, app), I worked with several teams to help them unravel the work. One of the most significant opportunities arose while speaking with several leaders, and separately front line staff, to help open up the dialogue about “service” which was being handled differently, and by a unique team in each channel. Together with my client, we created several potential operating models and designed a set of workshops to help leaders come up with a new, unified service model to better integrate the customer experience.

WHY OUTSIDE HELP:
With significant changes happening across the organization, outside help was needed to accelerate implementation

STRATEGY:
Partnered with the teams in the business to help identify the direction the new corporate strategy meant at the functional level. This meant everything from identifying pain points in the current way of working, setting an end state vision with incremental targets (90 day, 180 day, 1 year, 3 year, 5 year), and working with leaders to identify the organizational capabilities needed to support the new ways of working.

RESULT:
Created practical transition plans that incorporated timelines, change management, and business process updates while factoring in seasonal cycles and talent plans.

Feeling Stuck: Catching the Organization Up to the Evolving Strategy

INDUSTRY:
Non-Profit

PAIN POINT:
The organization had grown organically, and faced struggles internally working together and for external parties to work with them, all while seeing potential revenue sources decline in the future.

THE STORY:
A non-profit entity was entering its fifteenth year, and found itself at a cross-roads. The initial request was for a “new organization structure.” Following an assessment to diagnose the root cause of the challenges, we came up with an approach to design a new organization structure that accounted for how they wanted to best partner with their clients, reduce confusion internally and externally, and create more clear career paths and job families. The results created a broader executive leadership team, created more clear expectations of the Director team, clarified decision rights, and designed a structure that better fit the needs of the organization and it’s updated strategy. We helped the team prioritize key business processes to be redesigned, and facilitated a process with cross-functional teams to redesign--and launch the two most important--to help give them a jump start on operating in a new way.

WHY OUTSIDE HELP:
The team didn’t know where to begin, and thought new org charts were the magic bullet to address the challenges.

STRATEGY:
We then began with an organization assessment to ensure that the sources of the challenges were diagnosed and understood. Following that, we worked with the functional teams to identify the organizational capabilities and where they were located in the organization in the current state, and what capabilities would be needed to support the strategic plan. We created multiple options for operating models and partnered with the executive team to refine them until one was identified as the most viable option. We began organization design, starting with the executive level, which resulted in broadening the executive team and creating more clarity between roles. This was followed by Director level job design and selection, and finally staff level organization design. To ensure the changes were sustainable, we identified the most important business processes and engaged a team of staff to redesign the processes to reflect the new ways of working, identify a transition timeline, and change management plan. All of this work was underlaid with communications and change management support to help the leaders and staff navigate the changes.

RESULT:
A broader executive team (from three executives to five) to better handle workload, more clarity of roles and decision rights between the executive and director teams, more effective organization structure and clear career paths, updated job descriptions, and refined business processes to enable the teams to work faster and more effectively.

Culture Clash in An Acquisition

INDUSTRY:
Life Sciences

PAIN POINT:
Fear that an acquisition by a 100+ year-old large global company would lose the “secret sauce” that had helped the startup bring a new product to market in an unprecedented amount of time, and quickly release significant new innovations that transformed their segment

THE STORY:
During M&A activity, most leaders will say that cultures are “very similar” or compatible. Usually, this means similar words in values statements. Oftentimes, these are operationalized differently, leading to confusion. During this project, I helped serve as the “couples counselor” for the organizations (acquirer and target) to help find what the teams had in common, what made sense to integrate and what needed to be left alone, and help the senior leaders chart a bold path forward while honoring the best of what the startup had brought to the table. The result enabled individuals and teams navigate the changes associated with cultural differences more quickly and productively than if no proactive action were taken.

WHY OUTSIDE HELP:
The acquiring company had already engaged outside help for the acquisition (I was part of the team); but recognized after the initial work that culture was a very important part of why this company was so valuable. The culture work was a special add-on for that reason.

STRATEGY:
What began as human capital integration work, quickly identified that the culture was an important component of the integration success. With the larger integration team, we helped them discuss culture in a productive way, including structuring integration planning meetings with time to address culture and get to the meaning behind the words and get teams talking about their aspirations for a future state culture. For this specific deep dive into culture, we identified a three pronged approach to get feedback on the culture: focus groups for staff in the startup main office, a survey for the field, and interviews with the leadership team. With all of the data points, we wrote a written report and held a special meeting with the senior leadership team to review findings and recommended actions.

RESULTS:
After the assessment, we presented a report and a set of recommendations to the executive team. The team adopted many of the recommendations to help ensure that the ways of working that had helped the company innovate so quickly were left in place, helping them continue to bring product to market quickly, protect the culture, and retain talent.