Choosing to merge your company with another or acquire an entire new one is a big decision and, whether your organisation is big or small, it comes rife with complications. INtegrating systems, customers, workstreams and staff can be a massive challenge and if you get it wrong you could be heading towards disaster.
So you’ll need to think very carefully before you take part in an M&A and one of the best ways of making sure you are making the right decision is to employ a change management consultancy as early in the process as possible.
We’d recommend you bring someone onboard before you buy, as a change manager can actually help make sure you are choosing the right company to merge with or acquire. However, if you are already part way through the process, do not fear. A change manager will still help you get your ducks in a row, even if they are joining the project part way through.
Yorkshire Change has a whole heap of experience managing these transactions and helping organisations to integrate successfully after an M&A. Our collaborative approach to change management will give your M&A the absolute best chance of success. Here is how.
We’ll put the right people in the right places
You can’t do this on your own, and you can’t just tell your staff that an M&A is happening and expect them to adapt. You’re going to need a change management team built from people with the right skills and experience to oversee the acquisition and meet relevant milestones. If you don’t have anyone suitable, you’ll need to upskill your most capable staff, or recruit with this specifically in mine.
Yorkshire Change consultants are experts in spotting potential and will make sure you have the right foundation team to drive your merger forward.
We’ll tell those people what to do
Your change management team needs to conduct themselves in a certain way in order to garner the support of the rest of the team. They’ll need to be open, knowledgeable, approachable and transparent with the entire process. They’re also going to need to be the type of people who know how to spot potential problems, and they’re going to need to know how to solve those issues.
We can support your team by telling them what to look for and assisting them in organising their communication strategy when it comes to discussing the merger in a way that keeps staff happy and informed.
We know where M&As fail and can extract potential issues from the right people at the right time
It is highly unlikely you know absolutely everything about your company and your staff, but your employees as a collective know all there is to know about the systems they use and the methods that deliver your successes.
Because we have many years of experience managing major changes within companies, we already know where there are likely to be sticking points, so we know what we need to ask your staff in order to create a bulletproof plan that takes into consideration where we are highly likely to see issues arise and develops a ‘Plan B’ to counteract them.
This will not only save you time, but stress and money, too.
We’ll help you meet your objectives
The point of an M&A is usually to grow businesses through acquiring new potential and talent. It’s easy to forget that when you’re knee-deep in complications.
But a collaborative approach to an M&A, one that brings in your best employees to help see it through, will help you stick to your key objectives and identify milestones.
Yorkshire Change can help
There are a whole host of issues you might face when you try to merge your company, including negative team mentality, workplace silos, and technology gaps.
The last thing you want is an unsuccessful merger that could have been avoided. You don’t enter into these new and exciting ventures to see them fail, nor do you do it to cause yourself an unmanageable amount of stress.
If this happens, you not only run the risk of ruining your company reputation and potentially going out of business, but you might find yourself stuck with a really complicated workplace structure or an extremely negative culture that takes years to sort out.
Bringing in a change manager as early as possible in your M&A will give you the best chance possible of merging quickly and successfully.
For more information – and to speak to a member of our team – please fill in the form on our ‘Contact Us’ page.
For more information on what we do and the types of issues we help iron out, please read our blog.