Thursday, September 6, 2012

Business to Business - Acquisitions The four deadly traps


The acquisitions are intended to bring out the strengths of companies in similar industries or to create value in the supply chain. Why so often fail to achieve this goal? Often time these errors occur because of the corporate culture, attitudes too conflicting management solution and an inability to take advantage of basic skills. All these are intertwined in one way or another, but are the failures and the main death traps for companies that have acquired their competitor, supplier or distributor.

The basic attitude of most of the acquiring company is "We made the following specific tasks or specific business strategies have become more and your company and you're going to have to make the changes we want." The logic here does not appear that these changes are most beneficial for both companies. What happens here is that the acquiring company's corporate culture wins the culture of the acquired company and key resources are lost. Attitudes leading to cooperation are not in phase of development.

Business evolves, especially when the acquisition was made. The appropriate adjustments must be made by both companies in order that the new employment relationship. Often times the employees to hear speeches on these topics a lot, but no one takes ownership of making sure the appropriate adjustments are made. Have the CEO make the speech and immediately follow the speech with ten major changes. Software systems are an excellent starting point, you probably need to upgrade anyway. Then the manager should lead the transformation of the team. With the continued pursuit of new ideas and cooperation. This brings out the best in both companies. Especially, considering that a lot of employees are concerned about their job security and often rightly so. This prevents the effect successfully bully and takes peoples mind the uncertainty of the new environment.

The next time demotivator acquisition occurred is contradictory attitudes. This is most evident when a company buys a former competitor. For some reason people try to ensure outdated mode to perform their jobs and resist change with every fiber of their body. Again, for safety. For example, a company was still stuffing payroll checks, and A / P hand wraps. The more automated the process with a machine that printed directly controls laser and stuffed in an envelope. The hand stuffing took a day and a half. The automated process took about thirty minutes. Depending on the skill level of employees to decide if the position can not be eliminated. In the case of checks, it is clear the attitude can be eliminated closes employee stubborn.

So what if the problem is with the reporting package. People put all this together with a high level of skill sets. The problem is often with the reporting package. For example, a company had acquired a reporting package that is clearly not able to manage intercompany consolidations, but still forced the use of the package because that was the standard package used for small businesses. Manual processes of reporting packages were unmanageable and this has resulted in high turnover. The sad part is that the reporting package could have been significantly automated with a new system. But now because of the processes of sales have been lost and fires began sprouting everywhere. The reason is that the top management of the acquiring company has tried to force a simple solution so you can see the package exactly the same message from every company. They took the attitude that their needs were more important to deal with the stress of their communication companies that had been caused by their claims. Note that this accounting system also caused to fail and for the information is always less reliable. Addressing the conflict carefully removing the appropriate source.

The key to recognizing the areas where the conflict is not needed is a step back and ask just have both sides with a view that makes sense. Too often, managers are captured with a resolution of concern whether the employees do not pay attention to the substance behind the conflict between the parties or dueling objectives.

The third problem is the management solution. Prioritize the problems is a must. Sometimes quick fixes must be implemented, but this tactic should be the exception not the rule. If companies will not solve the fundamental problems before the problem arises again and again. Problems should be tackled from the source. All to often a few notics correcs a mistake the mistake and moves on without questioning what caused the error. Focus on fixing the front-end and then iron out the errors in the backend. Too often companies newly merged to create a confusing mess facing the error and not the problem. A series of repetitions is created when the error is resolved only a Band-Aid. Even if something should fall by the wayside address the problem from the source to the result. To put it simply will not sweep the floor before you clean the counter.

Finally, analyze the core competencies of each company and take a look at how the core competencies of a business can be integrated with each other. If acquisitions are having a problem from both companies will share the weaknesses and vice versa if the purchase is seen as a solution. If the core competencies of each company are successfully integrated into a united front in the market appears strong. If a fight occurs the weakness is spreading like a virus and tried hard to be a cure.

To successfully implement the acquisition of a receptive attitude change, resolve conflicts counterproductive, address problems from the core and take full advantage of basic skills. Avoid deadly traps that four of Doom acquisitions and business relationship thrive.

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