RSS feedsALYSOUN STEWART
Head of Grant Thornton Strategic Services Group
Syscap will have invested significant time and money in improving its corporate culture and developing staff motivation. And the benefits it has gained from this can be protected and enhanced, provided some simple yet crucial steps are followed before, during and after an acquisition.
One of the main reasons why acquisitions fail is because there is a mismatch of management style and company cultures. Syscap will need to assess carefully the culture, values and core beliefs of any company it acquires. What is the company’s management philosophy and the operating style, for example? Thereafter, Syscap should develop an effective communications strategy to support the business plan’s delivery and implementation. It needs to outline clearly all relevant aspects: corporate objectives, structures, people’s roles, key performance indicators, remuneration. This will help stabilise the new business, improve employee morale and quash any uncertainty.
Dr IVAN ROBERTSON
Managing director, Robertson Cooper
Syscap has made great strides in improving morale and productivity by
introducing new processes in its recruitment strategy, career development and
training. While these changes have kick-started a major culture change, they do
not guarantee sustained levels of productivity.
Syscap must now consolidate its initial success and translate it into permanent culture change. The key to maintaining current levels of morale and productivity is to ensure employees have a strong sense of purpose and well-being, while still achieving its business objectives.
The first step is to understand what creates a successful organisation: that is, informed, well-equipped staff, a balanced workload, change that is managed well, collaborative relationships and staff feeling they have a sense of purpose. The next step is to examine the leadership culture to find out the extent to which leaders create the kind of workplace described above. This result is an organisation where leaders are truly connected with the workforce.
Syscap’s challenge going ahead is to ensure that the same positive culture can be instilled in future acquisitions. Measurement approaches, such as Robertson Cooper’s ASSET tool, enable potential investors to check on the real perceptions of the most important asset the workforce. It identifies latent problems that haven’t yet developed into significant issues, but which are lurking around the corner for investors to deal with post-transaction. This helps investors to value the incumbent personnel while providing the basis for effective transition work post-sale.
RUPERT MERSON
Partner, BDO Stoy Hayward
It’s a truth universally acknowledged that an entrepreneur in possession of
success must be in need of an acquisition. Unfortunately, it’s a truth almost
universally ignored that most acquisitions fail to realise the value intended.
Successful integrators plan post-deal integration activity carefully, which
means they start it when they start due diligence.
White is right to worry about jeopardising the culture he has worked hard to establish.
But he will not be able to integrate another company into Syscap without effecting some change to the cultures of both. He needs to identify the elements of his own proposition which he must preserve, but he should also look carefully at the proposition of the target business and identify which elements he wishes to preserve there. If there are none, the acquisition is not worth it.
He will have to work hard at preserving such elements probably by hard-wiring them into documented business practice and process at Syscap to ensure that the old Syscap ways don’t dominate by default and none of this is easy. White may have to use outside help not just to add the necessary management capacity and capability, but also to provide the measure of objectivity necessary to secure the trust of employees at both acquirer and acquiree.
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