Pest Management Professional, September 2013

ers in Brazil InBev has a dedicated team that focuses on M A and has experience making sure potential deals will fit into the system and bring scale and or new capabilities This team also has a disciplined process to plan and execute the integration focusing on the key To Dos for a successful merger Vision and strategic fits pave the way Ciscos acquisition of cable television telecommunications and broadband equipment maker Scientific Atlantic in 2008 for 69 billion is the largest acquisition Cisco has made but Cisco is a serial acquirer The company has made more than 161 acquisitions to date and these acquisitions most of them small tuck in deals account for more than 50 of Ciscos revenue The company has an outstanding track record for success with acquisitions because it follows many of the same practices as InBev It only pursues acquisitions that are aligned with its strategy and bring scale or scope often new technologies and access to market segments It has a disciplined integration program that allows it to act quickly to integrate a new team which reduces anxiety and creates a common vision for the future This allows Cisco to retain much of the talent in the acquired companies Key lessons Career Boost Can merging with a larger company help you improve career opportunities and employee retention UNSURE 28 NO 30 Q Deals outside ones core business are high risk Transformational deals that attempt to radically transform a company and take it into new lines of business are fraught with risk and often unsuccessful These swing for thefences Source PMP 2013 Merger Survey with 200 respondents deals often put the acquirers own company at risk Examples of these are AOLs acquisition of Time Warner and Mattels acquisition of The Learning Co Q Theres a need for a successful integration plan one that should start before the deal is consummated This plan should focus on the critical elements of success vs the full laundry list of problems For example when Kraft acquired Cadbury in 2010 it had to integrate 41 country organizations However Kraft knew 11 countries accounted for 75 percent of the revenue so leaders focused their efforts on those markets Q Arrogance is fatal When the acquirer is arrogant and doesnt take the time to understand the culture and Sponsored by values of the acquired company or when an acquired company is defensive and hopes the acquirer will leave the company completely alone trouble usually follows Mutual respect and honesty are necessary conditions to allow both organizations to work together to find synergies and identify the best practices and people from both businesses Q Successful change management techniques increase the chances of success In any deal various emotions prevail fear of losing ones job or benefits uncertainty optimism and pessimism Its important to establish trust between the two management teams as soon as possible and devise an integration plan While eliminating redundant job functions and positions is often one of the benefits of a merger there often are other opportunities for quality employees in the acquirers company By being honest and dealing with the integration plan early both sides can avoid a lot of political gamesmanship and retain more of the top performers Many successful acquirers bring the two management teams together early to work through the integration plan as one combined team to identify synergies talent and a common vision Then they work backward and develop an implementation plan together to achieve their goals By working together with participation by all members of the leadership teams on both sides fear and uncertainty can be reduced and buy in and the odds of success can be increased YES 42 A lot can be learned from the most successful acquirers such as InBev Kraft and Cisco They are strategic about doing deals that increase their scale and or scope they prioritize and focus on integrating the key parts of the business first they integrate both management teams into one team and they develop clear plans of action together with the acquired team These serial acquirers have merger approaches based on honesty respect and a disciplined process that dramatically increase the chances of successful outcomes This enables the combined company to retain top talent and capabilities while also achieving scale benefits PMP Cooper is a pest management industry mergers and acquisition expert who has consulted on more than 50 pest management acquisitions over the past several years You can reach Cooper a PMP Hall of Famer and former president of the National Pest Management Association NPMA at normcooper@ verizon net 914 698 8659 www mypmp net Pest Management Professional September 2013 M11