I've been involved with 3 different acquisitions - including 1 where I was the one being acquired. My take from having this experience a few times:
Expect change. Everything is on the table when a company is acquired.
Expect turnover. Some team members being acquired will use the moment for self reflection and will decide it's time to get off the ride.
Expect some roles to be eliminated due to redundancy. From my experience, this has exclusively been for supporting roles - like our finance team or Office Managers.
Expect Leadership Turnover on both sides. Three reasons I've seen for leadership turnover:
An established leader is using the opportunity for a smooth exit from the business, enabling an acquired leader to take the role.
An acquired leader may not thrive in the new environment and may decide to go to an organization better fitting their style.
A company's board may decide to fill a leadership role with an external candidate because the acquisition changed strategic objectives.
Integrating the companies takes time. In my experience, it takes about 1 year from the announcement of an acquisition for the company to be fully integrated as a single entity.
Be prepared for rebranding. Depending on the strength of the brand, the company's marketing team may carpe diem and use the moment to evaluate a branding change. I have experience this twice, most recently switching from our established brand (KazooHR) to the acquired company's brand (WorkTango).
It's an opportunity to adopt new technology. Prior to my startup being acquired in 2018, the tech stacks for the two companies was JavaScript (mine) and Ruby (theirs). I pitched and succeeded in establishing TypeScript as the development language going forward for new projects.
Expect team and company cultures to evolve.
Sometimes, acquiring another company comes with unexpected perks, like getting extra holidays because the new team members are international
How’s it going, I'm a Adam, a Full-Stack Engineer, actively searching for work. I'm all about JavaScript. And Frontend but don't let that fool you - I've also got some serious Backend skills.
Location
City of Bath, UK 🇬🇧
Education
10 plus years* active enterprise development experience and a Fine art degree 🎨
My goodness I'm looking at WorkTango I didn't expect such informed answers so quickly, thank you! by the way I like the pitch WorkTango is offering on the website it's very strong, I have also had good dealings with some of your customers (Allianz), small big world 🌎.
I'm going to reflect on what you have said and see if I can prepare some contingency plans🤔, it's been a while since I was a developer but as a consultant an a proprietary skillset, I think I should switch back to what I love.
How’s it going, I'm a Adam, a Full-Stack Engineer, actively searching for work. I'm all about JavaScript. And Frontend but don't let that fool you - I've also got some serious Backend skills.
Location
City of Bath, UK 🇬🇧
Education
10 plus years* active enterprise development experience and a Fine art degree 🎨
Oh wow, small world, just got told that we are using it. Im feeling much better about the company now by the way, I look forward to using WorkTango it looks great!
Ah! ForgeRock! I helped answer some due-diligence questions so your company could make the decision to buy. Enjoy the Rewards and Recognition product, it can be a useful tool with building a positive work culture 😎
How’s it going, I'm a Adam, a Full-Stack Engineer, actively searching for work. I'm all about JavaScript. And Frontend but don't let that fool you - I've also got some serious Backend skills.
Location
City of Bath, UK 🇬🇧
Education
10 plus years* active enterprise development experience and a Fine art degree 🎨
Hi Joe, this is unrelated but its been on my mind for a while, I use WorkTango all the time and I have an idea to make it useful even after I leave my workplace and start a job search.
What if every WorkTango recognitions could be monetized, I would subscribe to a service where my recognitions follow me around workplace to workplace, I could invite people to comment on my personal profile, Think LinkedIn without the other noise, all the while building my resume enhanced by AI.
As a worker I would get a more accurate resume and not have to ask myself the question, what do I think I do, but rather what I have been seen to do.
The UI could look a little like this, WordProcessor meets ChatGPT, you would import recognision and use those as attributes to write the resume.
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Hi Adam,
I've been involved with 3 different acquisitions - including 1 where I was the one being acquired. My take from having this experience a few times:
My goodness I'm looking at WorkTango I didn't expect such informed answers so quickly, thank you! by the way I like the pitch WorkTango is offering on the website it's very strong, I have also had good dealings with some of your customers (Allianz), small big world 🌎.
I'm going to reflect on what you have said and see if I can prepare some contingency plans🤔, it's been a while since I was a developer but as a consultant an a proprietary skillset, I think I should switch back to what I love.
Very well detailed and explained.
This has been very well put...
Oh wow, small world, just got told that we are using it. Im feeling much better about the company now by the way, I look forward to using WorkTango it looks great!
Ah! ForgeRock! I helped answer some due-diligence questions so your company could make the decision to buy. Enjoy the Rewards and Recognition product, it can be a useful tool with building a positive work culture 😎
Hi Joe, this is unrelated but its been on my mind for a while, I use WorkTango all the time and I have an idea to make it useful even after I leave my workplace and start a job search.
What if every WorkTango recognitions could be monetized, I would subscribe to a service where my recognitions follow me around workplace to workplace, I could invite people to comment on my personal profile, Think LinkedIn without the other noise, all the while building my resume enhanced by AI.
As a worker I would get a more accurate resume and not have to ask myself the question, what do I think I do, but rather what I have been seen to do.
The UI could look a little like this, WordProcessor meets ChatGPT, you would import recognision and use those as attributes to write the resume.