The buyer has completed all the necessary steps for the acquisition and is now preparing to take the first steps as the new business leader. To ensure everything goes smoothly, the buyer must solidify their knowledge of the acquired company and implement their acquisition plan. Capifrance guides you through this crucial stage.
Priority Actions for the New Leader of an Acquired Business
Once the transfer deed is signed, a period of uncertainty may arise within the acquired company. Employees, suppliers, and clients may have questions about the future of the company and the direction the buyer intends to take. Therefore, the buyer must quickly take actions that assert their leadership and provide reassurance both internally and externally.
Reassuring Employees
The sale of a company raises concerns among employees. Will the company be restructured? Will there be layoffs? Will the company be relocated? Will the new management affect acquired rights? These are all legitimate questions for the staff of a recently sold company.
To reassure the employees, the buyer must communicate quickly, formally, and comprehensively about their intentions.
Maintaining Good Relationships with External Stakeholders
Without its suppliers and clients, a company is nothing. To ensure success, it is essential for the business leader to maintain or restore good relationships with external stakeholders (banks, suppliers, clients).
Banks
Maintaining good relationships with banks is crucial for a company. To achieve this, a trusting relationship must be established between the business leader and the bank. This trust will be built if the entrepreneur regularly provides the bank with evidence of the company's good financial health.
The business leader should also inform the bank of any changes in the company's situation, for example, if they know they won’t be able to meet a loan repayment deadline. This will prevent the bank from being caught off guard and strengthen the trust between them.
Suppliers
Suppliers may feel uneasy during a company sale, particularly if they fear a disruption or significant changes in the service contract. Depending on the company’s level of dependency on its suppliers, the leader may feel in a strong or weak position to renegotiate some or all of the contract clauses.
However, the business leader should never forget that without suppliers, a company is nothing.
Clients
The leader must implement a customer relationship management (CRM) strategy aimed at understanding the needs and behaviors of the company’s clients to develop strong relationships with them.
Studying Employee Motivation
The leader must get to know the employees, identify key people within the organization, and recognize any obstacles that are slowing down productivity. In other words, the business leader needs to identify the human factors that contribute to the company’s success or failure.
To gain a comprehensive understanding of employee motivation, the buyer may distribute a questionnaire to the staff. This questionnaire should include questions related to behavior observation, motivation analysis, and the company's internal organization.
Identifying the Company’s Attractiveness Factors
By assessing the true nature of the company’s relationships with its clients and suppliers, the business leader can identify the company’s attractiveness factors and take steps to improve them.
These actions could include:
- Prioritizing different suppliers
- Managing working capital requirements
- Recruiting salespeople in the field
- Analyzing customer accounts
- Adjusting the compensation structure for sales teams
- Relaunching promotional campaigns
- Motivating the company’s employees
Execution of the Acquisition Plan
To successfully execute the acquisition plan, the buyer must ensure:
- The quality of the developed strategy and its proper implementation
- Effective working capital management
- The quality of the information system in place
Implementation of the Business Strategy
A business strategy should materialize through the implementation of operational policies at the level of:
- Product
- Pricing
- Product distribution
- Product marketing
- Communication
Strategic decisions will impact the daily life of the company, its organization, and its results.
However, strategic decisions may evolve, particularly if the results do not meet expectations. Therefore, the buyer must implement "indicators" to clearly and quickly identify any deviations from the forecasts.
These indicators might monitor:
- The evolution of the order book
- Stock levels
- Production quality
- Customer satisfaction
The implementation of a dashboard will highlight the indicators and show the company's key trends.
Establishing a Communication Strategy
The business leader must establish an effective communication strategy both internally and externally.
Internal Communication
To ensure employee motivation, it is necessary for the leader to regularly inform them about the company's results. The business leader should also keep employees informed about the short- and medium-term overall strategy.
External Communication
The buyer must develop an external communication strategy aimed at promoting the company's reputation and image, as well as that of its products. Good external communication will help partners and clients form a positive opinion of the acquired company and its products and/or services.
External communication will, in turn, have a positive impact on the company’s results.
