How to combine your sales force in a merger.

McKinsey has published a paper on how to survive a merger and combine sales forces. By involving employees and customers in the integration process, it is possible to retain critical staff, generate momentum with key accounts, and increase customer satisfaction. If you are in the process of approaching an integration, can you risk loosing these key elements by doing a botched job?

We have identified four steps essential to facilitating the successful integration of sales operations. At the top of the list: understanding the importance of sharing information about the integration process with customers and the sales force. Many companies take the opposite approach and are surprised when postmerger revenue fails to meet expectations. In addition, the combined sales team must quickly win prominent accounts to build momentum and generate internal confidence in the merger. The executives running the integration effort must also recognize that, as important as sales reps are, essential support people must be identified and retained. Finally, senior managers should review the merged portfolio of customers and make tough calls about those that are worth new investments and those that might be shed or given less attention.

Seven Catalysts for Merger Integration Success

In a series of powerful Accenture papers hitting the press, this paper presents research that there are seven catalysts that can help managers integrate an acquisition successfully while positioning their companies for growth during a downturn.

These seven merger integration catalysts are:

1. Effective governance and fast decision making
2. A well-defined target operating model.
3. Creation of the “keep list” and migration approach.
4. Targeting and implementing achievable quick wins.
5. Alignment of skills with integration activities.
6. Effective management of country and regional differences.
7. Engaging and training employees to deal with the newly acquired customers.

The paper recommends hard-pressed managers should better balance their company’s need for speed with the imperative of customer retention.

How is your organization’s balancing the need for speed with customer retention activities?

Video – UCLA: What Makes a Good Merger?