The client had recently launched an in-house digital advertising agency and was struggling to hire sufficient experienced and skilled resources to support the growth it was seeing. There were also challenges in agreeing the priorities for the product roadmap, and it was becoming clear that money was being left on the table by not meeting customer needs sufficiently well. The decision was made to complete an acquisition (effectively an acqui-hire transaction) to boost resources and skills as traditional hiring techniques were proving too slow to be effective.

I was engaged to lead the due diligence process on an identified acquisition target, to demonstrate the value that could be realised from a transaction, to lead the acquisition plan and activities, and to oversee the successful integration of the acquired company and resources.

I ran a series of workshops with the in-house team to identify the root cause problems they were experiencing. I was then able to use the outputs from the workshops to compare against the capabilities of the acquisition target.

Once it was clear that there was a very good fit – that the acquisition target had the capability to resolve the majority of problems the in-house team were experiencing – we developed the business case to complete the transaction.

Having identified the key resources within the acquisition target, retention policies were developed for them.

The business gained increased confidence that the deal would prove to align with the business strategy, so approval to proceed was granted. Through improved quality of oversight, governance and control, the acquisition was completed within just 3 months of the project starting.

The acquisition successfully added the necessary deep knowledge experts to overcome a shortage of in-house talent. Existing colleagues benefited from expert guidance on improved ways of working, making them more efficient and effective. Customers benefited from improved service and from the product enhancements that followed. Within 12 months, product penetration increased by 100% and monthly spend per customer increased by 35%.

Value was delivered by;

• Being able to clearly demonstrate the value of the acquisition to the business
• Improving customer and colleague service and satisfaction
• Improved credibility with and confidence from across the business
• Improved support of Business Directives

Pains relieved included;

• Lack of subject matter expertise and experience
• Lack of appropriate ways of working

• Due Diligence
• IT Due Diligence
• Technology due diligence
• Post-Merger Integration
• Mergers & Acquisitions
• Project Management
• Digital Marketing
• Product Development
• product management

• Accelerated Solution Delivery
• Organisational Agility & Effectiveness