Small and mid-size businesses that are acquired, usually have the potential to grow and have a strong, vibrant culture. A significant portion of the value of these companies is held in the expertise, knowledge, and business relationships of the acquired staff.
Intista helps or advises companies that acquire small or mid-size businesses. This is the only market sector we work in, so we fully understand the need to protect the value held by the people in an acquired business. To that end, we have developed a people-centric, communicative approach to ensure the staff feel more involved and less alienated by the stresses of an acquisition integration.
Our proprietary SSIM™ approach, turns the reasons for acquiring into a few key messages (objectives) that everybody in the business (acquired and acquiring) are tasked with working towards. These objectives can be used by leadership to communicate to staff in a way that suits their style.
Acquisition integrations (including ours) address “standard” projects, such as merging IT, or consolidating marketing plans. However, in addition to these, we strive to protect the value of the acquisition by devoting significant efforts to staff onboarding, staff retention and staff communication.
Our CEO, Steve Nunn, was recently interview by the Affiliation of M&A Advisors (AMAA) about this different approach to managing acquisition integrations: