Mergers/ Acquisitions/ Outsourcing/ Insourcing/Offshoring....

Yesterday I was in an discussion on Mergers and Acquisitions at a networking group. BTW, before I proceed those of you who frequent such gatherings did you notice that most of the folks at such sessions are predominantly from the IT/technology sectors? Anyways-- back to my subject; The emphasis in all such ventures, be it Mergers/ Acquisitions/ Outsourcing/ In sourcing/Off shoring-- they are all focused almost entirely on the legal and financial aspects only. Weeks, maybe months are spent on negotiating,bargaining, haggling.. (then it gets worse..) hood winking, downplaying, hiding, misrepresenting, .....lying.. and when finally getting sick of the exercise and running out of patience, Agreeing!! The merger is announced and the stock prices surge in anticipation of the boost that the economy will get from the new merger/acquisition.

Meanwhile..... guess what!-- no one has told operations. Months of deliberations have had no connections with Operations ( the very guys who ensure that the business rakes in the revenues that feeds your payroll). Now, when the merger is announced, the "VeePee's" and the "Pee's" all go off to play golf.. relying on the old Financial Times post adage-- When you’ve got them by their wallets, their hearts and minds will follow. Yes -- they "follow" as they need to retain their jobs and in order to do that the poor folks down in operations have to read through reams of the signed contract to make sense of it and see how it applies to them. Its like trying to service a train that is running a 100kmph with processes that have broken or are not valid. What happens next?? ...

Frustrations mount. Management expectations are in the spirit of the agreement and are now impatient that the operations folks have not yet aligned themselves to the "great strategic path" that the senior leadership has lined up for them. The most competent resources start to leave, others are actively scouring the job market and the situation simply goes South.

Sounds familiar? Those in operations would probably agree with me. I did some thinking and realized that the main cause is Communications. Who are the folks who populate our board rooms? MBAs,CAs and the like.. right?. Rarely do you find any technical manager sitting in on such meetings. And why is that? This is because, as a breed a typical techie is soft spoken, not outspoken at all, preferring to work with his hands and head rather than his mouth and hence he is usually represented by a manager who possess these verbal abilities. These managers swiftly work themselves up the ladder and very soon the touch with the techie is reduced to an electronic status update oblivious to the fact that advancements in technology have overrun his outdated ideas and thinking.

So, what do we need among other things to succeed at M & A's----We need in the board rooms of today, technical managers who are in step with technical advancements, who are articulate enough to convince and negotiate at mergers and acquisitions to include all aspects of operations which will ensure that the mergers/ venture being attempted is as seamless as possible.