In my personal experience of working with a small but highly profitable Indian outsourcing firm, I had the opportunity to witness its merger with IBM. Being a global behemoth in terms of its diverse businesses across the world and being a well-known corporate brand, IBM was not new to managing mergers and acquisitions; and transcending its universal corporate culture and philosophy across its various entities.
Prior to the deal being announced in the media, all employees were informed about the merger through an elaborate e-mail from our CEO highlighting the reasons and logic behind the move to merge with IBM. He also provided the specific Human Resources contact information to address any concerns or questions that we may have and encouraged us to personally write to him if our concerns were not fully addressed.
The next few days saw a flurry of activities at our workplace with our senior managers meeting their respective production teams and formally announcing the merger in person in presence of HR executives and senior IBM officers. The CEO intricately explained to all the employees by video-conference as to how our existing mission, vision and values were in sync with the IBM values and that there would not be a monumental change in our day to day operations. There would be no job losses, transfers or role changes within the next six months.
I witnessed regular communications from our Corporate Human Resources team that kept us abreast with the changes in terms of the new aesthetics of the facility, our identities and attire in line with IBM corporate culture. Also, a new logo and a new name were announced. This gave us a very professional outlook that boosted our self-confidence and made us feel proud to be a part of a global corporation. The employee turnover was very low post the merger as the identity of IBM as a corporation was well-known. Also, all employees had a very high regard for IBM being a leader in our industry and were well aware of its reputation in the corporate world. Hence, IBM's image and identity played an important role in reinforcing its reputation and corporate values among our staff.
IBM and our top management worked tirelessly to interact with our suppliers and customers in updating them about our new corporate identity and our brand. The existing communication media vehicles were used to the maximum (courtesy of IBM) to communicate the merger and reinforce the IBM brand and our new identity in the marketplace.
In my opinion, IBM and our senior management handled the merger in a very smooth and efficient manner.
My goodness, are you writing a novel? At any rate, I can see how the image and reputation of IBM helped create a smooth transition. If it were another organization with a reputation that was less than positive, there may have been a lot more tension with the merger - especially when it came to the fear of losing your job.
ReplyDeleteI wonder how well your firm's customers took to the news of the acquisition? Their view of a corporation's image and reputation may be from a much different perspective.
Thank you Richard for your comments. From our customers' perspective, they took the news in positive light as IBM re-iterated that it would not make any changes to the existing contracts they have had with the organization in its previous form. The customers were also well aware of IBM's brand name and were proud to do business with IBM. Also, since IBM was new to the outsourcing industry in India it did not make significant changes in dealing with new and existing customers until it got a firm hand on the business model that it acquired which honestly did take a couple of years.
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