Strategic Solutions & Services, LLC

You’re an executive at a company that just acquired a new business and you have been presented with the challenge of integrating the new company into your existing processes and business support applications - but there’s a few problems:  you haven’t been given any resources to accomplish the task; it requires coordinating the efforts of people all over the globe; and some of the people whose help you need have been personally impacted by the acquisition. 

What do you do?

The Project

When a major, global medical manufacturer acquired a similar business within it’s industry, it needed to transition the new employees, located in Ireland, Puerto Rico and the U.S., into the corporate human resource process-model and application. At the purchasing firm, the human resource administration was outsourced to a company with service centers in Canada, Hungary and India, while at the acquired firm, human resource processes were being supported in-house. 

The project scope included a major technical integration of HR data, processes and applications as well as moving the acquired employees into the corporate HR outsource model. 

Project Outcome

This project’s success is a good example of how important it is to understand and manage the ‘human element,’ the emotions people bring to their jobs.  It’s one of our greatest strengths because of our commitment to business values such as establishing trust, providing straight talk, and demonstrating respect for everyone on the team.  For our client, this approach made it possible for everyone to work toward a common goal and resulted in a successful outcome for the business, the project and the individual.

Challenge #1

The first step was to obtain executive support for the project.  Leadership within the acquiring firm didn’t fully understand the inefficiencies and costs associated with remaining in two separate HR environments and they had been told that the integration would be costly to correct.  As a result, they continued to defer the integration for 3 + years.

Solution

Strategic Solutions & Services was brought in to develop a business case for the project and present it to the executives. We started by meeting with key stakeholders and process & application experts to fully understand the business environment and cultures within both the acquired and acquiring organizations.  As a result of developing positive relationships and our rigorous investigation, we were able to clearly identify the actual costs of the current, non-integrated environment as well as the benefits that would be realized from completing the project.  We also facilitated a collaborative technical approach for implementing system changes and produced a budget that was an affordable 25% of the original estimate.  As a result of our investigation and presentation, the project was authorized and funded at the amount requested.

Challenge #2

The project involved coordinating the actions of people across the country and around the globe.  In the United States, that meant working with employees in Boston, Massachusetts and St. Paul, Minnesota.  It also required the participation of business units in Puerto Rico and Ireland, service centers in Canada and Hungary, and technical support centers in Florida and India. 

The Solution

We established an international, virtual team of 50 stakeholders and meticulously coordinated the efforts of each team member.  The majority of the team never met as a group, but as the project advanced, we worked with individual members to be sure they were clear on their role and completed their assigned tasks on time.  By creating this structure, we were able to effectively manage a large group of people and keep the project on schedule, while ensuring minimal disruption to overall employee productivity.

To accommodate the tight timeline and minimize operation risks, the project was broken down into multiple phases which created a manageable structure that allowed the team to catch mistakes early and learn from each phase.

Challenge #3

It’s called the human element, the emotions people bring to their jobs and the need to understand and manage them.  In this case, the employees from the acquired firm were not happy with the acquisition.  The natural resistance most people have towards change increased here because employees liked the model they were leaving and weren’t convinced they were changing to something better.  Complicating matters further, some employees on the team were personally impacted by the acquisition.    

The Solution

Strategic Solutions & Services is extremely effective at managing people and inspiring them to do their best under the most challenging situations.  Our success is a direct result of our commitment to establish trust, provide straight talk and demonstrate respect for everyone on the team.  In this situation, that meant: constant communication; operating with total transparency; helping team members focus on the positive changes they could make; and appropriately crediting team members for every successful phase of the project.  As a result of our efforts, employee morale improved and team members recognized the positive impact they were having on the outcome of the project.