During a merger, how can BPOs prevent collateral damage in their client base? 🏢 💰 🏢
My good friend Peter Ryan, one of the world's most respected analysts and advisors in our industry, joins BPO Bullhorn this week to answer that very question.
Peter is offering up some priceless advice for BPOs in the merger process:
😨 Strategies for lowering client anxiety
🤝 How to preserve your cultural advantages
👨💼 Keeping strong leadership ties with clients
➕ And much more...
For anyone who knows Peter and his exceptional work at Ryan Strategic Advisory, you know that this one is not to be missed.
If you don't know Peter, well...let's just say you're about to get some of the most valuable advice we've ever published.
Q: During a merger, how can BPOs relieve client anxiety about potential disruptions to their services? What strategies have you seen that work best?
A: The most important thing is to ensure the clients of the BPO doing the buying and the ones of the BPO being bought that there will be limited to minimum disruption to their service delivery. Let’s be frank: no matter what the sector, people are overwhelmingly skeptical of consolidation—they fear that service quality will go down, confusion will ensue and that there will be an overall degradation in value. This is the same within the scope of any type of CX business services. Working closely with clients to demonstrate that end-users do not need to fear any kind of disruption is a crucial step in achieving buy-in for an M&A initiative. A step further would be to promote the value that a deal potentially brings to the table in terms of enhanced services, technologies, and processes.
Q: Given that mergers often involve a mix-up of company cultures, how can consolidated BPOs preserve the unique aspects of their culture that clients most appreciate?
A: This is a worry that cannot be understated—in fact, it has cast a shadow over many outsourcing M&A deals in the past few years. The most important thing to recognize is that a significant number of employees will be skeptical of having a new way of working imposed on them and being pressured to do the most possible to ease this transition. It’s also unrealistic for two entities under one ownership to operate independently for too long—having a plan to make the transition toward one single corporate structure that takes into account a positive, unified employee culture should be at the heart of any integration program.
Q: How and why should BPOs maintain a high level of client-executive engagement and leadership accessibility post-merger?
A: This is essential in the success of any merger in BPO—the history of this space is littered with lost clients and executives who have bailed out once a merger has been announced or undertaken. Focusing on retaining leadership talent following an M&A is a no-brainer. Still, sadly, in many cases, it has been used as a means of divide and conquer, especially from the management retention side. Business moves too quickly, and there is no time for score-settling or making people from an acquired entity feel unwelcome or uncomfortable. Embrace the chance to bring in different views or ways of working. In the long run, the business, the clients and the end-users will benefit.
Q: How can BPOs ensure that the innovation and improvements promised during a merger translate into actual benefits for clients rather than false promises?
A: There is only one way of achieving this, and it comes from the top of the pyramid. No one should doubt that consolidation has the chance to drive new ways of working, innovations, and complimentary services. A logical first step is to identify targets to buy that have the services that can plug gaps and expand offerings. Leaders within BPOs that are making these M&A deals have to have a vision in place about what they want to achieve for their clients within a deal, alongside the obvious net benefits for shareholders of expanding revenue and scale.
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Head over to Ryan Strategic Advisory here for more of Peter’s commentary and research, and follow him on LinkedIn here.
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