[Jimmy Carrier]

We have seen there is 3 majors points to look at before doing an acquisition, which is Strategy, Finance and Culture. Strategy and Finance seem better understood, easier to figure out what needs to be done to atteint certain goals and action plan to put in place.
Culture in our team is harder.
Do you plan any steps before acquisition for culture ? Is there a formal action plan put in place, specifics activities that you planned to do ? Also, how do you measure progress and culture ? I would be curious to see your action plan on this more formal concept in integration and how it’s part of your acquisition/integration plan.
Thank you !

[Glenn Choo]

I think we can conduct some employee engagement surveys to see the organisational heartbeat of the target firm. This has to be coupled with focus group sessions to tease out the nuances in the replies.

I fully agree doing due diligence of culture is exceptionally important – sometimes more important than the finances itself.

[Tina McCuen]

Unfortunately, we have not done any formal cultural planning, which has led to communication breakdowns and periods of ‘us versus them’. The upside is we have had informal cultural assessments, including pre-integration meetings of key stakeholders. Attending a week long professional conference together, attending one another’s presentations, having dinners and social time together and discussing company values and the excitement of our future growth together. While informal, it built a lot of trust and credibility, allowed us to see some of the cultural differences. The relationship we built in person has carried us through the bumpy times.

[Justin Lau]

To really understand about culture, one has to spend some time with the employees. For example, in an office setting as well as over coffee where they are more relax.

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