Unified Communications Strategy in an M&A Environment
A Global Food Service Distributor Uses Strategy to Organize Fast-Paced M&A
The merger and acquisition process can produce a great deal of stress for corporations and their employees. From culture clashes to uncertainty about the future, employees and leaders going through M&A activity are often relieved when the dust has settled.
For one Midwest-based, global foodservice distributor, M&A activity is a way of life. As one of the largest private companies in the United States, much of their growth has come from mergers and acquisitions. What may be a tumultuous, one-time event for many corporations is their standard way of work.
One of the most important aspects of this ongoing technology integration process is maintaining a functional collaboration environment. Phones, messaging, call centers, and video technology are all critical to maintaining day-to-day operations and collaborating between the global distributor’s corporate and branch locations.
Creating an Agile, Standards-Based Unified Communications Plan
The organization had previously purchased “off-the-rack” Cisco unified communications solutions, but this approach wasn’t working for their complex and rapidly expanding infrastructure. They needed a consultative integration partner to improve the current system architecture and processes. Their M&A activity created specific requirements:
Integration timeline requirements varied widely depending on M&A terms, meaning a standardized yet flexible integration blueprint was critical
Multiple vendors were involved in every step of the integration process, all with various dependencies on each other
With each integration, the distributor wanted to make the overall collaboration architecture more and more efficient
Maintaining employee connectivity throughout the merger was critical, not only for productivity but also for continued morale and collaboration
Burwood’s relationship with the company began in 2010, helping with server and storage upgrades related to the M&A activity. Gradually, they were exposed to Burwood’s experienced unified communications team. What began as assisting during one merger turned into a programmatic approach to integrate and modernize the collaboration environment. Together, Burwood and the client team:
Created a repeatable methodology and standard best practices for integrating acquired unified communications environments with the corporate infrastructure
Established standardized onboarding processes for bringing newly-acquired sites online
Designed and deployed net-new system expansion projects as needed
This standards-based, training-focused approach was just what the global distributor needed to integrate new sites in a streamlined, flexible manner.
Four Best Practices for Effective M&A Unified Communications Integrations
Intentional relationship-building between Burwood and client team members has been critical to the success of this long-term partnership. The Burwood team is personally invested in teaching them how to manage their growing and complex environment.
Burwood embarked on the several-year process of building a relationship with the client team and improving their collaboration environment and standards. They established the following best practices in process:
Use each integration as an opportunity to improve the enterprise.
How does a new site turn-up affect call plans? What changes can we implement that will make the broader enterprise more efficient? The Burwood team asks probing questions at each integration, constantly looking for broad improvement opportunities. After each integration, Burwood captures lessons learned for the next turn-up.
This historical knowledge has proved invaluable for each subsequent integration, especially when additional vendors are involved. Burwood’s presence is a consistent thread through each integration, giving confidence to the client team.
Include the acquired corporation in the integration process and planning.
When a new business is acquired, Burwood meets with division leaders to share information about the distributor’s corporate communications technologies, uncover concerns, and help manage the change.
This approach helps to ease the stress and apprehension of acquired firms and impending technology changes. Rather than providing cookie-cutter solutions for each business group, the Burwood team customizes solutions for their specific needs, while ensuring that the solution works smoothly with the enterprise environment and strategy.
Over-communicate and over-deliver, during and between integration projects.
Burwood distributes their cell numbers for easy communication, encouraging client stakeholders to text or call anytime. This responsiveness and white glove service goes a long way in their fast-paced culture. Project updates are frequent, and conveyed in clear, concise language. This enables everyone from engineers to the CIO to understand status, regardless of technical knowledge.
Post-integration, the Burwood team consistently checks in out outstanding issues. Helping to resolve any nagging concerns not only assists the client team, but gives Burwood a better understanding of lessons learned.
Prioritize enablement of engineers and end users to ensure long-term adoption.
Burwood’s working style with the distributor IT team is based on relationship-building, not project scope definitions. The Burwood team looks for opportunities to educate the engineers on the whys and hows of unified communication technologies and integration.
Sometimes the Burwood team gets creative when they sense an opportunity for adding value. In a recent instance, end-user training was not part of the project scope, but the Burwood consultants sensed it would be a huge help to the client’s corporate team. On a zero-dollar budget, the Burwood consultants recorded a series of Cisco WebEx training videos that were hugely appreciated by the system administrators and new end users.
“Over the past decade, Burwood has provided not only technical expertise, but a highly responsive, consultative approach. They’ve become a trusted partner in our growth, and enabled us to address our most urgent requirements. Our infrastructure is now positioned for the future.”
The Result: An Optimized Collaboration Infrastructure Positioned for Growth
Today, this global foodservice distributor is still engrossed in M&A activity. However, their collaboration integration approach is transformed through the work they’ve done with Burwood Group. The team has now built:
An effective, reliable methodology for integrating new companies into the corporate collaboration infrastructure
An excellent customer experience for their newly acquired companies’ leaders and end users
Supported by Burwood’s consultative approach, the client is now confident that their collaboration infrastructure can grow to support future M&A activity and enterprise goals. Burwood continues to support them with new site turn-ups and is excited to take on new strategic initiatives, including a new call center deployment in Canada.
Together, the joint Burwood-client team has built a 10-year relationship founded in trust, integrity, and hard work.
Burwood Group Services
Merger and Acquisition IT Strategy
Program Management
End-User Training and Adoption
Collaboration Expertise
Burwood Group is a Cisco Master Collaboration Specialist, the highest professional services designation offered by Cisco in Unified Communications technology. Burwood has implemented numerous collaboration technology solutions for this global foodservice distributor in their 10-year business relationship, including:
Contact Center integrations including configuring and adding new agents and call flows
VoIP upgrades and integrations including customization for various business units
Video Conferencing (Cisco Telepresence)
Consolidation of VoIP circuits
Global-Scale Faxing Solution Deployments
Attendant Console Solutions
Voice Picking Systems
Text-to-Speech and Translation
