Common Pitfalls to Avoid
Acquisitions are exciting, even flattering, and can get the adrenaline pumping. That being said, there are some pitfalls to avoid. In this Orange Paper, I present ways to help you stay in the driver’s seat from the start of that journey to firm integration.
[wpdm_file id=2] Rest assured your personal info is safe with us – enjoy the Orange Paper!| CLIENT: | Large Engineering Firm |
| CHALLENGE: | Extend and secure new contracts in the area of Data Centers for telecommunication, finance and media industries. |
| RESEARCH: | Designed face-to-face interviews that reveal the challenges and the breakdowns that cause the most pain in data centers. |
| DISCOVERY OF UNTAPPED POTENTIAL: |
Identified “downtime” as the most critical concern evidenced by a financial institution losing $260 million dollars a minute when their check processing centers went off line. A variety of well- intentioned vendors, designers, departments and process operators were responsible for getting back online but we discovered they were often working independently in silo’s – a cumbersome and inefficient response to an expensive problem. |
| HARNESS POTENTIAL: |
Plucked individuals from across departments and disciplines to assemble a team dedicated to “Collaborative Design and Operations for Data Center Uptime. Newly formed team collaboratively built and marketed a unique practice promising result. Data Center Uptime Named the Offer > OnlinEnivronments. Specified all the moving parts of the OnlineEnvironments Design Solution and the cost benefit. Geography of Facility – Architecture and Engineering of Facility – IT Infrastructure and Facilities Management – Process Design and Outage Prevention Management |
| RESULTS: | Out-of-the-gate this untapped potential accelerated growth and generated 14million dollars of new revenue. This success demonstrates how a distinctive solution accelerates a company’s capacity to become market leaders, to choose their clients and to charge more for it. The optimum result of working with Bright Operations is the creation of a structural and operational eco-system that is sustainable over time, producing preferred transactions and smart market extensions over and over again. In other words, “Wow, we’ve done it again!” |
AECOM
ARB Structures/All Day Electric
Arthur Metzler & Associates (AMA)
Arup
Berliner & Associates
Charles Pankow Builders
Clark Construction
DPR Construction
Glumac
HGA
HOK
John A Martin & Associates
Jones Lang LaSalle
Lucia Mar Unified School District
Pankow Builders
PlanNet Consulting
Perkins & Will
Mid State Precast
Rockefeller Partners Architects
Structural Focus
tk1sc
POSITIONING
If you look just like your competitors, act like them and work like them, your clients can’t distinguish you enough from the herd to pay for a differentiated offering. So go get one. Bright Operations can help you cultivate your “products” and approaches that make you stand apart from the rest. This is not just about words or a new tagline. This is about knowing your clients’ new struggles and about the culture of who you are and what you do.
LEVERAGING
Eight independent contributors sitting together in regular meetings does not make a leadership team. It is not about communicating what you are doing to seven of your peers, it is about working together toward greatness. Bright Operations builds a team’s leadership muscle by focusing on key processes; leverage points, collective vision, transparency, and accountability. You want results? Let’s get the team rowing in the same direction – towards the goals they establish. When you are on a team that’s harnessing its capabilities – that’s real power and the results are often a huge ROI.
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The secret of a healthy business is to navigate to where market research, business strategies, and operational tactics converge. Bright Operations™ works with clients who are in need of:
RESCUING
We have all seen the frustrated CEO warning a business unit that they need to improve. At Bright Operations, we believe that if people knew what to do they would be doing it – no one likes being on a losing team. When the doldrums hit most people start working harder and longer at doing what they have always done. Unfortunately, they’ll most likely produce the same lack luster results. Bright Operations audits underperforming business units first by listening. We listen to team members, CEOs and Clients alike to discover the real issues that exist. Then we work to address them. We give them permission and a process to confront what had been preventing their desired outcomes and incomes.
COACHING
Often CEOs or leadership teams need a sounding board and coach to run ideas by – an outside confidante with a fresh pair of eyes, and ideas from other companies. Usually, they are the most insulated to new ideas because they are already in leadership and it is assumed they know everything. Bright Operations can provide individual or team coaching to those executives who want to become something better, make better results and keep learning. Without their own mentoring, even mentors become stagnant. Coaching allows people to go to the next dimension and achieve even greater success personally and for the firm.
ASSESSING
Many companies want to get into new markets and obtain new clients and keep that stock price going and naturally, acquisitions surface as a viable strategy. It is often believed that “the deal” will heal their business issues and so there is cause for great celebration. At Bright Operations we believe this is like throwing a parade after the first quarter of a football game. Success of an acquisition depends on how firms leverage the resources, clients, and innovations to grow the business. We work to evaluate an acquisition from the angle that always gets overlooked – is this the right cultural fit, does this really get me more and better clients? Without such attention, the lives of the employees of both firms get much harder with little benefit. Bright Operations’ focused approach with the leadership of both firms can turn a “good” acquisition into a reality that unites teams and produces results faster.
VISIONING
When people are a part of advancing a new vision and strategy they become engaged and instrumental in achieving it. Bright Operations can work with you to plan and facilitate highly inspired meetings to capture the interest and involvement of the team and, importantly, the strategy, initiatives and operational tactics to go after your vision and get it!
