Insights Discovered During a Software & Team Acquisition Initiative by Russ Harding

Software acquisition initiatives are often monumental projects that will challenge an organization at every opportunity. During the initiative, you are going to encounter many technical challenges as well as the need to support new team members who will be transitioning into a new organization, and customers who are going to demand care and service.

The People Impacted

After an organization has finished its due diligence and has decided to move forward with the acquisition of software, the team and customers, one of the first challenges that will be encountered is the human aspect of the transition.  The new team members will all have emotional and professional challenges in front of them and they will be relying on the acquiring organization to help them navigate the change. The team is not just there to help integrate software; they also need to support the integration of their culture, work ethic, and personal dynamics while also undertaking a fairly large project that they may or may not have been prepared for.

Customer relationships are going to be equally as challenging as each customer will require a degree of individual attention. Customers are going to be relying upon the acquiring organization and its back office team to ensure that the transition from the acquired organization is handled smoothly and professionally. Customers will demand that they are team members in the transition so that the change does not impact their business and operations. Transparent and frequent communication is critical, and will pay off in time if problems become unavoidable.

Ensuring that the new team has the tools and training necessary to seamlessly integrate into their new organization is incredibly important. It is inevitable that different tools are used to accomplish similar task, such as SOC compliance, and it is important that the team members are able to adjust quickly to ensure they are effective with and understand how to you any new tooling.

Managing Technical Debt

Every organization handles technical debt differently, and as the acquirer assumes management of a software re-platforming project, the amount of technical debt and the reasoning behind it will almost never align with the new organization's policies and governance. It is essential to understand and be transparent with leadership about the current state of tech debt and prepare a proactive plan to address it. The plan may range from doing nothing to addressing a specific handful of operational targets, to deliberately adding technical debt to ensure a specific timeline objective.

Timelines, Business Needs, and Managing Surprises

Changing timelines, shifting business needs and external forces all add stressors to implementation teams, and can give your customers and team as much anxiety as they are present to the acquiring organization. Always have contingency plans in place and give yourself as much room and flexibility as can be afforded to mitigate unknowns such as unexpected PTO, 3rd part licenses that inexplicably take months to acquire, or other factors.

Teams and customers’ channels of communication are equally as important as building contingency plans. Projects as complex as a merger or acquisition require extra effort to ensure that personnel - be it the internal team, acquired team, or customers can voice any concerns or issues . Getting timely feedback from all parties helps to limit the inevitable surprises and keep projects on track.

Conclusion: Navigating Software Acquisition

Software acquisition is more than a series of technical and operational challenges; it is a complex project that impacts individuals, teams, and critical business functions. As leaders, our role is not just to lead the teams through technical challenges, but also to ensure that every person feels valued, heard, and respected.