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July 9, 2008

Is Your Company Like the Brady Bunch?

Posted at 6:41 PM

When companies are sold, the founder will probably have a hard time coping, and the buyer may not turn out to be as or clever in their management as one might hope. This is old news explored with a bit of style by an article in the The New York Times. The piece focuses specifically on the experiences of founders who sell to a big company and then end up working for the acquirer as a middle manager.

And it contains this choice metaphor:

"[L]ike stepfamilies trying to blend together, the transition from single household to Brady Bunch is often harder than most entrepreneurs anticipate. Either the former owners have trouble giving up control, or they find the new office culture radically different from what they were used to, or they simply cannot bear to see what the new owners are doing to their creations. It can be wrenching even in the best of circumstances."

You can read the article in full here. Which do you think is harder: Acclimating to a step family or selling a company to a corporate giant?

2 Comments

Posted by: Nishajoshi at July 14, 2008 10:45 AM

I think selling a company to a corporate is harder than acclimating to a step family.

On of the problem which i can think of while an acquisitions is that the acquirer usually cannot agree a deal unless it overpays for the businesses it acquires. Which in turn places more pressure on the acquirer to gain all the process synergies it can.

A merger which i can remember right now, is Ernst & Young. After a lot of pain, was Ernst & Whinney and Arthur Young - now known as Ernst & Young. It took around 3-4 years before the new Ernst & Young culture and quality methodologies started to bear fruit. Today it is an extremely successful global professional services firm.

I'm sure you must have heard about the latest Acquisition in the BPO industry, WNS acquires AVIVA BPO. to read more about this article, click here http://www.wnsgs.com/news_press.php

Posted by: jholbrook at July 15, 2008 9:21 AM

One only need look to the recent mess at EMC / VMWare. Last Wednesday (7/9)EMC, who owns 86% of VMWare, recently issued a press release saying VMWare's CEO Diane Green quit. VMWare representatives hurriedly leaked to every press outlet willing to listen that in fact she was fired. The culture war rages on.

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