ALL MERGERS AND ACQUISITIONS LOSE CUSTOMERS, REVENUES, AND MARKET SHARE!
How serious and damaging these losses are depends largely on how well anticipated they are. When these losses are inadequately anticipated, merging and acquiring companies run into serious problems, yet most mergers and acquisitions still suffer from lower revenues than expected. Part of the reason for this is that there has been very little study of customer reactions to mergers, and almost no attention paid to competitive response by rivals of the merging company.
We understand customers and competitors of merging companies!
David Bastien published the first-ever scientific study of customer reactions and market dynamics of mergers and acquisitions, and has since written extensively about why and how customers become alienated and how competitive rivals take advantage of it. His work on acquisition customers and competitors has been covered by USA Today, Gannett News Services, FNN, AP Network News, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the St. Paul Pioneer Press, Twin Cities Business Monthly, Potentials in Marketing, and other media outlets.
Customer loss and revenue downturns come in waves:
- some customers react negatively to the simple announcement of the merger of a vendor, resulting in the first wave of customer (and revenue) loss.
- the operational and strategic changes upon which a merger is predicated often cause some customers to change vendors, resulting in a second wave of customer (and revenue) loss.
- the process of actually implementing the organizational integration process often results in a descending cycle of customer disaffection, resulting in a third wave of customer (and revenue) loss –– this can be the biggest and least expected wave.
Forecasting post-acquisition revenue downturns:
Our instrumentation forecasts, wave by wave, customer losses and revenue downturns in all sorts of market conditions and with all types of integration scenarios. Our instrumentation also uncover how competitors are positioning themselves to take advantage of customer disaffection to yield sophisticated and accurate forecasts.
Helping merger managers overcome the problems with customers and how to respond to rival threats:
We have also developed the sophisticated and effective consulting tools and programs to help minimize the loss of customers and to parry competitive threats from rivals. We have the programs to help:
- identify which customers are likely to become disaffected
- identify what issues drive customers into the arms of competitors
- retain customers
- attract new customers
- prevent employee dissatisfaction stemming from customer problems
- prevent bad sales, marketing, and operational decisions