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Desert Storm
Top 11 Shifts in the M&A Landscape: Navigating the Evolving World of Corporate Deals

Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) have long stood as cornerstone strategies for corporate growth, restructuring, and global expansion. But have the shifts in M&A keeping up with the rapidly changing business…

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Obsolete HR: The Harsh Truth About Workforce Planning in Today’s World

In my tenure as a senior business advisor, I've confronted a stark reality that plagues the corporate landscape: the traditional approach to HR and workforce planning is not just failing…

Leadership quandary of a apidly growing company
Leadership quandaries of a rapidly growing company

Who does not want rapid growth? Most micro and small-and-medium-sized businesses would give an arm and a leg to access the rapid growth magic potion. After all, rapid growth would…

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Failing in Experiments is not the same as Failed Performance

Many companies are striving to transition from industrial, process-centric thinking to an innovative, experience-centric approach. However, only a few succeed. A major obstacle is often entrenched management structures, particularly in…

Starbucks Journey parallels to PROMISE model

Introduction Starbucks is more than a café; it is a ubiquitous part of the global urban landscape. For many, it has redefined the very concept of a coffee shop, infusing…

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Unlock and Scale: The Power of Organizational Structure and Management Systems in SMEs

Greetings, entrepreneurs and business leaders.    Do you find yourself bogged down by recurring challenges like a lack of time, talent issues, or cash flow struggles? You're not alone. Today,…

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The Mall Dilemma: A Retailer’s Crossroads

Sarah sat alone in her shop, "Home Bliss," staring at the chic and unique kitchenware that adorned the wooden shelves. The Somerset Mall had seen better days, and so had…

Business Models | Fifth Chrome
Top 11 Business Model Mapping Tools for Strategy and M&A

Understanding a business's model is foundational to any business strategy or M&A discussion. This understanding provides insight into how the business operates, generates value, and competes in its industry. However,…

Career Development of acquired company leadership | Fifth Chrome
Navigating Career Development for Leaders of Acquired Companies in M&A

One of the most momentous occasions in a startup's lifecycle is an acquisition. It's the culmination of years of hard work, a validation of the company's vision, and often a…

Organization Structure | Fifth Chrome
Pursuing Cost Synergies in M&A: The Challenge of Overlapping Roles

The landscape of mergers and acquisitions (M&As) is characterized by a relentless pursuit of cost synergies. This pursuit is driven by the desire to optimize operational efficiency, reduce expenses, and…

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Mastering M&A Strategy: How the GE-McKinsey Framework Enhances Decision-Making and Drives Long-Term Growth

Mergers and acquisitions (M&A) have become an essential part of many organizations' growth strategies. The complex nature of these transactions demands a structured and strategic approach to maximize value and…

Retail photograph | M&A PROMISE Culture |Fifth Chrome
Acquiring Capabilities Through Acquisition: An M&A Case Study in Retail Industry

Acquiring Capabilities Through Acquisition: A M&A Case Study on Roo-Tail and KiwiklyComm   Introduction   In the rapidly evolving retail landscape, traditional giants like Roo-Tail must adapt and innovate to…

Publishers | FIfth Chrome
Accelerating Growth Through Acquisition: An M&A Case Study in Publishing Industry

Introduction As the publishing industry undergoes rapid digitization and changing consumer preferences, traditional publishers like BooksAlive must adapt their strategies to stay competitive and relevant. One such strategy is to…

Happy woman depicting successful culture in mergers and acquisitions | Fifth Chrome
Building A Culture For Successful M&A

High Stakes of Culture in M&A: Common Mistakes and the Silver Lining   In the world of mergers and acquisitions (M&A), culture is often overlooked, leading to disastrous consequences. Companies…

Culture stories in M&A - Clash of hierarchies, Fifth Chrome
Culture Lesson #4 in M&A – Clash of Hierarchies

Javier Hernandez was a successful manager at a California-based tech company. With Hispanic origins, he had always been passionate about diversity and inclusion, and he was excited when his company…

building relationships in M&A Fifth Chrome
Culture Lesson #3 in M&A – Building Relationships

Andrew G., a 35-year-old M&A consultant, had been engaged by a mid-size global company to perform their latest acquisition integration. He was quite excited about this new assignment. As an…

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Culture Lesson #2 in M&A – Empathy meets Business in M&A

Jessie Brown, a middle-aged matronly figure was a well-respected senior HR leader in Dew Pharma, a mid-sized company based out of Prince William County, Virginia. Jessie had been with the…

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Culture Lesson #1 in M&A – Good Intent Does Not Translate Into Good Integration Necessarily

“Anirvan, we’ve got a bad one! Our team in the Czech Republic is absolutely livid about something that the CEO of the acquired company said in their town hall meeting.…

Acquiring Company Manager in M&A
Are Acquired Company Employees Not Professional? A parable on culture in M&A

Cultural Integration in an M&A remains as the greatest challenge for most integrations. And the main reason is the lack of understanding of what organizational culture is and most importantly,…

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How Organizations View Change Management in M&A

In the 20th century, most businesses prospered on the basis of a firm reliance on heavy machinery and other physical assets. As more companies are adopting digital technologies since the…

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Managing Skills Obsolescence through M&A

Leading companies have realized that skills obsolescence is real. The skills gap has a massive impact on the market and it requires attention at the highest level of businesses. In…

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Shortcomings of M&A Integration Playbook

As Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) becomes a major strategic tool for businesses which they use frequently to grow, they need to be supported by a robust playbook. A playbook is…

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Thinking of a Customer-Product Strategy in M&A

These days I often come across companies with several acquisitions but not fully integrated. This is quite pronounced in the mid-market segment, especially those backed by mid-size Private Equities (P.E.). …

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5 Things to Consider When Preparing for a Sale

It is difficult to quantify the value of the effort that you have put in to build your business over the years. And if you are preparing for a sale,…

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Fallacies of Cost Synergies

Unless you are pursuing a consolidation, acquiring a competitor, or are involved in adjacency acquisition, chances are that a fair amount of synergies for your acquisition are new-value generating synergies.…

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8 Dimensions of Organizational Culture

Industry experts define the culture of an organization as the “way we do things here”. In other words, practices, interactions, behaviors, rituals, politics, performance management, career development, rewards and recognition…

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Epic Myth about Creating Competitive Advantage through M&A

“Wise men say, only fools rush in, But I can’t help falling in love with you” These are the lines from the famous song by Elvis Presley. People who know…

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5 Leadership Qualities that Kill an M&A Deal

I was just listening to the Built-to-sell podcast by John Warrillow. His guest was Robert Glazer, a seasoned acquirer and a top-notch thought leader in the space of M&A. Robert…

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Competing Values of S.C.O.R.E.

For any business that wants to embark on a transformation journey, we have developed a comprehensive framework called S.C.O.R.E. based on five critical elements (Strategic Thinking, Competing Values, Operating Model,…

Alex Stanford Result
How robust is your M&A Integration Planning process?

Unlike some of the large companies like Cisco, GE, Philips, Google, and others that acquire companies with constant regularity, most other companies pursue M&A as a strategy either as opportunistic…

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Are you a High-Performance Shared Services Leader? Fill out this scorecard to find out.

There is a massive chasm between an average shared services leader vis-a-vis a high-performance shared services leader. A high-performance leader is: Industry recognized Well respected Pioneering Has opinions Bold And…

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Traditional Shared Services will be Dead in the Coming Decade

Most of the shared services over the past couple of decades have survived primarily on incremental rather than transformational strategies. These strategies have mainly focused on increasing efficiencies, timeliness and…

Target,Audience,And,Business,Leadership,,Teamwork,Power,And,Confidence,Concept.
How to develop talent through skip-level management

It was a typical grey Dutch day. Nothing exciting for most people. But I was excited. I was going to meet my boss’s boss for the first time in my…

Young,Business,Person,And,Graphical,User,Interface,Concept.,Artificial,Intelligence.
Transformations in Shared Services

Most of the functional and shared services leaders in mid-to-large corporates across the globe are facing an existential problem. On one side, most of the organizations have a sub-optimized shared…

Digital,Marketing,Media,(website,Ad,,Email,,Social,Network,,Seo,,Video,
New Future Roles in Shared Services Organizational Architecture

We are living in unprecedented times. The world is rapidly changing around us. What was considered impossible even a couple of decades back is now a big part of our…

successful integration
How to design a highly effective M&A integration in 6 easy steps

M&A is a complex strategy. If done right, then it can give an overnight competitive advantage. Most companies, however, do get it wrong. As per the Harvard Business Review articles,…

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HR Leaders do not get trained in Heaven on M&A Integration

While most HR leaders tend to be highly competent on people and leadership aspects, they do not exude the same level of confidence when it comes to managing the same…

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Maneuvering Culture During M&A Integration

It is important to learn to maneuvering culture during M&A Integration. Cultural integration has been highlighted as one of the key reasons why many M&A integrations fail. Alongside insufficient or…

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Acquisition Of Entrepreneurial Companies: Top Realities Why They Fail

There are multiple reasons why acquisition of entrepreneurial companies fail. Close to 80% of all transactions involve acquiring a company that is much smaller than your organization. These acquisitions tend…

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What is the difference between the roles of Integration Leader and Integration Management Office?

M&A integrations are complex and require specific roles. The difference between Integration Leader and Integration Management Office is fundamental to understand. The role of an M&A Integration leadership is a…

internal and external resources in M&A integration teams
Internal And External Resources In M&A Integration Teams

5 Proven Reasons why M&A Integration Teams should be a blend of internal and external resources The challenge for many organizations relates to the adequate skills left in their organizations,…

employee surveys right timing
When Is The Right Time For Your M&A Employee Surveys

How To Right Time Your M&A Employee Surveys Most M&A employee surveys fail during the process of integration. This failure takes place due to incorrect timing more than anything else,…

mobilization hurdles
7 Biggest Mobilization Hurdles For Your M&A Integration

Mobilization is defined as “the act of assembling and readying military troops and supplies for war” as per Wikipedia. This exercise is usually done in quick time and in a…

Digital Innovation eBook
Digital innovation ebook launched by Fifth Chrome

✨ Our 1st digital innovation ebook has been published today ✨ ? It is one of the biggest milestones in our business in recent times. ? What started out as…

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Digital Tax Webcast – In partnership with C-DEP India, Grant Thornton & Fifth Chrome

? Digital Tax Virtual Session ? But what is digital tax? This is the question many businesses don’t have a good answer to or awareness about. Not just that, if…

5th Chrome - Digital Reinvention
Digital Business Reinvention [The Yellow Pages Story]

Is Your Business Prepared for Digital Reinvention?   Digital technology has changed the world. That is why digital business reinvention has become crucial. In this post, we will learn about…

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The Importance of Business Strategy in Transforming Business

  What do you think of when you hear someone emphasize the importance of business strategy?  A Three to Five year Plan? A cunning way to outsmart the competition and…

Leveraging Blockchain to create a competitive edge

What many companies don’t realize is that Blockchain is a “revolutionary” technology. Businesses and executives still link Blockchain with bitcoin and crypto currency. The fact that block chain can provide…

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6th Annual Global Process Improvement and Operational Excellence, 25-27th March 2020, Amsterdam

It’s our pleasure to announce Anirvan Sen, CEO of Fifth Chrome as our esteemed speaker and Chairman for the 6th Annual Global Process Improvement & Operational Excellence Summit. Join us…

5th Chrome - 11 Reasons Why Every Business Needs a Digital Strategy
11 Reasons Why Every Business Needs a Digital Strategy

The proliferation of digital technologies over the last three decades have turned traditional business models on their heads. Globalization coupled with technological innovation and mass consumerization has compelled organizations to…

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Is Operational Excellence dying? 5 easy steps to revitalize your OPEX programs

Struggling with your operational excellence program? You seem to put all the required effort, but your continuous improvement program doesn’t seem to please the executive leadership team? Even worse, your…

Wishing you and your loved ones a very happy new year 2020

  ? We tend to spend enormous amounts of time pondering over details of a solution and yet, we seem to short-change the need to understand details of the problems…

Blockchain as a Competitive Edge
Secrets of right-staffing for an M&A Integration

This is one question that I repeatedly get asked at all my M&A training courses. And I can understand why my trainees ask this question.The reality is that there is…

10 reasons why corporates are averse to Blockchain

Here are 10 encumbering reasons why private Blockchain is only getting limited traction in the corporate/business world: Keeping up with the rapidly changing technology landscape Aversion to crypto-currency and token-based…

Wishing all our clients and well-wishers a very happy new year 2019

As we draw close to the end of the year, here are our top 5 challenges of M&A Integration: Granularity and level of sufficiency of integration planning Cultural alignment Inadequate…

Launching of M&A Readiness Assessment for Small and Medium sized Enterprise (SMEs)

After years of research, experience and input from various practitioners across the globe, we have now created an assessment on Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) readiness exclusively for Small and Medium…

m&a integrations
Mr CXO, Revisit "Habits" For M&A Integration

Change management in M&A integrations is a complex and widely defined subject. Practitioners use various interpretations of change management during an integration project. Here are a few examples of what…

HR Teams
Why do HR Teams Still Remain Underdogs of M&A Integration?

Despite having a pivotal responsibility of managing human capital of an organization, HR leadership involvement in matters related to M&A remain quite limited. In many integrations, the involvement of HR…

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Confused between Capacity vs. Availability of resources in Projects?

“The devil is in the details” as the famous idiom goes, couldn’t more appropriate in the world of transformation and M&A integration projects. In fact, missing out crucial details can…

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Top 5 things to consider at the time of Mergers & Integration

M&A is one of the complexities of modern day corporate world. At the outset, it is required to gain competitive advantage and, therefore, should be part of any serious-play arsenal.…

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Lean Digital Metrics

LEAN Digital Metrics “It is impossible to escape the impression that people commonly use false standards of measurement — that they seek power, success and wealth for themselves and admire…

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Procure to Pay LEAN Workshop

Get high levels of efficiency in Procure to Pay process using LEAN Six Sigma methods in a 3-day workshop

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Data Analytics based LEAN Six-Sigma Improvements

Data Analytics based LEAN Six Sigma Improvements Data Analytics based LEAN Six Sigma Improvements approach is based on an innovative approach that combines the latest Data Analytics tools and LEAN…

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Process Governance: 5 tips to maximize Effectiveness

Process Governance: 5 tips to maximize Effectiveness In a large number of organizations, process governance remains ineffective and processes and functions are largely managed on personal interpretation or with a basic…

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Top Governance Focus Areas

Top Governance Focus Areas One of the most important aspects that differentiate successfully run organizations or functions is governance. We in Fifth Chrome have used our life experiences to identify…

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Is it time to shun vanity metrics in operational environment

Is it time to shun vanity metrics in operational environment If you’ve ever worked in a shared services environment, you’re likely to be familiar with ‘vanity metrics’. Vanity metrics can…

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5C returns after a successful trip to Africa

5C returns after a successful trip to Africa Fifth Chrome (5C) team members Anirvan Sen and LV had embarked on a 10-day trip to Africa. The trip included a study…