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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

“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.…

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,…

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…

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…

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…

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.). …

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,…

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.…

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…

“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…

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…

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,…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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,…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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,…

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 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…

✨ 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…

? 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…

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…

  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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

  ? 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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

“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…

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.…

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…

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

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…