The Simons Group smoothes rough patches in merger communications
The Problem: A Fortune 100 company had just completed its largest and, because of the number of employees and locations involved, most complicated acquisition. It quickly became evident that the company would need communications strategies it hadn’t used before, as well as outside help in crafting them. After reviewing a number of options, the company selected The Simons Group because of its experience and ability to become productive immediately.
The Solution: The Simons Group knew from experience that carefully crafted, consistent communication is essential to successfully blending two companies. To meet that goal, our merger team assumed responsibility for writing and designing a weekly electronic employee newsletter and worked with the company’s human resources and marketing departments to develop additional strategies for the first 18 months of integration.
The Story: A strategic acquisition that positioned this company to expand into related markets required many components to be successful. In addition to implementing a new business line, the company wanted to welcome thousands of new employees and keep them informed of progress toward integration.
A couple of weeks after the acquisition was announced, however, communications were becoming stalled. Employees expressed concern that news was slow in reaching them. An integration-update newsletter that was to be published weekly had been published only once, and the lack of information meant managers weren’t sure how to answer the questions their employees were asking.
Based on its experience with merger communications, The Simons Group first spent a day meeting with key personnel, identifying the messages they wanted to communicate and learning where to turn when we had questions of our own.
Then we got to work. We assumed full responsibility for the weekly newsletter, contacting a list of sources to develop story topics for 18 months, then creating a publication schedule that was flexible enough to adjust for variations in the initial plan.
Our designers gave the publication a more polished look, and our writers interviewed sources, wrote articles and got approvals for weekly stories. We worked a week or two ahead to ensure that the newsletter was ready to be published on time, every time.
We also worked with human resources and benefits staffers to answer questions employees submitted to a dedicated e-mail box. When a video needed to be shot in Cincinnati, we researched videographers. When managers said they needed answers on how to present information to their staffs, we suggested a separate publication to provide talking points and guide them in responding to questions.
In short, we put our merger communications expertise to work quickly and effectively to help ensure that the company’s most complicated merger was also its smoothest, most successful integration.
For information on how The Simons Group can help your company’s communications, contact Lee Zoldan at lzoldan@thesimonsgroup.com.
