Inarticulate ramblings of a management consultant

the day to day experiences of a consultant operating in weird and wonderful client situations

Tag Archive for ‘stakeholder management’

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The mother of all disruptions

This week our podcast is all about an interesting convergence between: future strategy in the fossil future sector which has a very limited long term future but continues to make great returns for its shareholders; the challenge of current and future employees and how this might have an impact on employment strategy going forward; and lastly the role of government in determining the future. https://theagilegorilla-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/theagilegorilla.com/podcast/2023/10/6/13-the-mother-of-all-disruptions?format=amp

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Save the silver bullet – a shameless piece of self promotion!

Please indulge me for a moment as I look back at the last year following the publication of my book, ‘Save the Silver Bullet…The small steps to successful transformation’. It has been an extraordinary time for me with opportunities to speak to global and local organisations, industry bodies and at major conferences on the drivers of successful transformation. I’ve been fortunate enough to spend some time with wonderful people around […]

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Buying out the banks – a repeat of 2007/2008 or something new?

This week we talk about the wave of forced mergers in the US. Paul Siegenthaler, Abhay Pande and I talk about the drivers for the current transactions, what are the implications from an integration perspective, and what the future holds. As ever, we’d love to hear from you. Please let us know your thoughts, comments and ideas. https://theagilegorilla.com/podcast/2023/5/19/8-buying-out-the-banks

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Deep thinking about deepMind – a very different type of deal!

The latest podcast in the Agile Gorilla Collective series. This week Abhay, David and I talk about the dynamics of Deepmind and Google Brain coming together, what the key challenges for Demis Hassabis and Jeff Dean are in terms of leadership and change management, the competitor landscape and the potential pace of change required, It is a fascinating transaction, not only because of the sudden awareness through ChatGPT of the […]

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Divorce – the failure of two high profile transactions

Two interesting tales of failure this week. The first, the sell off of Worldpay from FIS following a disastrous integration has that rare commodity in any form of transformation programme, a counter factual with the acquisition of First Data by FISERV happening at the same time with similar market condition..but a dramatically different result. The second following our earlier podcast on Project Everest is a little summary on the break […]

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The creation of one of the largest consulting businesses…..ever!

As part of the new podcast series from the Agile Gorilla Collective, David Boyd, Abhay Pande, Paul Siegenthaler (you can find their bios here https://theagilegorilla.com/collective – they are an impressive bunch of people!) and I talk through the separation of the EY consulting business as much discussed and written about over the past few months. We address both the operational implications, the impact on clients and how to address the human […]

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Three things to think about when preparing your company for a ‘growth by acquisition’ strategy

At the risk of sounding trite, the opportunities for successful acquirers have never been as great as they are now nor the risks higher! The market generally views with suspicion those who would target growth through deals as their primary vehicle (the Valeant and SunEddison story is another in the litany of M&A disasters…see here for my take on it) but for those who do it well, the leverage of […]

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When does a shareholder vote become a distraction rather than a real test of governance?

I’m struck by a couple of transactions in the last 6 months which have some unusual characteristics….and absolutely demonstrate the passive nature of both institutional and retail shareholders these days. The one in particular which I want to look at today is SAB Miller / Anheuser Busch. The announcement of the transaction between SAB Miller and Anheuser-Busch INBEV in the form of the public statement issued on 11th November 2015 […]

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Asian Investors -hierarchical?

The second in my series of capital flows from East to West….and the consequences for European / UK and American leaders. You will find the first here…I would recommend that you read them in the order that they are written! One of the biggest challenges for Western CEOs facing the prospect of Asian ownership is understanding the formal and informal nature of governance. There is a perception amongst many, based […]

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Asian investors -dealing with a new owner?

We are living in a period of reversals….for most of our lives, decisions have been made in the West and implemented (with mixed success) in the East. From outsourcing shared services to the Philippines and South Asia, to banks developing global platforms by buying local and regional businesses across Asia, to the great manufacturing shift to China and more recently to Vietnam, the emphasis on delivery has the remit of […]

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The market needs certainty…really?

On the morning after the most extraordinary day in British political history, the clamour in every publicly traded market is for certainty… about the timing of the triggering of Article 50, about the new leadership of the Conservative Party (and the Labour Party), about the terms of the agreement with the EU, about the position of the rest of the UK (in particular Scotland and Northern Ireland) etc! As an […]

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The rise and rise of unsolicited bids…

Dealogic reports that there have been 17 unsolicited bids this year, an unprecedented number since 2008 and a record in terms of value of USD 54.9 billion. How it used to work…  In the old days, the intermediaries of investment banks, brokers, corporate financiers were there to assess an appetite and report back on potential conditions which might make an approach attractive.  In the old days, the raising of finance for […]

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Combining the financial and the strategic…the unholy alliance between Takeda and TPG!

Last week saw the announcement of an attempted bid for Valeant, the serial acquirer masquerading as a pharmaceuticals company at a rather opportunistic time when the firestorm of media attention, debt levels, alleged pricing scandals and CEO ill health threatened to unhinge the business entirely. It’s not a first combination of this type…the acquisition of Boots by Alliance Unichem was financed largely by KKR in a similar sharing of interests. […]

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The love affair between Fintech and financial services – unrequited?

Large consulting firms buying / investing in small specialists Telecommunications giants buying / investing in tiny adtech ventures Banks and insurance companies buying / investing in owner managed fintech businesses Once again we are on the crest of a wave of mergers and acquisitions whereby the very large swallow the very small. I’m not at all confident that we won’t have the same result the last time this happened…in the […]

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Does an org structure tell you anything about influence? Think again…

I’ve posted previously on the futility of the classic organisational structure analysis when it comes to M&A (you’ll find the link here). A good friend and ex-colleague came back to me with an excellent challenge…easy to poke holes in it but what’s the solution? Let me respond and come up with some ideas on how to do this more effectively given the constraints of an M&A process pre announcement, notably:  Limited access to […]

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Strategy and integration – the oil and vinegar of any deal

…no matter how much you vigorously combine them, they eventually separate out again. It’s a nice analogy but why? Why is it so hard to successfully translate strategy into integration? Why do those who lead / create strategy well struggle so badly with integration? Why does a set of activities which by their very nature are iterate, continue to be linear? One of the joys of my work is that I meet […]

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You want effective communications in an acquisition? Recognise your employees’ perceptions as the actual baseline and own it…simple really!

Anyone you know who hasn’t been through a deal of some kind? I thought not…even those who work in the public sector will have had some strategic transformation thrust upon them. It’s a part of corporate life, whether you’re a senior stakeholder or an entry level employee.…and what has their experience been like, do you think? Positive…’I’ve learned from the experience and my career has been enhanced’ Neutral…’It’s only affected […]

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Deals that don’t complete – the consequences of being left at the ‘altar’

What happens when the deal you’ve been banking on is pulled  “Investors should worry whenever bosses and bankers succumb to deal-fever, since so many corporate transactions end up destroying value. The latest crop has some of the tell-tale signs of danger: high ego, high price and over-confidence.” You’re probably not surprised to hear that this is a quote from the FT…as relevant today as it was when it was written, […]

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The rise of China’s serial acquirers – M&A China style appears to be a ‘non-contact’ sport!

According to Dealogic, 102 outbound Chinese transactions have been announced to date worth USD 81.6 billion up from USD 11.2 billion for the same period last year… Some of them have been truly momentous:  Haier’s intention to acquire the GE Appliance business, a business which is steeped in American corporate history. ChemChina’s bid for Syngenta, the sheer size of which is eye popping at USD 48 billion. HNA Group’s bid for […]

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