This situation is a sticky one for sure. Siiquent, headed by Isolde, found its market niche among hospitals and labs by selling it consumables such as chemical compounds and test kits. A big edge of theirs was providing regulatory assistance to its clients. Teomik, on the other hand, headed by Emmanuel, targeted research units and sold them powerful, but pricey machines. With no need to provide regulatory assistance, their customer support helped them shine. Neither had concrete revenue models, and so when the sensible merger for the two got underway, Peter (the PM in charge of the merger) had to decide what to carry on from each company. Both companies were profitable in their own right and made their returns from a flexible model. Although both heads of each company pushed back on Peter’s urging towards making a more concrete strategic approach for revenue modeling, Peter’s business savvy still told him such a unification would be beneficial.
My thoughts on this situation lie with Peter ultimately making a more direct revenue model. Peter was hired by the parent company Scherr to head this merger, and he knows the strategy of this company best, and their trust is in him, not the heads of the acquired companies. Isolde and Emmanuel’s approaches may have worked well, and their customer-centric approach has much value, but a merger is a big change, and not moving forward with strategy iteration is falling behind. A merged company has new needs and ways of operating than those of the previously independent companies.
This leaves us with the “how” that Peter must employ to make a decisive plan but without missing out on the good learnings of the companies’ previous strategies (or lack thereof). A lot of this process has to deal with human skills. Peter rightly listened to the thoughts of Isolde and Emmanuel, and rightly recognized how they stood united against his position. I believe his next move is to show them his proposal for a revenue plan, incorporating their feedback but still with Scherr’s priorities underlying the plan. He should be clear in explaining the greater needs of Scherr to both in a manner that they can understand and does not come across as top-down. Then, after soliciting their feedback, they can iterate as a team on another strategy. Should the two former heads still be not onboard, they could try another iteration, but ultimately Peter knows that he has to let one of them go and that the decision needs to be made and firmed out by the deadline. It is a tough game of both sides holding to what they believe in, but being mature to arrive at an even better solution with skillfully executed human skills.
