While both Isolde and Emanuel are targeting different sides of the same coin, I believe that eventually the coin has to be flipped with only one side facing up. Isolde is targeting a business-based market that is led by budgets and profits, whereas Emmanuel is targeting a research-based market that prioritizes findings and outcomes. This is reflected in their respective business models, with Isolde focusing on aggressive, market-capturing tactics to increase revenue and Emmanuel prioritizing customer loyalty and retention to keep high-profile clients coming back.
While seemingly competing and incompatible revenue models, there are pros and cons to combining the two units. As Isolde points out, there is an opportunity to use Emotik’s incredible customer retention to continually bring in money from loyal customers. This has the potential to increase trust and loyalty with high-profile customers and increase the reputation among elite research labs and universities. On top of this, Teomik’s patent had recently expired, which means they would have to compete with competitors offering lower prices. Packaging both Siiquent’s and Teomik’s services together could be a way to lower prices while still bringing in revenue. However, letting the company be flexible with both business models operating side by side would allow for tough internal competition that would drive the respective teams to outperform the other in terms of sales and customer satisfaction. This would lead to increased customer satisfaction, adaptability to changing markets, and allow for one unit to subsidize the other if it falls behind. However, it’s clear that under this model, customer service would have to be streamlined and placed under one umbrella due to its high cost.
Since a big part of both units’ value to the customer is customer service, I would start by starting a dialogue with both department heads to figure out how to make sure that its quality persists through the merger. This would set the tone that the customer is the ultimate priority of the merger and be a way to start on common ground, since both heads clearly value it. Both department heads are clearly experts in their units, products, and customer base so the only way to ensure the best outcome for all parties would be to learn from both of them and have each of them learn from each other. By scaffolding the discussion as a chance to learn, I believe every party will not only be heard and learn, but also feel heard as well. After enough of an understanding has been reached, I would ask both of them what they would do to merge the units to have the best outcome for the customer.
