Isolde was the head of Siiquent — her company targeted hospitals and big diagnostic labs’ need for gene-based diagnosis. The focus of her business model, as she put it, was making money (lots of it). Siiquent got their revenue from selling the stuff that machines needed.
Emanuel was the head of Teomik — his company targeted research labs and universities’ need for gene-based studies. He valued his company’s ability to be flexible and felt it was one of their biggest differentiators. Teomik got their revenue from selling the machines needed to carry out the stuff that was sold by Siiquent.
Both offered customized training, workflow optimization, and hotline support from a team of PhDs.
Imposing the structure of one revenue model would allow for more structure and possibility of gaining their lost customers and their position in the market. But this would also be new to the customers (and employees) and would take some time for them to get accustomed to. It would also be tough to find out how to implement this keeping in mind the interests of Isolde and Teomik .
If they let the company continue on its flexible ways, there would be lack of structure and having 2 different heads can lead to conflicts that can be tough to solve. On a positive note, this would allow for familiarity to be retained for customers and employees (customer and employee satisfaction is very important) and as the two of them put it, benefit them in a rapidly changing market. But, a major reason for deciding to merge them was that there was an issue from competitors and we shouldn’t forget that.
My strategy incase of a merger:
- Opportunity for Isolde and Emanuel to get to know each other on a personal level during a relaxing offsite — this would allow them to build a personal connection that would help us as we go further.
- Ask them to individually come up with what is most important to them in their respective businesses (what core-values they use to run the companies, what is non-negotiable for them etc.) and then have them explain it to the other person. A deep understanding of the other business would help build compassion.
- Help them identify what common values they agree on
- Have them talk about how they envision the future and plan to tackle competitors and gain customers. This is a common ground for them that would allow for a lot of combined brainstorming.
- Have them come up with how they think the merger should look like — no idea is a bad idea and we will filter the best one as we go through this as a team.
I believe if we make them believe that they are a team working together on something they both love, this would be easier and more fulfilling for both the parties. Additionally, given how one sells machines and other sells the stuff to operate these, the nature of their offerings is very complementary and can be be combined well.
