Business acquisitions and mergers are no small feat. If you’re in the position of acquiring a business, merging with another business, or looking for your business to be acquired, we’ve gathered some helpful information from an expert in the industry. Y’vonne Ormond, the CEO of 5P Consulting, is a business facing technologist who has been in the industry for over 25 years. She knows what she’s talking about and we are going to share some of her top tips.
First, What is 5P Consulting?
5P Consulting focuses on business problems in regards to people and processes and the technology surrounding them. Y’vonne shares that at 5P they, “typically work with companies that are scaling up or scaling down,” and they help find solutions to all of the problems that can come up while doing that.
- Mergers and Acquisitions – When Y’vonne is referring to a business scaling up or down, that includes business mergers and acquisitions. We all know that change is hard. But Y’vonne shared some really helpful information to help ease you and your company through a successful transition.
- Evaluate the Situation – If you’ve just acquired a new business, don’t change things right away. Do your best to maintain the existing culture, and the people, as you’re going through the process. As Y’vonne explains, “it’s all about being efficient, not just chopping things apart.” Dig in and understand what’s working well and what solutions the other organization already has in place.
- Never Lead in with Technology – First lean in with understanding the business goals and the strategy. Understand who the current talent is and dig into the company’s processes. After you’ve done all that, Y’vonne says you have the all clear to then see what’s going on in regard to technology. Leverage the resources that are already functioning well first and then bring in something new.
- So, You Want to Be Acquired. Now What? – Y’vonne implores, “don’t back off too soon!” It’s critical to stay engaged. If your assets, your people, and the things that you’ve built from your organization see disengagement, then they will disengage. That will make the acquisition process very difficult for everyone involved.
- Managing a Merger – Two equal sized companies want to get together and do something bigger. In a business merger, each side brings to the table, “a bunch of people, a bunch of systems, a bunch of processes,” states Y’vonne. She recommends looking first at what’s working and then taking the next step of integrating and building them together.
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What Technology Does 5P Consulting Use?
5P Consulting is a service integrator and Y’vonne shared that they are very familiar with Salesforce. They’re most familiar with it from an enterprise applications perspective. 5P Consulting delivers Salesforce implementations and integrates theorems.
5P Consulting’s relationship with Salesforce has grown over the years. As a small business, Y’vonne admitted they couldn’t afford salesforce so, “we did what any traditional geek dev team would do and got its free dev version.” But, then they stumbled across Essentials and were so excited that it was only $25 per user. “It offered so much and we didn’t even have to customize it, and I implemented it for us. It’s that simple.” Salesforce works great for Y’vonne and her team because they’re all about efficiency, and how they can simplify and integrate in order to have fewer manual interactions.
Y’vonne’s advice for small businesses is, “don’t be scared away from the word Salesforce.” Salesforce isn’t just for the big companies. “It’s for all different size companies. We implement it for nonprofits. We’re using it as Essentials, as a small business. I’m recommending it to my fellow friends and then we do it enterprise-wide. So, there’s a one-size-fits-all for your business. It just makes life easier. It’s all integrated.”
