Product Management

This post focuses on the challenges of integrating company cultures after an acquisition. M&A failure rates are estimated to be anywhere from 50%-80%. This article from Lakeview Capital does a pretty good job of summarizing the major causes of merger failure including inadequate due diligence, lack of low level management involvement, and recognizing culture synergies/differences. I have been involved in several acquisitions having led three deals and led eight divestitures. I would like to share three stories of how my employers successfully dealt with some aspects of cultural integration.

Todd Hill was an account executive with QRS Corporation. He passed away September 11, 2001 when the Towers fell. Todd was staying on the 17th floor of the Marriott Hotel at the World Trade Center when terrorists hijacked and crashed two planes into the towers.

Gong.io analyzed 1,000,000 sales calls between B2B salespeople and buyers and came up with some fascinating results.

How effective are your firm’s value equations and proof points?

Understanding customer churn is important for product managers, product marketers, and sales management. Simply put, customer churn is the percentage of customers that decide not to renew their subscriptions or term contract agreements. I came across an article recently entitled 43 ways to calculate SaaS churn (and why you should just keep it simple). While they did not lay out all 43 formulas it was still an interesting piece. I have always been a numbers guy – I find that facts can help you better understand a situation and minimize the effects of anecdotes on key decisions. In this post I am going to talk about churn analysis and why, at the end of the day, numbers cannot tell the whole story.

The objective of this post is to describe, at a high level, the steps in a typical tech M&A project. Each company tends to have their own playbook for M&A deals. Based on my past experience I have summarized the typical process steps in an M&A project. You should talk with people in your company to learn if there is a formal process in place for deals.

The objective of this post is to describe, at a high level, the major roles and responsibilities in a typical tech M&A project. Each company tends to have their own playbook for M&A deals. Based on my past experience I have summarized the typical roles and responsibilities in an M&A project. You should talk with people in your company to learn if there is a formal process in place for deals and what the roles and responsibilities are in that process.

The objective of this post is to provide product managers with some practical insights into the overall merger and acquisition process. I have been involved in product management for over 15 years. As a corporate development executive, I have led five major acquisitions and eight divestitures. This is the first of a three part series. It will focus on the major types of acquisitions. The second will focus on roles and responsibilities in the M&A process, especially for product managers. The final installment will walk through the major process steps in a typical M&A deal.

A short presentation for product managers on how to analyze a potential acquisition candidate and present it to senior management. Acquisition analysis leverages open source and other publicly available information. This presentation covers the key concepts associated with acquisition candidate analysis, the process of developing an analysis, a sample ‘teaser’ presentation used to present information to senior management, boards of directors, and investors.