| Customer: A Chicago-based packaged food company | Profile: The client makes and sells products under various brand names that are available in supermarkets, restaurants, and food service establishments.
Services: M&A Post-integration Support |
| Size: 10,000+ employees | |
| Region: Chicago, Illinois | |
| Industry: Food and Beverage |
Business Need
The food and beverage client is passionate about building strong brands, making great food, supporting communities and delivering profitable results. With a rich heritage, sharpened focus and entrepreneurial spirit, the client offers a portfolio of iconic and emerging food brands that continues to evolve to offer contemporary choices for every occasion.
In a bid to better leverage distribution with large retailers and theatre chains, the client was looking to acquire a speciality snack foods producer. Since the acquisition was going to be large, presenting a significant expansion of the client’s food business, the client realized that the success of the acquisition depended a lot on the success of the post-merger integration. The client partnered with Synoptek to receive post-merger integration support and ensure sustained success of the acquisition.
Solution and Approach
In order to meet the post-merger integration support requirement of the client, Synoptek provided end-to-end program management and support to the client. With a team consisting of representatives from each functional team, we facilitated a joint plan with the client and developed a 9-month integration plan.
Synoptek worked with various teams to tackle and resolve issues. We also built an integration team that participated in bi-weekly post-merger integration meetings to keep a track of the progress. These meetings also helped functional leaders to participate in the integration activity while maintaining their focus on functional responsibilities and ensuring on-going performance of the business.
Integration activities included:
- Transition from legacy marketing and sales account planning systems to client’s account planning – to make all new products available to customer account teams.
- Transition from legacy order-to-cash systems used by the acquired company to the client’s sales order management system.
- Integration of plant systems with the client’s ERP to enable global financial reporting.
Business Results
Despite the challenges faced due to spike in workloads caused by numerous system integrations and migrations, Synoptek was successful in providing post-merger integration support.
Not only was the acquisition extremely successful for the client, it led to many more acquisitions over the years where Synoptek was an integral contributor.
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