Last year, to keep up with consumer trends and remain competitive, there were billions of dollars spent on acquisitions in the food and beverage industry alone. Nestlé, the world’s largest food company, sold its American candy business to Ferrero Group for $2.8 billion to then pay Starbucks $7.15 billion for the rights to sell the coffee giant’s grocery products globally.
In fact, manufacturing as a whole will see higher M&A activity over the next five years, particularly as digitization allows for stronger players to absorb weaker ones. Mergers and acquisitions impact your culture, disrupting the status quo for not just the executives but the employees at the plant.
To prepare, here are the questions you need to be asking if you’re going through an M&A.
Are You Integrating the Right Systems?
Chances are, one of the companies involved in an M&A is either in the middle of an enterprise solutions implementation or has just completed one. According to Accenture, choosing the appropriate model and migration path is essential to the health of your strategy and wallet post-merger—no pressure.
But what if either party doesn’t have a WFM system in place? The M&A stage is perhaps one of the best times to begin implementation since it allows both sides to not just start fresh, but also begin on the same page.
CIOs seem to agree that cloud-based ERP solutions are best. Asish Ramchandran, a principal with Deloitte Consulting LLP, reminds us that we can’t forget those third-party add-ons. “Even the most comprehensive cloud ERP solution does not have all the functionality needed to run the business, but often this can be addressed via add-on or bolt-on applications designed to work effectively with the cloud ERP solution.”
Our cloud-based solution, Workloud, addresses that problem on the workforce management side by integrating seamlessly with your HRIS and ERP systems.
Are You Automating Schedules?
You have enough factors to consider when dealing with an M&A in an already complex manufacturing environment. After all, just because there are high-level decisions to be made does not mean that product development can be halted.
That means it’s critical to be able to automate where you can. Your workforce is your most valuable asset, so why not start there?
With cloud-based workforce management software, you can create a schedule in minutes that is accurate, consistent, eliminates user error, and follows operational rules. Your schedulers can ensure schedule fairness by incorporating basic and complex rules such as seniority, upgrading, bumping, and accommodation without a second thought.
Are You Streamlining Employee Rules?
Dealing with both an influx of new employees and the hassle of merging two (sometimes conflicting) company cultures into one can be daunting, to say the least. You have to balance keeping everything “business as usual” with your current employees while also potentially incorporating some new rules, company standards, and processes that may seem foreign to some of your legacy workforce.
You need everyone in the organization, from the C-suite to the plant, to have access to a fully integrated workforce management system to handle not only employee scheduling but absence management. That way, you’ll be able to monitor real-time absences to ensure that your attendance policies, no matter how new or unique, are being followed.
Are You Using Indeavor?
Our workforce management SaaS solution which offers clients an end-to-end, cloud-based employee scheduling, time & attendance, and absence management system. We integrate with your human capital management and enterprise resource planning systems to create a robust platform that provides you with real-time employee data.
Interested to see how we can help your organization streamline workforce management, even during an M&A? Click here to request a demo.
