Traditionally disruptive, the road towards a merger or acquisition can be streamlined and the newly formed company positioned for success by migrating to HubSpot.
One morning in the winter of 2018, three directors converged on our offices in Abingdon, Oxfordshire with one goal in mind. Becky Murphy and I came to represent BabelQuest. Vaughn Armstrong, Toast Inbound. After months of sensitive discussions, we were meeting to sign and close BabelQuest’s merger with the Banbury-based HubSpot solutions partner. It was a day in December to remember, a consolidation of skills, experience, and best-in-class reputation from which a company in the top 0.1% of HubSpot’s partner network would grow.
The true state of global mergers and acquisitions is muddy. Reports by financial markets platform Dealogic suggest the total value of mergers and acquisitions (M&As) has both risen and fallen in recent years from a record-breaking 2021, when they reached $5.9trn worldwide, to just $1.4tn in 1H23, itself a 40% drop on the same period in 2022.
This shifting activity reflects a turbulent economy many of us will recognise, challenging organisations’ ability to fund M&As even as rapidly evolving market dynamics raise their strategic value. The risk associated with M&As further complicates this; it’s important to recognise that for businesses going through a merger or acquisition, growth is not guaranteed. M&A pitch decks are built around future opportunities and market potential, in other words hope, and the reality of many M&As is one hallmarked by cost and disruption.
Faced with the acknowledgement that an M&A deal is not a sure-fire ticket to success, how can you fortify the companies involved against inherent risk and ensure that post-deal your position is a market-winning one? We put it to you that the systems you choose to manage your data and underpin your processes play a pivotal role in this. Specifically, a migration from both companies’ incumbent systems to HubSpot as they come together is key.
Read on to discover why this is, how HubSpot drives success both during the company integration and after, and what steps to follow to strengthen your M&A deal using HubSpot.
“We put it to you that the systems you choose to manage your data and underpin your processes play a pivotal role in [fortifying merging companies against risk and ensuring that post-deal their position is market-winning].”
Why HubSpot is key to capitalising on your merger or acquisition
In any merger or acquisition scenario, each of the companies coming together will operate around its own unique set of processes, tailored over time to suit its specific needs and goals. Assuming one company’s processes aren’t simply swallowing the other’s, effective process alignment requires careful analysis, planning, and communication to ensure a smooth transition and minimise disruptions to the day-to-day business operations.
One challenge that arises is identifying the areas where the processes overlap or complement each other, as well as those that may need to be modified or completely revamped. This requires a thorough understanding of both companies' operations and a collaborative approach to finding the most efficient and effective way forward.
Streamlined process alignment for companies coming together on HubSpot
HubSpot is a powerful and comprehensive platform that offers a wide range of tools and features to streamline and automate various business processes. By migrating to HubSpot, the merging companies can consolidate their customer relationship management, marketing, sales, and service functions onto a single platform. This not only simplifies process alignment but also ensures better long-term coordination and collaboration.
HubSpot’s ease of use is also key. When you bring two companies together using different systems, if the system you’re moving everyone to is hard to understand with a long ramp-up/training time then you’re going to face a) a longer time with siloed data and b) frustration from the users at what is already a challenging time.
With HubSpot's intuitive interface, customisable workflows, and resources like the HubSpot Academy to support learning and development, the merging companies can seamlessly integrate their processes and align them in a way that best suits their new joint objectives.
Simplified data transfer using HubSpot’s CRM automation
On the customer relationship management (CRM) side specifically, HubSpot's CRM system provides a centralised database for customer information. Its automation tools can simplify the process of transferring data from different systems, reducing the risk of errors and ensuring a smooth transition, while workflow automation and lead scoring features help identify and prioritise the most valuable leads, ensuring efficient and effective integration.
Real-time, data-driven decision-making through HubSpot Analytics
The platform also provides detailed analytics and reporting, allowing the companies to track their progress and make data-driven decisions during the integration process. Migrating to HubSpot can be a game-changer for companies throughout this phase of the merger or acquisition, aligning their processes and their data efficiently, with minimal disruption.
How HubSpot drives revenue growth after a merger or acquisition
Post-integration, your leadership team can continue to leverage HubSpot in several significant ways to unlock revenue growth potential and maximise the return on their venture.
Related reads:
Optimised marketing and sales alignment with HubSpot
The alignment of goals and objectives is another key step to take post merger or acquisition to ensure that newly consolidated teams, for example in sales or marketing, work cohesively.
By providing a centralised system that combines marketing automation, CRM, and sales enablement tools, HubSpot fosters seamless collaboration between every department. To continue with our example, marketing teams gain valuable insights into the effectiveness of their campaigns, allowing them to better understand their target audience and generate high-quality leads. These leads then pass seamlessly on to the sales team, who can easily access their history and interactions with marketing materials, enabling each salesperson to have more personalised and meaningful conversations with their prospects.
This alignment, both inter-team and across, drives revenue generation as the entire organisation works towards a common goal. With the HubSpot platform, businesses can unlock the true potential of their marketing and sales efforts with tangible results.
Read more: Understanding Sales and Marketing Alignment, or "Why Won't They Listen?"
Personalising customer experiences
A merger or acquisition doesn’t just disrupt company operations. Customers of both companies must also navigate the change. For businesses with loyal fan bases or repeat purchase models, this can be especially challenging, requiring a specific focus to address.
HubSpot's tools for segmentation and targeted messaging allow businesses to deliver personalised experiences to customers, enhancing customer satisfaction. This has short-term benefits in terms of facilitating communication with customers about the merger or acquisition, as well as providing the company with all the tools it needs to enable a customer-first approach long-term, well after the merger or acquisition has been completed. Revenue streams associated with repeat buyers or retainer service renewals are protected.
Read more: How HubSpot’s Sales Tools and Automation Help You Retain and Delight Your Customers
Harnessing HubSpot's revenue analytics to unlock pitch deck potential
The benefits of HubSpot's analytics extend well beyond the integration process itself, providing valuable insights into the effectiveness of marketing campaigns and sales efforts, and enabling data-driven decision making for long-term revenue optimisation. This includes the ability to quickly and easily report on customer lifetime value, helping the organisation to calculate and track the true value of its customers from both of the companies involved in the merger or acquisition and allowing them to focus on effective retaining and upselling.
Using HubSpot to overcome two common challenges when merging or acquiring companies
While mergers and acquisitions can be complex, there are two areas that pose particular challenges when companies come together: cultural integration and data management. How can HubSpot help you to overcome these hurdles and what are the features in question?
Managing cultural integration with HubSpot
The coming together of two different cultures will always present challenges. On paper at least, acquisitions position one company and its culture on top of the other, while mergers open up the floor for culture clashes or power plays: which of the two companies’ cultures will come out on top? Of course, in an ideal scenario, the cultures will merge seamlessly with one another, leading to a unified company culture and minimising people disruption.
HubSpot's internal communication tools and collaboration features can facilitate cultural integration and foster a sense of unity among employees from different companies.
Generally speaking, employees can easily connect, share ideas, and collaborate on projects, using HubSpot regardless of their geographic location or organisational background. The platform simplifies users’ abilities to communicate, enabling employees to build relationships, exchange knowledge, and embrace the diverse perspectives that come with a merger or acquisition. By breaking down communication barriers, HubSpot's tools create a virtual space where employees can feel included, valued, and connected, ultimately contributing to a sense of unity and a stronger company culture even among remote and hybrid teams.
Whether it's through video conferencing, instant messaging, or document sharing, HubSpot ensures that employees can collaborate effectively and build a unified team post M&A.
Addressing data integration and data quality issues with HubSpot
Today more so than ever before, data management is an especially challenging aspect of any merger or acquisition. With so much data stored across a company’s systems, and the applications for that data touching on every business unit, it’s vital that both companies’ records can be transferred and integrated in a way that maintains their usefulness.
HubSpot's data integration capabilities can assist in mapping and cleansing data from different systems, ensuring data accuracy and integrity. At the same time, its robust security features and compliance certifications can help address data privacy concerns and ensure regulatory compliance during integration, when safety and compliance are vulnerable.
Review our library of data management resources:
- How HubSpot Helps You to Unlock the Value of Your Customer Data
- Data Management Compliance and HubSpot [GDPR Settings]
- How to Make the Most of Data Lifecycle Management in HubSpot
- Data Hygiene: Creating a Data Management Dashboard in HubSpot
Request your free M&A consultation
It takes a solutions partner with first-hand experience of the M&A process to effectively advise you on HubSpot’s suitability. Looking back to 2018 and the months that followed, ours was a smooth transition, operationally speaking, with every step from process alignment to data consolidation supported by our shared use of, and expertise in, the HubSpot platform.
If you’re reviewing your systems ahead of a merger or acquisition and you recognise the long-term strategic benefits that HubSpot could unlock, the best way to proceed is to get in touch using the link below, where you can now book an M&A consultation with me.
As well as our direct experience, several of our clients have also merged, acquired, or been acquired by other organisations during our partnership, during which time we’ve been able to help them navigate the company integration from a systems and process perspective. Finally, our close relationship with HubSpot makes us well-positioned to leverage its global experience in this area. Across the team, we have a firm grasp of the challenges and the opportunities facing your organisation during this next stage of its growth and after.
By chatting with you about the specific circumstances surrounding your merger or acquisition, our HubSpot-certified platform experts will be able to qualify whether or not the platform is right for you and advise you on how to proceed, should HubSpot look suitable.
Click the image below to book one of our M&A consultations at a time and date that suits you.
