Acquisitions can expand a company’s size, range, and reach, but the process to get there is not without its growing pains.

Acquisitions and subsequent integrations are highly dynamic and situation-dependent processes, so unfortunately, it’s not difficult to lose or shift focus along the way. When this happens in a worst-case scenario, a company becomes larger, yet its acquired parts are discordant and out of step with customer needs and expectations.

Actylis was constructed specifically through an ambitious and continuing acquisition initiative—integrating 11 organizations in just over two years—to close known gaps in the market. Our aim is to become a leading hybrid manufacturing and global sourcing expert for ingredients and raw materials. We’ve learned much along our acquisition journey.

Here, we share five insights to successfully acquire and integrate brands in a complex field, and to do so while continuing to satisfy and delight customers.

Customer is King: Focus on What’s Important

Customers are the lifeblood of a company. Satisfying and even elating customers drives short- and long-term growth, deepens a sense of community and partnership, and helps others to reach new levels of innovation and discovery.

With each acquisition and subsequent integration, we communicated and shared a principle that serving our customer is top priority. This served two purposes. First, it helped drive an integration of cultures. Second, it served as a guidepost for our teams to balance necessary integration activities with appropriately serving our customers.

This principle also meant investing millions of dollars in our acquired companies. With updated and expanded capabilities, particularly with U.S.-based manufacturing, and a significantly larger overall company size, our customers can increase confidence and reduce risk.

For example, one customer has already expanded their reliance on our products. We are working with them to supply five of their most critical raw materials, up from two prior to our acquisitions.

Our customer care includes active communication to understand customer needs and anticipate their forward-looking forecasts. We’re also integrating and expanding our digital resources on the Actylis website so that customers can quickly find the exact information that they need.

Acquisitions mean that companies aren’t the same as they were yesterday. By proactively centering around the customer’s needs and best interests, businesses can remain at the forefront of growth opportunities. This sustains a feedback loop of focused commitment to the customer.

Planning Is Everything: Set Strategic Criteria

Acquisitions can be a lucrative growth strategy so long as the targets fill an internal gap and meet an external need. Losing sight of these objectives amongst the complex, dynamic acquisition process can alienate customers and drive them to alternate sources.

Uniquely serving the customer through a hybrid model of manufacturing and global sourcing is central to our mission. With that in mind, we have compiled a set of criteria for an ideal acquisition target to meet.

Priority is given to European and U.S.-based targets producing raw materials for the life sciences segment, and to those with niche technical capabilities. Having these criteria ensures focus and drives efficiency.

And while we haven’t yet found an acquisition to meet all stringent criteria, we also haven’t expected to find one. Instead, we’ve found several strong manufacturers that met most of the criteria and were also able to leverage off each other.

For example, we acquired four North American manufacturing facilities. Under the larger umbrella of Actylis, these facilities can now leverage their respective expertise with each other to drive best practices in efficiency, quality, and service. This often-forgotten synergy adds tremendous value to the customer.

Focused acquisitions bring expertise and opportunity. A broad portfolio can, in turn, streamline customer sourcing workflows so that they can focus on their own product processes and corporate goals.

Obstacles are Opportunities: Be Flexible and Agile

Unexpected hurdles are common during the acquisition process. How companies react to these hurdles can make the difference between failure, mediocrity, and success.

The COVID-19 pandemic hit as we were closing our very first acquisition in the United Kingdom. It didn’t derail our plans, but it did compel us to think and act differently with this and subsequent acquisitions.

We were forced to develop relationships remotely, and we closed some acquisitions without being able to travel to the facility. There was a fair bit of trepidation in this new and evolving process; and a whole lot of learning.

The silver lining is that our acquisition process and roadmap are far more efficient today because of the pandemic.

Another unexpected curveball was the internal reaction to our investment plan. In some cases, we came in with an aggressive plan to upgrade the acquired company to drive growth and further serve customers.

These investment plans were positively received, but once the acquisition newness wore off, reality hit. Big investments mean big changes. Change can be daunting, especially for those on the receiving end.

From this, we learned to be hyper-sensitive to the changes that we’re bringing along, and phase them in a way that could be effectively absorbed. This way, internal staff is prepared, roles and actions are clarified, and change can proceed with little to no customer-facing disruption.

Happiness Starts from Within: Cultivate Internal Culture

Curiosity drives us. It’s part of our corporate culture. Culture doesn’t hide behind the curtains though; it is woven into internal and external interactions. A strong positive culture shines through to customers and reinforces the value that we provide.

During integration retrospectives, we asked each acquired company’s owners for feedback. One made a valuable recommendation to speak more to acquired employees about company culture, norms, and how decisions are made.

We now hold a “culture orientation meeting” within a few weeks of each acquisition close. The teams interface with us as new owners and talk about fundamental topics such as why the company was bought, what will change, and forward-reaching expectations. Our ultimate objective is for transparency about where the culture was, where it is now, and where we want to go.

Any acquisition integration brings with it change. We share with employees a standard change curve that most companies and employees go through. It is an acknowledgement of understanding, a great reminder to existing and new leaders that we need to be there for employees, and a point of reference for employees as they move along in the journey.

With each acquisition, we prioritized integration of our productivity and communication platforms to facilitate internal dialogue. This may seem minor, but especially during the pandemic and with less travel, it was a must-have.

Rebranding also helped tremendously to energize all the entities. The new company name, Actylis, united all 11 acquired companies (to date) in a fresh start instead of some being swept into a bigger established brand.

There’s a palpable excitement in the new brand; everyone is a brand ambassador.

This energy translates into going the extra mile for customers and following through on our brand promise of unparalleled choice, reliable supply, and uniquely flexible solutions.

Haste Makes Waste: Pace Yourself

Finding the optimal pace is just as important to companies as it is to individuals. An operational pace that’s too fast can lead to burnout or hasty actions and decisions whereas a pace that’s too slow can impede forward momentum. Neither situation serves customers well.

We organize our integrations with various workstreams made up of individuals across entities.  With the first couple of integrations, these teams were very ambitious and comprehensive in their plans. We quickly realized that the teams were taking on too much; this was a lot for the acquired company to handle, and it was also a lot for us to handle as the primary company, especially as acquisitions stacked up on each other.

It made sense for us to take a step back and assess the overarching situation. For each acquisition, we assess what is mission critical for success versus what will be nice to have. We are able to prioritize those top items, while pacing the rest.
This approach has empowered teams to work together at a pace that doesn’t disrupt the business yet also keeps us moving forward.

In addition to avoiding shortsighted actions and frustration, this also keeps our customers at the heart of our evolution.

Summary

It’s not possible to eliminate all risk or unknowns when acquiring and integrating companies, especially those that support highly regulated industries. On the other hand, it is possible to cultivate acquisitions into a singular source of purpose-built customer value. One that creates new opportunities for the acquired brands, capabilities for the parent company, and above all, lives up to the brand potential from the customer’s perspective. 

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Ed Roullard is SVP of Marketing & Operations at Actylis (formerly Aceto) with oversight for operations, supply chain, IT, and marketing. He comes to Actylis with over 25 years in the life sciences and fine chemicals industries. Roullard has held senior roles in marketing, sales, supply chain management, operations, process improvement, distributor management, and strategy in Europe and the U.S.