Acterna, formerly known as TTC and Wavetek Wandel Goltermann

Convening Issues:

How to merger a collection of companies which had just merged with other companies into one global brand? How to merge the organizational structures and cultures into one new powerful entity that customers, employees and shareholders would embrace. Finally, how do we do all of this in the shortest time possible and without loss of staff, resources or customers.

Blend country cultures, not lose focus on the marketplace, put the right people into the right jobs, and integrate products, platforms and structures worldwide. Engage the organization, system-wide in the creation and deployment of one shared mission and vision with shared values and strategic goals. Maintain staff, integrate and grow the business from 800M to l.2B within the fiscal year.

What We Did:

Leadership Development and Alignment:

Over the course of the first year, PDA designed and facilitated the bSenior Management Team's development as an integrated leadership team. This team developed a unified strategy for the organization, drafted a mission, vision and values to be shared with the organization. During the year, this team developed collateral structure for managing the critical integration issues of the new company and developed strategies for building the extended management team. Much of the focus with the Senior Management Team was to develop their common understanding of each other, each other's organization and create their meeting and working protocols as a new team.

We also worked with the Extended Management Team which consisted of the next two to three levels of management across the company. Our role was to build the process for integrating this group into the management team and to design and facilitate a series of meetings that have become the linchpin of strategy development and deployment across the company. This group now meets 3 to 4 times per year with set objectives and agendas to develop and finalize the strategic plans for the year, determine cross-organizational priorities and to assure the levels of alignment and integration required for smooth, speedy implementation.

Communications:

System Wide Communications - Many of the teams in the new organization were distributed, often in different continents. PDA designed and facilitated the development of virtual team meetings and protocols for many of these teams. We trained teams in virtual team management and assisted many of them as they established their communications processes and tools. In a number of instances leaders brought the critical masses of their organizations together, face-to-face, to deploy new strategies, structures or processes. These sessions lasted anywhere from 3 to 4 hours to 1 to 2 days and the size ranged from 50 to over 250 employees at a time.

Listening Checks and Pulse Taking - Over the course of the merger integration PDA designed and facilitated a process by which key informal leaders across the globe who were key opinion leaders (a diagonal cross section by level, company and geography) were surveyed regarding their affect toward the merger, the effectiveness of company communications, and issues and concern regrading the merger.

Organization Alignment:

Aligning the new organization, top to bottom and around the globe, took three forms. The First was aligning the organization on a new mission and vision and articulating common values. Second, the current structures of the two companies were integrated and realigned to the new company's strategy. Units were combined, product decisions made and consolidation efforts undertaken to streamline the new organization. All the key stakeholders from both companies were involved. Finally, new processes were created and base level decisions were made about how to operate. Business processes from both companies were aligned, integrated, and in some instances, recreated.

Mission, Vision, Values Alignment - Over the course of four months we engaged all levels of employees across the globe in a series of cafeteria meetings, internet chats, and regional reviews to create the new mission, vision and values for the new organizaion. A draft of these was created by a cross section of the top 100 leaders of the company. The draft was then shared with all employees in either all-hands meetings or web chats. All employees across the globe were able to provide input. Their input was then synthesized and integrated into a final draft which was finalized by the extended management team (the top 100 leaders) and then rolled back out to the entire system in a series of communications.

Organization Design - Numerous restructuring efforts took place over the year preceding the final anouncement and the close of the merger. PDA designed and facilitated a process that was common across the company for developing and deploying these organization designs. We created tools and templates and facilitated the cross organizational interactions necessary to assure coordination and integration across the new company. Our process led to one of the fastest and most egalitarian structural integrations in either companies' history.

Process Design - Many new processes were determined. In some cases, each company had its own way of doing things and in other instances, neither company had processes for some new activity. Decisions were made and deployed quickly with input from all persons who would be accomplishing the work.

Return to Previous Page | List ALL Case Studies

Our Partners

Mary Curran

Nancy Reuscher

Paul Tolchinsky

Charles Tweedly

Contact PDA

Email Contact info@pdassociates.com