When asked what Symantec has learned from the 2005 Veritas acquisition — which under-performed expectations the first few years — Chief Operating Officer Enrique Salem described three lessons.
Before you read the lessons, please note that The VAR Guy has paraphrased Salem’s words, which he shared during lunch at Symantec Partner Engage, a conference in Washington, D.C.
According to Salem, here’s what Symantec learned from the Veritas deal.
1. Take your medicine fast: Symantec kept employees and managers focused on their existing pre-merger jobs too long after the merger closed, concedes Salem. For instance, the company had two chief legal representatives when only one was needed post-merger.
2. You need one culture: One company/one team ultimately has to lead the merger process. It can be a merger of equals in terms of company size, but it can’t be a merger of equals in terms of culture. One culture has to emerge and lead. Fast.
3. Think R&D faster: It took three years for Symantec and Veritas to really start code sharing and maximizing the integration of products. Product silos existed too long, and cross-polination should have happened sooner.
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VarGuy,
good hustle on this story. the news is encouraging to see that they recoginize they made mistakes and are planning to learn from them in future acquisitions.
What’s SYMC trading at? 15.76. It took a huge plunge along with MSFT, and it hit its 52 week high of $22+ just a couple months ago. I would expect this stock to jump back up if we can get a rally on the Nasdaq going. Too bad noone has any money to throw at the market right now….
HurdyGurdy: SYMC executives actually laughed — in a polite way — when The VAR Guy asked about mistakes made during the Veritas deal. They knew they had stumbled badly early on and they could finally disclose the errors without blushing.
[...] deals because its quickly integrates the people, cultures, and structures of the organizations. Symantec COO Enrique Salem noted that failing to do this was one problem with the Veritas [...]