Bringing Klarite through the integration of a large acquisition

June 9, 2023 · 4 min read
Bringing Klarite through the integration of a large acquisition
Updated: January 26th, 2024

“Our company had just orchestrated a massive acquisition that would take us screaming into the future. To be successful I knew we needed someone at the helm to guide our team towards success. Angela came highly recommended and just seemed to blend into our collaborative culture. When Covid hit, we stepped easily into a new remote way of working and delivered an innovative suite of technologies, processes and updated roles that we continue to hone. We will never forget Mick Melody and how to attune our spleen points!”
– Executive Sponsor Program Melody

A Top 10 Global Pharmaceutical company had just closed a multi-billion-dollar acquisition of a smaller bio-pharmaceutical company and required an experienced Program Manager to lead a team in the successful integration of 8 priority IT domains across the Clinical and Portfolio Areas.

Program Melody was the first integration program to initiate. A big-4 consulting company had provided the overarching messaging and strategy for the convergence, but had not been charged with thinking through the tactical implications and execution structure's necessary for success. At initiation, teams didn’t yet know their counterparts, IT systems and processes were still being logged, KPI’s and metrics were unknown and there was no actionable integration strategy or standard governance approach. To make it even more complex, other company-wide initiatives were underway prior to the finalization of the acquisition that impacted financial reporting systems, standard Program Management approaches and one of the functional areas tied into the 8 priority domains... and then Covid hit.

How did we bring Klarite to the Complex:

Listening and Establishing Relationships: The executive sponsor had thankfully anticipated the need for significant unraveling at initiation and so with a mindset of establishing trust, Angela immediately began to create the first people and technology roster across both converging organizations, defining who was responsible for what and helping establish the initial scope of the program. Once she defined who and what, she then began to get to know each individual better, understanding their visions prior to convergence, their processes, approaches and gaps. As she unraveled more, she quickly understood that issues not directly in program scope could impact program success and and so worked with senior leaders to create awareness and mitigation.
Establishing an Open and Caring Program Culture: Building on the trust we had established early in the program, we continued to work on a program culture of openness and adaptation. With a goal of each individual on the team feeling valued, we jointly created goals, celebrated accomplishments, openly shared challenges and risks, worked hard to solve them, quickly addressed wrongs and continued to listen, adapt and get better.
Creating an Optimized Governance Model: The evolving company culture was not only strongly focused on the patient but on collaboration. It was therefore key to establish a governance model that allowed for open and frequent dialogue across all the impacted areas, while still being mindful and considerate of the large impact and burden associated with too many meetings. The result was an optimized governance model which was built on the foundation of the current communication vehicles and leveraged the roles and responsibilities discovered earlier, to create the right cadence, with just the right people, who knew exactly why they were there.
Even with the best governance approach, meetings can still fail to achieve their goals and so every meeting must have clear value and objectives, should keep to topic and if not required should be canceled. No one is ever upset when they suddenly get an extra hour on their calendar.
Documenting the little Picture: Each of the 8 priority domains was required to have an approved business case and assigned budget. Using the company standard, Angela worked with each lead to create 8 business cases that reflected the business objectives, expected outcomes, strategy, approach (selected technology), assigned leadership owners and estimated investments. As each business case delivered, we refined the original governance approach to reflect any new or additional sponsors that had been identified through the process.
Establishing the WIIFM (What's In It For me): As we developed the business cases we also looked at current state processes and roles and responsibilities, highlighting gaps and needs by documenting "What's In It For Me" (WIIFM) for each functional area.

Documenting the BIG Picture: Melody was not only responsible for converging the IT ecosystems in Clinical Operations, but also the aligned people, processes and data outcomes. With an executive sponsor who was well versed in the end-to-end business processes and experts assigned to lead each individual domain and business application, we required an end-to-end system architect who could bring the whole picture together. Once the need was identified, Angela worked with her executive sponsor and governance committee to secure bandwidth of the company's best and later secured additional support as required. With such a high level of complexity and interdependencies outside the program scope, Angela met with the system architecture team and subject matter experts weekly and established a bi-weekly meeting with other programs that were tied to Melody.
Selecting and Onboarding the Right Team: Having discovered the why, who and what at both the detailed and higher levels we now needed to find the teams who were going to help us get things done. Angela began by working with each lead and the procurement team, to conduct a vendor selection process. Once selected, Angela continued to help with contracting, budgeting, setting up financial reporting, timelines and burn rate reporting. Once complete, Angela helped onboard each team by creating a standard onboarding process.
Getting Things Done: Once each new team was onboarded it was time to kick off by setting good expectations, establishing quick relationships and orienting everyone to our culture, standard tools, templates and the governance process. Working with each team, Angela created an overall Interdependent Program Plan and Critical Path that highlighted both internal and external interdependencies, reporting progress and receiving feedback from each functional area through the governance model. Angela kept a close pulse on each domain team through regular status reporting and we attempted to minimize surprises through risk management that was tracked via a standard RAID tool and escalated through the governance model, when required.
Communicating Progress: As Melody was the first integration program, all eyes were on us and so we needed to create a simple message that resonated with every functional area that touched it, helping them understand why the change was happening, what progress we were making and how it would impact them. We accomplished this mammoth task through an innovative organizational change management and communication program that began with a full stakeholder assessment and heatmap creating specific “WIIFM” (What’s In It For Me) for each functional role and had executives that led those teams, relay the importance of the change through “Jam Sessions” with Melody’s own talk show host- Mick Melody.
Keeping Track of Progress and Budget: Angela met monthly with each vendor to review progress and update the program finance management tool, ensuring everything was on track.
Helping the Team Through Covid: Thankfully all foundational pieces were in place when Covid hit in March 2020. Working from home initially prevented ad hoc meetings and increased: absences, uncertainty and burn out. Due to our established open and caring culture, Angela was quickly able to recognize and remedy these issues through scrum meetings, tight program and risk management and establishing a unique mindfulness program, showing each Melody Member that we cared.

Clear and Successful Outcomes

Quicker Onboarding and Integration of Other Convergence Teams by creating a standard operating model, tools and communication forums across the BIGGER picture.
Company-wide Recognition: Our approach and program was recognized for its accomplishments at the company-wide townhall.
On-time Delivery through a foundation of trust, culture, continual improvement, program planning and flawless execution.
Under Budget by tracking and keeping a close eye on program progress and expenditures.
Increased Utilization through a better and more targeted user experience and change management program that had a 67% engagement rate and tracked progress, integrated feedback and reported on outcomes.
Increased Data Quality by understanding gaps in system metadata outputs and engaging the right systems and methods to improve this.
Increased Operational Efficiency by utilizing the right systems to complement the underlying functional area needs.
Improved Insights by understanding what success looked like and honing in on the business questions that would help elucidate these.
Deep Friendships that Will Last a Lifetime through an open and caring culture.