Innovation At International Foods: Merger And Acquisition

Innovation at International Foods

This case covers the problems that can occur during a merger and acquisition, primarily. When a smaller company is absorbed by a much larger company, there is often a fear that the larger company doesn’t really care about how things worked within the smaller company’s structure. They just want them to assimilate into their new corporate culture and follow suit.

One of the major issues that will often occur during one of these mergers and acquisitions, is that people will resist the changes that are being made. People get used to how they do things, and will often not want to do anything different. Some employees may have been doing this for a decade or longer, and now a new corporate entity will want to push

One of the major changes that the CIO wants to make is that he wants to switch their entire infrastructure over to

Windows-based PCs instead of being Mac based. They assembled a team to create one large database for the new company architecture. They didn’t see a reason to run separate data centres. On top of this, they also planned to train employees for the new system, and allow them a small team to deal with specifically Canadian issues.

IFG markets their products to women with children and would like to expand their market to children and young adults. John Ahern chose Josh Novack to help them expand into a younger market. The team that is helping Josh with this project is based in Chicago.

As stated previously, not everyone is super excited about the changes that are being made with the transition to being corporate. IFG and Glow Foods have many different expectations when it comes to what their employees expect.

Both companies discussed the changes and decided on a number of shared values that they would like to emphasize on both ends. Common expectations are

On top of looking the part, it is important that their new system allows them to access any information that they need to within the new system, and those who are involved in the system transition are familiar with the new database inside and out. They will also likely have to make some custom changes to the system in order to accommodate the needs that are specifically in their Canadian branch.

It would also be a decent idea to link their new database into a website for customers to discuss new product ideas online before they come out. They could run a website that allows customers to vote for new flavors of products they are planning on coming out with. They should prepare a proof of concept and show it to management.

Once they switch over to the new system, they will also need to ensure that they have an appropriately sized support team. There should be some guidelines and training for the employees that will be assisting both the customers and employees who are going to be interacting with this system.

Another good idea would be to allow their inventory management and