Suzanne Francis, a senior partner at Schaffer Consulting, has over 20 years of experience working with organizations on business challenges across a wide range of industries and sectors. She built the firm's practice in business integration and is accomplished at helping organizations manage the difficult transition that often follows an acquisition or merger.
Merging two businesses can cause a significant upheaval in the life of each company. However, Suzanne's work illustrates that many of the inherent pitfalls can be avoided with early strategic planning, adequate allocation of resources, and the relentless pursuit of measurable results through cross-business collaborative projects. Schaffer Consulting's approach to acquisition integration ensures that the goals which inspired the merger in the first place are achieved.
Here is one example. When a small, multi-national specialty packaging company was acquired by a much larger company, the hope was to reap benefits by creating a division that would reflect more of the customer focus and creativity exhibited by the acquired company. However, as the integration progressed, combined sales numbers were falling short of expectations.
Suzanne began to work with the integration manager and company executives to plan a meeting that would bring the integration team and a larger cross-business sales team together. The CEO began with a no-nonsense message about achieving the sales goals and the dire consequences of falling short. He pledged executive support to help them reach key customers from both businesses to make incremental sales. This meeting led to an intensive-and successful-sales campaign focused on reaching first quarter sales goals. This major accomplishment provided tangible evidence of the tremendous potential for the combined business and injected new momentum to achieve other integration results.
Suzanne has recently led major change and integration efforts at many corporations, including ConAgra Foods, Pfizer, PepsiCo, the U.S. Small Business Administration, Fidelity Investments, Oshkosh Truck Corporation, Lincoln Financial Group, and Veolia Transportation NA.
She contributed Chapter 8, "Make Acquisitions and Mergers Succeed" to Schaffer Consulting's book Rapid Results! How 100-Day Projects Build the Capacity for Large-Scale Change (Jossey-Bass, 2005). Her publications include two articles in the Harvard Business Review: "Integration Leaders: Special Leaders for Special Times" co-authored with Ron Ashkenas (2000) and "Making the Deal Real: How GE Capital Integrates Acquisitions" co-authored with Ron Ashkenas and Lawrence J. DeMonaco (1998). Other articles include: "Raising the Odds for M&A Results and Success" (CriticalEYE online business journal, 2004) and "Acquisition Integration: Best Practices to Follow Before, During, and After the Deal Closes" (Management Issues and Trends, 1998-1999).
Suzanne earned a BA from Chatham College, and an MBA from the Yale School of Management. She loves travel experiences that are "off the beaten path" such as exploring the wineries in Argentina, back-packing rim-to-rim in the Grand Canyon or hiking the High Sierras trail in Yosemite. She is an avid fan of independent films; weekends find her headed for the nearest art film theater or watching her Netflix DVDs at home.
