This has been one of the busiest business years in a long time for mergers, acquisitions, spin-offs, and other variations of the above such as the merger-inversion-for-tax reasons, and the merger-triple-spin-off move.  At Advantexe, where we provide organizations with the power of practice through the use of business simulation, we have conducted many different transformational learning engagements over the years that have focused on building the skills of leaders and contributors during the transition and process of merging, spinning off, or both.  Most of these learning engagements have included business and leadership simulation exercises to help develop and practice the skills needed to survive and then thrive after the process.  This blog shares some of the observations, insights, and data that we have gathered from these engagements to provide quick tips and thoughts if you are leading or participating in a merger, spin-off, or some combination.

Traveling around the world to different clients provides a lot of time to study, read, listen and learn about from other thought leaders in the areas of Business Acumen, Business Leadership, and Strategic Business Selling.  As an avid reader and follower of the Harvard Business Review, I recently had the chance to listen to a new and fascinating podcast created by Amy Gallo called “4 Types of Conflict and How to Manage Them.”  Her perspectives are interesting and applicable all by themselves, but as I was listening, I started to think about them in the context of the work we do at Advantexe in the areas of developing business acumen and business leadership skills.

We are quickly approaching the point of saturation from all of the social media experts espousing the “death of cold calling thanks to social selling.”  I would venture to say that every sales professionals and sales leader on the planet realizes that cold calling is dead and has been replaced by social selling. Unfortunately, too many sales professionals and leaders believe that social selling is a magic pill that instantly replaces cold calling with less effort and more results.

There are hundreds of business acumen lessons learned by participants in a well-designed and executed learning journey.  How to understand strategy, financial management, managing the supply chain, forecasting, and capital budgeting are just a few of the big ones.

Last week brought an end to one of the most iconic brands in American industry history, The Great American & Pacific Tea Company which owned retail grocery stores under the brand names of A&P, Pathmark, Super Fresh, Waldbaums, and Food Emporium.  The retail food industry is a very tough business and it can be considered a highly commoditized business.  Last week, I published a blog titled “Applying an Advanced Business Acumen Perspective to Commoditized Markets” which shared new frameworks and ideas about how to compete successfully in highly commoditized markets like retail food. Sadly for consumers, the death of A&P is a story that fits into this framework and can provide interesting and useful business strategy lessons and the application of Advantexe’s Commodity Quadrant Tool which we provide to our clients and readers of this blog (Download the Commodity Quadrant Tool)