Whether you are acquiring a company or divesting from one, one of the key things to keep in mind is the look and feel going forward in the new world. I just recently had a chat with fellow list member Matt Huss who specializes in helping companies work out their branding of the post-acquisition company.

While the chat was more of an introduction for each of our businesses, it did highlight not just the importance of what he does, but also what an over-reliance on internal expertise can do.

Regardless of whether it is the marketing or IT groups within your company, they are very familiar with your company. Encompassing a new acquisition or divestitures requires thinking about more than just your ecosystem. Unfortunately most in the c-suite or integration teams don’t learn this lesson until it bites them in the proverbial rear.

Case in point for custom applications: attempting to maintain the look and feel when the application is conveyed to the acquiring company’s site. The app is ready to go, and some updates to reflect the new branding made. However, the address of how to access it has changed. You were able to work with the company that divested the app to change their landing pages to point to the new home.

But what about users that have bookmarked the app?

Most of the interactions on the Internet is half branding/marketing and half technical. The address of uber-company.com is important to both contexts, but when you point your web browser to that address, are you getting a web site designed and created by the marketing group, or are you accessing an application directly being manged by IT?

It is gaps like these that are small and nuanced, but have a drastic impact on the user experience. The solutions are equally nuanced and complicated.

In this case, not only does the tech matter, but so do the details!

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