Guiding a Complex Integration with Calm, Clarity, & Capability
A leading Fortune 500 communications company was preparing to acquire the U.S.-based supply chain and warehousing operations of a British-owned education publishing and assessment firm. The goal was clear: seamlessly integrating technology platforms and people into a unified operation. But the road to that Desired State was anything but simple.
The timing was particularly sensitive. With the academic year fast approaching, neither company could afford even a momentary disruption in productivity. The acquired organization brought two distinct workforces, spread across multiple locations, and a culture shaped by long tenure and a generous legacy benefits package. Meanwhile, the acquiring company operated on more modern platforms and struggled to align its leadership team on the path forward.
LaMarsh Global was brought in as the Change Program Lead, tasked with not only helping to manage the transition but also enabling both companies to move together as one cohesive team. We partnered closely with a change practitioner from the acquired company to form a cross-organizational Program Change Team. Together, we worked with leaders, program managers, and business leads from both sides to define governance structures, clarify decision-making processes, and co-create a strategic plan to manage the change.
We trained project teams in our Managed Change™ methodology and conducted detailed readiness and risk assessments across all locations. This helped identify the unique needs of each site and workforce. From there, we facilitated enterprise design sessions to define the current state and shape a realistic, desirable future state.
Building lasting capability was central to our approach. We designated local change leads at each location to work directly with LaMarsh Global resources, ensuring continuity and ownership of the change effort. A Change Champion Network was also established to keep communication flowing in both directions and to surface early signals of resistance or confusion.
The results speak for themselves. By aligning leadership mindsets around acting as “One Team,” we helped both organizations move forward with unity and shared purpose. Working in partnership with HR, we also addressed one of the most complex integration barriers: the gap in compensation and benefits. Together, we introduced bridge loans to manage pay cycle transitions, leveled pay structures to avoid wage loss, and launched a locally driven awareness campaign to ensure employees had access to clear, accurate information. A centralized SharePoint site provided a single source of truth, and the Change Champion Network played a critical role in maintaining transparency and trust throughout the process.
When the dust settled, the effort earned a 94.3% satisfaction rating among those impacted by the change. Perhaps more important, it left the organization better equipped to lead future transformations.
As one senior executive put it:
“Having support during the planning and implementation phases of our change brought us a ‘calming voice in the middle of a big storm.’ We struggled to capture everything by ourselves and benefited greatly from the support we received in taking what we learned and then applying it to our change. It has been a great learning experience, with a great team and a great partner in LaMarsh Global. I’m confident we’ll be able to handle anything that comes our way in the future.”
👉 Curious how LaMarsh Global can support your transformation? Join our next Managed Change™ Workshop or get in touch to start the conversation.
