One Week In, KANA Plus Ciboodle.

For those unaware, KANA Software announced Tuesday, that it has acquired Ciboodle – the company I have been at for the past year and a half.  The technological components are a great fit; the vision, framework and solution are excellent.  As with any merger, there is work ahead required to execute on the vision. One of the most challenging elements, as identified by some of the industries finest minds, is going to be the merging of the cultures. The cultural elements will have a direct and large impact on the ability to execute against the vision, so we better get it right. Culture is the sum total of personalities, driven by the leadership driving towards common goals.

Prologue

While I am sure many of you have been part of an M&A process, my personal perspective comes from the following: In 1997, when I was a wee lad, Kenan Systems (a 250 person private company) was acquired by Lucent technology  (>100,000 people) for $1.4B. Having matured considerably by 1999 I was part of Octane, who were acquired by Epiphany for $3.2B (Monopoly money). While I do live in Vermont, I have worked for both Silicon Valley tech companies and a Scottish software company, come on, how many people can say that!

Let’s get to it!

Bain and Co published ” Building a winning culture ” (link below) where they outline the key attributes of a winning culture; high aspirations and a desire to win, external focus, ‘think like owners’ attitude, bias to action, individuals who team finally, passion and energy. These seems completely logical, obvious even, but how do two companies 5000 miles apart, an 11 hour flight (if connections are on time, but I digress) and 8 time zones different realize these attributes within the logical 4 walls?

Let’s start with some words from Mike Hughes, CEO of Ciboodle (For effect, please use your very best strong Glaswegian accent as your internal voice when you read this):

“I think that the folks from both organisation’s have the same can do attitude and are keen to capitalise on the opportunity ahead. We clearly have an excellent stack and the motivation of the people will drive this into a real integrated suite in a very short period of time. That will happen because the folks in the business are stoked to make it happen. It’s not often that a opportunity of this magnitude and significance comes along, we understand that and collectively we will deliver.”

From my perspective, this hits 2 of the attributes pretty directly, as well as one that is missing from Bain; executive desire to live the message.  Adding my own perspective here, even within the first week the teams have allowed, encouraged even, participation from both sides of the deal to speak with influencers, analysts and press. This might seem like a small thing, but it is quite big. I am personally very encouraged by these actions – and most appreciative.This illustrates that the days of command and control are numbered. Both the KANA team and the Ciboodle teams have been active in person, on the phone, through WebEx sessions, email and social channels.

External Focus, Bias to action

These two are absolutely critical, my opinion, especially given the industry we live in; Customer Experience and Customer Service Excellence. Both KANA and Ciboodle have a passion for excellence and delighting customers, which should be quite obvious from the posts by Clare Dorrian and Vikas Nehru (Links below). They are words, so we cannot lose focus and must prove ourselves with action; to our current customer base and the current in-flight projects. Here is the kicker and the single biggest risk factor identified by Bain: “Do not get caught-up in internal politics or navel-gazing”. The energy drain from internal politics (which I witnessed during the Kenan / Lucent acquisition) can be very damaging from many perspectives.

The ‘bias to action’ describes me personally pretty well and from early indications my new counterparts in Sunnyvale. I am a bit impatient and I want to get things done. I can see the value that the marriage can bring to customers. I can be a little over-the-top sometimes, but as I have said on a few analyst calls and briefings with industry folks, there are more toys in the toy chest. To the broader ecosystem, I would say that what KANA adds to the Ciboodle Agent Desktop can help our customers to realize the vision I have been putting out here for a while (I suppose I should say what Ciboodle brings to KANA, oh well, sorry). I do realize that it is not only about technology, it is about helping people to get their jobs done.

“The strongest cultures bind people together across both hierarchy and geography, guiding them to make the right decisions and advance the business without explicit direction.”

Action Items:

Here is what the leadership team need to do and I have confidence that it will be done. Can I commit to time frames? Probably not, because if I did I would likely have a very short tenure at my new home. The leadership team need to set expectations about the importance of culture issues within the new organization. The leadership team itself need need to have the common vision which can be shared with the rest of the organization. Everyone needs to have a sense of ownership and accountability. Within large organizations it is too easy to ‘ride and glide’. Everyone needs to pull their own weight. Clarity, communications and ‘walking the talk’ by the leadership will go along way to setting the proper tone. My reflection of week one suggests exactly that, and we need it to continue, even accelerate.

Finally, the winning culture is about the performance values, behaviors added to the personality of the resulting organization. To be fair, I only have a one sided view on this one, but will say that the Ciboodle side has been known for our sometimes quirky personality. We have done things a bit differently (for longer than I have been around). I am not too familiar with the KANA ‘personality’ and I am looking forward to seeing what the proper blend will be – and I will try hard to influence it, I see that as one of my jobs (I am physically half-way between Sunnyvale and Glasgow).

Personality

I mentioned above that the culture of an organization is the sum total of the personalities within the organizations. Where this merger is very different from previous mergers I have been a part of is the enabling technologies which are available. No, technology cannot solve this problem but it should be leveraged to make things easier. Proper collaboration can be used to effectively reduce the timezones, shorten the distance and allow for real 21st century productivity. The resulting culture, driven by individual personalities, will drive a new corporate personality; some combination of KANA and Ciboodle, and I am looking forward to being part of the process.

Articles and related material

• Press Release
• Clare Dorrian (Ciboodle)
  
• Vikas Nehru (KANA)
• Esteban Kolsky (ThinkJar)
• Kate Leggett (Forrester)
• MyCustomer.com (With insights from Paul Greenberg and Ray Wang)
• Build a Winning Culture (Bain & Co.)
• Image source

Let The Vision Unfold.

I realize that I have been quiet as of late and have not posted very much. Frankly, I did not have a lot I wanted to say – yeah, for those who know me well, you might find that hard to believe. There are a few things coming together, thus I will get back on track soon.

It is a bit of cop-out then to fill the space with a guest post – unless it is written by a good friend and colleague. Clare Dorrian has a title (VP Marketing, EMEA), but the title does not do justice for what she does or who she is…. Here is her perspective on yesterday’s announcement. Is there some marketing within this post, I suppose, but there is a lot of passion as well – I will be sharing my thoughts early next week.

By Clare Dorrian

So in case you haven’t heard the news, it’s official. Ciboodle has just been snapped up by KANA.

As a company, it goes without saying that we’ve realized incredibly valuable growth under Sword: we now have a sturdy foothold in North America and an enviable client roster that includes Nicor National, Admiral, Bally Total Fitness and Domestic & General; our product team has grown by more than a third and our solutions expanded to address social customer engagement as we’ve worked shoulder to shoulder with extraordinary flagship customers to develop exactly what the market required. Long nights and weekends, many trips to Chicago and the East Coast, frustrated spouses, missed families and the promise of making a critical impact on the Customer Service industry. Not bad for just less than four years…It has been an important and valuable chapter, to be sure, but we now need to move up a gear.

Why? Because the truth is, us ‘Ciboodlers’ are ready for more. Our vision to be the world’s most trusted and leading customer service software company can only be realised by continually growing the functionality and value of our products and services to significantly expand the way in which we help our customers. To get there, we need to be part of an organisation that can help us reach our limitless potential—a company who like us, lives and breathes Customer Service, who is committed to helping its customers deliver on-point and lasting relationships, who is driven by the belief that their technology solutions need to stay cutting edge, and who invests in R & D and constant contact with customers and the market, knowing that searching for top-flight customer service ideas produces bottom line results.

And that match making process is hard. Finding a partner who had similar ambitions and similar credentials is not something that happens overnight. BUT I’m delighted to say we’ve found our match in KANA.

This is a critical step in the build-out of Ciboodle’s Customer Service vision and a decision I’m excited about for us as a company, and on behalf of Ciboodle and KANA’s joint customers. We’ve both been successful in our own space but have approached it from two different positions of strength: Ciboodle focusing on the Contact Center, Agent Desktop, Business Process Management and Case Management solutions and Social Community, KANA meanwhile has focused on Email Response Management, Knowledge Management, Web Self-Service and Chat, and more recently Social Listening. By combining the two, not only does Ciboodle gain greater scale in terms of global presence, resources and expanded offerings, we will together, accelerate both companies’ product roadmaps by 12-18 months, allowing a sharper focus on strategic initiatives like cloud computing, mobile and big data analytics – areas that you, our customers, industry analysts, our partners and fellow Ciboodler’s have told us are important to our success. Not forgetting to continue to invest in those existing awesome areas of both products sets you have come to know and rely on.

Over the coming months, we will be working around the clock to fine tune and unveil more detail on where we are headed, applying the same innovation and same commitment you’ve come to associate with the Ciboodler’s you know. And the more I tap into KANA’s employees’ ideas, passions, and aspirations for our company’s future, the more I realise that all of us agree, that our combined brand, KANA, will continue to stand firmly behind all of the qualities that you trust us to be:

Forward thinking
Honest
Tireless
Fiercely responsible
Diligent
And fun.

Stay tuned…