Ask the Experts
Festival Q&A Gwendolyn Smith, Senior PMM at Litera, is answering all your questions after her #PMMfest presentation, "Breaking & Entering: Reinventing Your Story when Brands Merge." 👇
Gwendolyn Smith, Senior PMM at Litera, is answering all your questions after her #PMMfest presentation, "Breaking & Entering: Reinventing Your Story when Brands Merge." 👇
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In Product Marketing Alliance you can ask and answer questions and share your experience with others!
Did the acquisition result in a larger PMM team? Were there any particular challenges around team dynamics and how did you tackle these?
Hi @Amy Solo! My experience on team adjustments has been different at every company. It hasn't changed historically but in my current role, the PMM team grew from two to three people. We were so lucky to have this person join our team because he had been working for a few years on one of the products we acquired, which meant he came to the table with loads of product, customer, and industry knowledge. So what was new territory for us was his comfort zone, and vice versa.
Given the new product(s) added to our portfolio, it made sense to re-organize the ownership/responsibilities of the PMM team. Before, my team was structured so that we split what I consider to be the four pillars of product marketing: For all products, I owned (1) GTM and strategy and (2) sales enablement while my teammate owned (3) competitive intel and (4) customer marketing. Now, we split it so that one PMM owns all 4 pillars for a subset of products, the other owns all 4 for the other subset of products, and I oversee all efforts.
This was a great question - I hope my answer helps!
Thanks Gwendolyn, enjoyed the presentation! What was the time frame from the deal closing to communicating the new offering to customers and prospects - what did you choose to prioritize?
Hi @Heather James - great question! In short, it depends. At a publicly traded company, the news of an acquisition needs to be made immediately. Otherwise, the company can chose to take a little time (but not much!) to get their ducks in a row before making the news public.
At Litera, we announce our acquisitions as soon as possible and generally prioritize existing customers. Here's an example: In July 2019 we acquired Workshare, one of our biggest competitors with two overlapping products. We knew customers would be anxious to know what was going to happen to their products, so we had to communicate immediately and often. Even though we didn't have the roadmap finalized, our announcement came days after the close and included a reassuring message that all products will continue to be supported for the foreseeable future. (You can see the initial blog post here.) A few weeks later in August, we had a more clearly defined path forward. (You can see that message here.) While our news was applicable to everyone, we prioritized making a seamless experience for existing customers, quickly followed by how we manage open opportunities for either product.
I hope this answered your question. If you have any more, just shout!