When Your Vendor Gets Acquired - TEM and Call Accounting Technology Blog - TeleManagement Technologies, Inc.

You may have read recently of the acquisition of TEM (Telecom Expense Management) provider, MDSL, by Sumeru Equity Partners. Earlier in the year we had the acquisition of another TEM provider, Tangoe, by Marlin Equity Partners as part of a merger between Marlin’s enterprise mobility management software acquisition, Asentinel and Tangoe. Whew! Who’s next?

Mergers and acquisitions take a lot of hard work. If you’ve ever been through one you know the time and dedicated effort needed to get through endless meetings, calls, mounds of paperwork, financials, and legal documents that form the often shaky foundation of the blending together of companies.

If you’ve ever been a customer of a company that has been acquired or merged, you have a whole different set of issues to contend with. Here are a few:

Discontinued or replaced products

What often happens, especially if you have an older version of a product, is that the newly formed management team decides to terminate that product line and port users over to the technology they have decided to market in its place. And you must wait in line, while they sort it all out.​

Never ending installations

If you are unlucky enough to have scheduled an installation that happens to fall at any point during or following a merger or acquisition your project may get put on hold or, at best, move along at a snail’s pace.

Spotty customer service

A merger or acquisition often instills fear in customer service reps who aren’t sure if they will have a job in the weeks and months ahead. What can result is a shuffling support team either out on job interviews or struggling to keep up with trouble tickets because no one is there to handle them!​

Is there any way to safeguard your company from being the victim of a merged or acquired vendor?

It is an interesting question, but with no easy answers. No one can predict the future. So, you can’t predict that the company you select to provide your software will remain the same one a year or two down the road. But here is what you can do.

• Seek a provider who has a proven track record to deliver quality products and services.
• Talk to customers. Ask questions about customer service responsiveness and in-house expertise.
• Consider your own strategy. Where do you plan to be 1-3 years from now? Can the vendor keep pace?

TTI has been proud to serve the telemanagement needs of hundreds of companies all over the world for over 25 years. Our healthy company continues to thrive and grow to meet the changing needs of our clients.

At TTI we have helped hundreds of victims of acquired vendors to get up on their feet quickly with our award-winning line of telecom expense management and call accounting systems. If your company has suffered from the fall out of a TEM vendor acquisition, we’re here to help.