8 Acquisitions: The Ops Lessons Most People Learn Too Late with Jonathan Healey

Most businesses will go through some kind of change management challenge – a new tool, a restructure, a rebrand. But what does it look like when you're doing that across eight acquired businesses, each with their own people, systems, culture, and way of doing things?Jonathan Healey is Group Technology Director at IDHL, a 500-person UK digital agency group that has grown through eight acquisitions. He's been at the center of every integration – aligning systems, consolidating brands, and figuring out what actually has to happen, and in what order, before any of it can work.This is a conversation about what M&A integration really looks like on the ground – and why, at its core, it's a change management problem more than a technology one.Here's what we get into:• Why the back office has to move first – and what happens when it doesn't• The "us vs them" dynamic that can derail an integration before it starts• How to decide what to standardize and what to leave alone• Why process is poison – and what good process actually looks like• Build vs buy: when in-house systems become a liability• AI adoption as a change management challenge – and the federated model IDHL is using to scale itWhether you're navigating an acquisition, thinking about one, or just trying to get a new way of working to stick across your team – this one's got something for you.Additional Resources:👉🏽 Follow Jonathan on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonathanhealey1/👨🏽 Follow Harv on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/harvnagra/ ➡️ This podcast is brought to you by Scoro, where you can manage your projects, resources and finances in a single system. Sign up for a free trial or a demo at https://scoro.com/demo – and for the VIP treatment, tell them Harv sent you.