Scaling fast while protecting culture
“We’ve grown incredibly quickly in the last five years...from a small team who knew each other really well to nearly 100 people across multiple regions. The challenge was how do you scale while maintaining culture? And how do you do that through M&A as well?”
Alchemist, a global learning and development consultancy, faced two major challenges: scaling rapidly while staying true to their culture, and integrating new organisations after being acquired by Horizon Capital.
Why Culture15?
“Most of the culture surveys (Alchemist's CPO) and I looked at didn’t really help you measure culture, the engagement platforms said they did, but they didn’t. What we saw in Culture15 was the genuine ability to get true cultural data.”
For Alchemist, Culture15 stood out for its simplicity, clarity, and unique ability to map and compare cultures, essential as the business began its mergers and acquisitions journey.
Putting culture front and centre in M&A
“Within about the first three slides of our management presentation is our culture, our behaviours and also our Culture15 diagnostic. It allows us to very succinctly and clearly demonstrate what is important to Alchemist.”
When entering acquisition discussions, Alchemist makes culture one of the first things they present to prospective organisations. By using Culture15 data, they show a clear commitment to people and values, not just financial performance.
Creating a shared language post-acquisition
“One of the first initiatives we ran as part of integration was the Culture15 diagnostic across the Rain organisation. We overlaid their data with ours and, perhaps surprisingly, we were super close. That allowed us to create a common language and helped everyone feel okay about bringing two cultures together.”
By using Culture15 immediately after a deal, Alchemist was able to identify similarities and differences, align expectations quickly, and reduce the emotional stress of change.
“Culture15 gives everybody a baseline of understanding… and actually starts to destress at an emotional level what that change might look like.”
Culture as a value driver in mergers and acquisitions
“Increasingly we are seeing private equity in particular seeing people and culture as a value driver. If you get your culture strategy right and your investor understands the criticality of it, you are significantly giving them accretive value in the organisation.”
For Alchemist, culture is not an afterthought, it’s a strategic advantage. With Culture15, they have the clarity and confidence to scale, integrate, and protect value during mergers and acquisitions.
Find out more about the Culture15 SaaS Platform here.
