When your company plans to grow at an exponential rate, how do you maintain what is inevitably the chaos that would ensue from all those brands?

Note:

Before one can begin taking on mergers, you must first have a sound branding philosophy in place and a secure brand architecture laid out.

Background

We're a billion-dollar company. We've got capital. We've got street cred. More importantly, we have a plan. As the leadership of our company sat down to map out the plan for the next five years, they decided to push all of us in the company to double our growth in those five years. Part of the program are acquisitions that will help facilitate better products to our customers, and dive into other avenues we may not have been in before.

The Vice President of Business Development approached the content director and me to come up with a plan that would facilitate these new brands into our Dorman brand architecture. Where everyone in the company would understand their part and, more importantly, assist how that newly acquired company would fit into our culture.

The Playbook

The playbook reads that we integrate the new brand based upon a three-part strategic plan with many tactics and tasks within each one:

Brand Alignment.

Platform Alignment.

Team Alignment.

Success

We measure success by how quickly and seamless integration can occur. The entire process takes a year, and we must also take into account any engineering certifications that will be needed to maintain operations. Also, working with fiance to keep in mind the goodwill attached to a balance sheet and limit a P&L hit to the company.