How to ignore 
a strategic acquisition
It’s always interesting to see how companies use the Web to promote and manage a strategic acquisition. HP’s acquisition of 3Com is a great example of what not to do.
First, let’s look at this from the 3Com.com perspective. Unless you look really closely, it might escape your attention that HP has acquired 3Com at all – much less that this acquisition is part of a forthcoming – and very strategic — battle between HP and Cisco (see the Business Week article). Instead of the fanfare one might expect, this marriage is one of three revolving features on the 3Com.com home page. There’s no mention anywhere else on the page. In the news widget. Main page features. Nada.
Of course, HP.com doesn’t get out of this alive either. Click on the 3Com & HP main feature link and you’ll be whisked away to HP.com without warning and land on a perfectly dreadful “events’ page that provides access to a 5-five-month-old podcast of the announcement. Just for fun, there are .PDF versions of the slide presentation and a transcript of the call.
And what about information about the strategic importance of the 3Com and HP marriage? How the acquisition is progressing? Why this is a good deal for HP and a great deal for 3Com customers? Both sites are functional mutes. With the exception of a press release buried in the Newscenter, 3Com.com essentially ignores its new parent. This information doesn’t even make the top 20 in HP.com’s investor relations or the newsroom zones – or a slot on the “Company Information” page.
So why the rant? Because this is a perfect “what’s in it for me?” moment. If I’m an existing or potential 3Com customer, I am naturally going to be cautious about the impact of this acquisition on my purchase decisions. What’s the strategy? What’s the product roadmap? What’s in this for me?
Tags: 3com.com, acquisition, hp.com, worst practice
Hi Marty,
The reason you’re not seeing anything yet on the HP or 3Com websites is because the deal hasn’t closed yet. We’ve just received regulatory clearance. You’ll need to wait just a little longer for the actual deal to close before we can start updating websites.
Andy.
Hi Andy. Thanks for your ping on our review. Reflecting on your comment, I realized I’ve actually set the bar based on our observations and reviews of another recent acquisition. The Oracle/Sun marriage, which went through a painful set of hoops, including challenges from the EU. Despite this, Oracle.com’s drumbeat marketing persisted. Sometimes via home page features that kept visitors up to date on progress. Certainly in its corporate marketing area, including mentions in company newsletters and a series of Webcasts. Perhaps updating the current landing page with information that identifies that the deal hasn’t yet closed would provide visitors with a better sense of current status — and certainly linking them to anything that expresses the importance of the marriage would be a bonus. ~M
It’s unfortunate that so many companies still treat their websites as online catalogs, order-taking engines, and PR channels spiffed up with Flash. Consider the reader – I get the most value when I get what I want quickly. I’ll come back more often if the experience was rewarding – intuitive, or clever, or fun. And I appreciate a clear vector that suites my needs for being there in the first place and am impressed when the system (correctly!) picks for me.
Don’t let content be king with too many cooks spoiling the meal. Avoid these perceivable stovepipes from disparate contributors, smooth out the flow, and eliminate all jarring transitions. Give a unifying “personality” to the site and the visit experience. Think of my visit as a dialogue and ask yourselves “Who am I?” to this visitor.
OK, I’ll release the button now…
I agree Ted. Most sites have too much content and, quite frankly, most of it is written from the “inside out.” Ditto click streams which typically represent the company’s internal organizations instead of how prospects and customers really view the company’s products and services. There’s a ying and yang to the problem. Stakeholders know their products best and need to create the content and voice — but Web teams must learn to architect sites around the visitor’s (rather than the company’s) objectives and needs. ~M
Thanks for bothering to write this. I value where you are coming from with this particular write-up yet It is my opinion that you have much better guidelines.