Post-Acquisition Account Assignment: Who Owns What?

Review account assignments after an acquisition or merger to minimize sales rep distraction and customer confusion. Sales operations must quickly develop a process for analyzing and assigning accounts that is perceived to be fair and neutral. Communications and change management are critical to retaining top-performing sales reps and maintaining productivity.

B2B mergers and acquisitions can cause confusion, uncertainty and doubt on the part of sales reps as well as customers. If the decision has been made to combine the sales organizations of the acquiring and acquired companies, sales operations must act with urgency to plan and execute the integration (see Integrating Sales Organizations: 10 Steps To Success). In this report, we describe a three-step process for resolving post-acquisition account ownership issues while minimizing confusion among sales reps and customers.