oscommerce integration icecat v2.0

A great - according to user reports - oscommerce interface to ICEcat is that of Advance Software. They call it an AJAX oscommerce integration package Version 2.0.

Misco - the largest direct writer in Europe - joins Open ICEcat.

Misco - the largest direct writer in Europe - joins (Open) ICEcat. Misco is one of the largest B2B IT resellers, an important vendor partner in Europe. It is significant that it has decided to make use of ICEcat and Open ICEcat. This further strengthens the position of Open ICEcat, and makes it even more attractive for manufacturers to join.

DELL's channel position grows with 20% in February

DELL is continuously improving its EMEA channel position. We notice a month-on-month increase of 20.3% in buyer orientation on DELL products in the channel. OpenICEcat - the open catalog - measured 147,321 product data-sheet downloads in January 2010, and 177,250 in February 2010. The increase shows a continuation of the 2009 trend. It brings DELL to a top 43 (was top 52 in January) channel brand position. Still, a long way behind the top 10.

Coping with cynical bloggers

It is interesting, to notice the emotions of bloggers about our acquisition of Vivendo's assets. Most responses are positive. Some are cynical, because we are not continuing all contracts of old Vivendo. Of course not. It had its reasons that old Vivendo went bankrupt. It would be stupid to continue the same mistakes, and write out a blank cheque for all past liabilities. Happily, we are able to make sufficient numbers of Vivendo clients happy by supporting them with continued hosting services and by finalizing work in progress. I expect more interesting communication when we start collecting debts from old Vivendo clients in the coming week.

Managing the downside of an acquisition

In an acquisition, especially of assets from a company in bankruptcy, there can always be an unexpectable downside: IPR claims from suppliers, claims from mishandled clients, claims from staff, unrealistically priced work in progress, and disputed invoices. As enterpreneurs tend to prefer to look at the upsides, it is not in our natures to like to go to deep into downside scenarios. Still it may save your business life!

A due dilligence provides information to a certain level, and often depends on the willingness of (former) employees, the owner and the curator (care taker), to provide the information that can also press the purchase price down.
In the end, risks can be managed by not including supplier contracts in the deal, by talking to clients and excluding client contracts with claims, and by devising a well-wrought take-over agreement.
It is a lot of legal details. But, well worth the effort. As it increases the value of the purchased assets, and the viability of a company in case of a relaunch.
Sometimes, it is possible to effectively obtain the assets while still negotiating about the agreement details. That is more or less ideal, as it gives an operational insight in all liabilities, and the opportunity to exclude those systematically in the agreement-in-progress.

The upside of an acquisition

An unexpected upside of our acquisition of Vivendo.nl last week, is that suddenly a lot of partners feel attracted to us, as they perceive us as a winner: a healthy, profitable, well-funded company, with whom it is interesting to do business as we proof to be willing to invest. As the perceptions are true, we are cashing in on the financial prudence of the previous years.

I think it also shows something of the current times: cash is king, especially during this very serious downturn. We are willing to invest in growth, and are continuing to do so in the coming period.
It is time to start a consolidation, pursuing economy of scale, in the European webshop development market.

Managing Vivendo as a successful acquisition in six phases

Vivendo is a Magento Commerce integrator, that will officially relaunch coming Monday. The relaunch team, will strengthen our Magento and open source integration expertise, and expand our position in the European webshop development market. Especially, our position on our Dutch home market will be solidified.

A relaunch, after bankruptcy, is never easy. In general, a take over, in whatever format is never easy. Business statistics say that 80-90% of mergers & acquisitions (M&As) fail to deliver. That means: the buying price is higher than the value add for the shareholder. In a few cases a merger or acquisition is followed by a divestment or the acquired company fails altogether.

In the 10-20% of the M&As that are successful in terms of delivering a value add in terms of shareholder value, it is found by business researchers that professional roadmap is followed based on previous experiences.

Therefore, we decided to handle the Vivendo acquisition as a study case for which we developed a roadmap, that we want to reuse for following acquisitions. We are checking the steps of the roadmap, and specifying each next phase before we enter it. We split the phases in a Due Dilligence phase, Bidding Phase, Transfer Phase, Consolidation Phase, Investment Phase, and finally Business-as-Usual Phase in which we expect target profitability. We expect to reach the last phase after six months after takeover.