I would love to know what happened in these companies that failed after someone bought it then ploughed tons of money into them.
Having just left one, the core reason for the failure was a tech plan forced upon two companies that was so unrealistic it was always going to fail. A bit of me thinks it's the problem was the investor for setting up a terrible plan. But realistically, I think it's more the management of the two companies inability to explain to a growth board that you can't rewrite a 7-year application in 3-months.
Original Plan: Migrate extra features and data over to new platform 3-months. If it's just a migration it's a bad timeline but overal not a bad plan. Problem was, it was a rewrite. The new platform didn't have the core features.
3-months pass: The growth board invests more money increases time and focuses everyone to this. While everyone keeps calling it a migration.
Another 3-months pass: The growth board invests even more money, increases the dev team, hires consultants who have help with such programs in the past.
Another 6-months pass: Still not delivered. Patence is getting thin. This was meant to be a 3-month project and it's been a year and we're not there. Extra time given with being features removed from scope. Delivery date announced to partners.
Another 3-months pass: Delivery date coming up, announcements made they will migrate on the deadline.
1-week before delivery: Team find out core functionality still doesn't exist. Announce another 3-4 month delay. Patience getting very thin.
Next deadline: They release a half finished product because management is going to get fired if they don't.
Result: Investor realises everything has gone wrong. After about €50-100 million investment Tries to sell company for €400 million. Drops price to €200 million. Sells for €75 million while clearing debt. Announces €50 million gain.
While the pressure from the owning company did cause issues, the original issue comes from the fact someone let them think it would originally be a 3-month project. This is not to mention that developers were telling the company management these deadlines couldn't be met, including 6-weeks before the first announced delivery date yet they continued to try and go forward until they realised at the last minute they couldn't meet the deadline. Every time it was at the last minute they would announce the deadline couldn't be met. Every 3-4 months the teams were working toward deliverying on a deadline.
Having just left one, the core reason for the failure was a tech plan forced upon two companies that was so unrealistic it was always going to fail. A bit of me thinks it's the problem was the investor for setting up a terrible plan. But realistically, I think it's more the management of the two companies inability to explain to a growth board that you can't rewrite a 7-year application in 3-months.
Original Plan: Migrate extra features and data over to new platform 3-months. If it's just a migration it's a bad timeline but overal not a bad plan. Problem was, it was a rewrite. The new platform didn't have the core features.
3-months pass: The growth board invests more money increases time and focuses everyone to this. While everyone keeps calling it a migration.
Another 3-months pass: The growth board invests even more money, increases the dev team, hires consultants who have help with such programs in the past.
Another 6-months pass: Still not delivered. Patence is getting thin. This was meant to be a 3-month project and it's been a year and we're not there. Extra time given with being features removed from scope. Delivery date announced to partners.
Another 3-months pass: Delivery date coming up, announcements made they will migrate on the deadline.
1-week before delivery: Team find out core functionality still doesn't exist. Announce another 3-4 month delay. Patience getting very thin.
Next deadline: They release a half finished product because management is going to get fired if they don't.
Result: Investor realises everything has gone wrong. After about €50-100 million investment Tries to sell company for €400 million. Drops price to €200 million. Sells for €75 million while clearing debt. Announces €50 million gain.
While the pressure from the owning company did cause issues, the original issue comes from the fact someone let them think it would originally be a 3-month project. This is not to mention that developers were telling the company management these deadlines couldn't be met, including 6-weeks before the first announced delivery date yet they continued to try and go forward until they realised at the last minute they couldn't meet the deadline. Every time it was at the last minute they would announce the deadline couldn't be met. Every 3-4 months the teams were working toward deliverying on a deadline.