POV: You’ve Bought a Business. How Do You Upskill the Management Team to Take It to the Next Level?
POV: You’ve Bought a Business. How Do You Upskill the Management Team to Take It to the Next Level?
Most SME businesses in the UK services sector start the same way.
An owner-operator builds a business from the ground up. They are usually a highly capable service provider, and a half-decent salesperson by necessity. Through long hours, strong customer relationships, and a commitment to service quality, the business grows to a point where it becomes attractive to a buyer.
By the time you acquire it, the business is often operationally strong, profitable, and well respected by its customers.
What it is not always equipped for is the next phase of its journey.
The Reality of Management Teams in Owner-Operator Businesses
The management team you inherit in these businesses is usually cut from the same cloth as the founder.
They are:
Experienced operators
Deeply knowledgeable about their trade
Trusted by customers and frontline teams
Used to “getting things done”
What they are less likely to be is commercially trained.
That is not a criticism. In many cases, there has simply never been a need for formal commercial or financial capability. Decisions have been made based on experience, instinct, and close proximity to the detail.
That approach works well in a smaller, founder-led environment. It becomes much harder to sustain once the business is part of a larger group with higher expectations around growth, reporting, and value creation.
Buying the Business Is the Easy Part
There is a common misconception in M&A that once a business has been acquired, growth will naturally follow.
In reality, the acquisition itself is often the easiest phase.
What comes next is far more complex.
Acquisitions are periods of significant disruption. For the colleagues being acquired, it can feel disorientating. Processes change. Expectations shift. The language of the business becomes more financial and more structured. What once felt familiar can quickly feel corporate and uncomfortable.
It is not reasonable to expect management teams in these businesses to simply “crack on” and hit the ground running in a new environment.
If you want them to succeed, you have to equip them to do so.
FAQ: Should I bring in a new management team who already have the right commercial acumen?
Acquisitions are disruptive for both colleagues and customers at the best of times. Replacing the existing management structure will likely increase that disruption and make retention more challenging.
Why Commercial Upskilling Matters After an Acquisition
If a business is going to grow following acquisition, the management team must be able to operate in a more commercially minded world.
That requires confidence as much as capability.
Commercial training is not about turning operational leaders into accountants. It is about giving them a clear understanding of how the business creates value, how decisions affect performance, and how to balance operational realities with commercial outcomes.
Without this, one of two things tends to happen:
Decisions are escalated upwards, creating bottlenecks
Decisions are avoided altogether, slowing progress
Neither is conducive to growth.
FAQ: How quickly should I start the commercial upskilling process?
As soon as practical after the acquisition has completed. It will take time, training and ongoing application for the management team to reach the desired level, so the sooner the process is started, the better.
Finance Fundamentals Are the Starting Point
A large part of effective commercial upskilling is building confidence with financial fundamentals.
For many operational managers, financial information has historically felt intimidating or abstract. That needs to change.
Post-acquisition, management teams need to be comfortable with:
Managing a profit and loss account
Forecasting revenue and costs accurately
Understanding and controlling margin
Managing work in progress properly
Recognising how operational decisions flow through to financial results
When managers understand these fundamentals, conversations change. Discussions become more objective, more forward-looking, and more productive.
FAQ: Why do operational managers need to understand finance fundamentals?
Understanding the fundamentals will allow these managers to grow the business sustainably and equip them with the necessary skills to take up more senior positions in future.
Commercial Training Goes Beyond the Numbers
Good commercial training does not stop at finance.
The real value comes when teams are equipped to make better business decisions.
This is about helping managers think through questions such as:
Which customers genuinely create value?
Where is effort being absorbed by low-margin or loss-making work?
Which parts of the business are over-resourced?
Where can processes be simplified without damaging service?
These are not easy decisions, particularly in businesses built on long-standing relationships.
Renegotiating contracts with loyal but unprofitable customers can feel uncomfortable. Consolidating admin teams to remove excess capacity can feel personal.
Without a commercial framework, these decisions are often avoided or delayed. With the right training, they can be approached logically, fairly, and with confidence.
FAQ: What’s the difference between finance training and commercial training?
Commercial training offers a holistic view of the business and the environment in which it operates. Finance fundamentals are a key component of that process.
Reducing Dependency on the Centre
One of the biggest risks post-acquisition is over-centralisation of decision-making.
If every difficult decision has to be driven from the top, progress slows and leadership bandwidth becomes constrained. This is frustrating for the acquiring group and disempowering for local management teams.
Commercial upskilling changes this dynamic.
When managers understand the commercial realities of the business, they are far more likely to:
Spot issues early
Propose well-reasoned solutions
Build credible, costed business cases
Take ownership of outcomes
This is how acquired businesses move from being managed to being scaled.
Taking the Business to the Next Level
Buying a successful business is only half the job. The real value is created in what happens next.
If you want growth to continue following acquisition, you must invest in the people who will deliver it. That means recognising that operational excellence alone is not enough in a larger, more commercially driven environment.
Commercial upskilling is one of the most effective ways to:
Stabilise businesses post-acquisition
Retain and empower management teams
Improve decision-making quality
Drive sustainable enterprise value growth
When management teams are given the skills, language, and confidence to operate commercially, they stop feeling like passengers in the journey and start becoming genuine drivers of value.
