Buying a Microsoft Dynamics partner business: What a growing VAR looks for

Engineering a successful sale of Microsoft partner business is no small task, as we learned from talking with former GP reseller Gloria Braunschweig. Gloria's journey through process of finding a buyer and negotiating a deal that met her goals around the future of her employees and clients was years in the making. With all of that preparation came a satisfactory outcome.

But what does the acquisition process look like from the buyer's side? For every business owner who sells, there is a company on the other side of the table with their own strategic goals and long term plans for the acquired business's customers, employees, and IP.

Encore Business Solutions, with offices in three central and western provinces of Canada, has acquired two Microsoft Dynamics businesses in the last two years and has grown its organization to over a hundred employees. We spoke with chief operating officer Ken Chartrand to learn what a growing Dynamics partner looks for in an acquisition target, and what a business owner and the rest of the organization can expect to encounter in the purchase process.

MSDW: What are some of the qualities you expect to see in a leader of a company that is a candidate for acquisition?

Ken Chartrand: One thing I look for is [understanding] what their culture all about and how would it fit into Encore's culture. If you think about it, we're a talent-based industry. It's all about getting the right talent and people. The owner is a reflection of the type of culture they are trying to build. The first thing is culture, and from a management style, what they believe ...