M&A & Design

In today’s fast-moving business landscape, software companies—especially those offering data analytics solutions—often grow by acquiring complementary applications. These acquisitions aim to expand capabilities, enhance product offerings, and reach a broader market. However, the acquisition of multiple software solutions presents significant challenges in creating a unified and cohesive product suite. This is particularly true for B2B SaaS enterprise data analytics platforms, where users expect seamless integration, consistent interfaces, and intuitive experiences across multiple applications.

For UX design and research teams, the task of merging disparate acquired applications into a coherent solution offer requires more than just technical integration. It demands a comprehensive approach that encompasses team consolidation, the establishment of design operations, and the development of a unified design system that can support both existing products and future acquisitions. This essay explores how UX design and research teams can overcome the challenges of building a cohesive B2B SaaS data analytics solution from a diverse portfolio of acquired applications.

The acquisition of multiple data analytics applications usually brings together teams with diverse skills, working methods, and organizational cultures. Each team—whether they specialize in product design, research, or engineering—will have its own approach to design processes, user research, and workflows. This can result in internal friction, communication breakdowns, and a lack of alignment on product vision. Merging these teams is not only a matter of integrating different tools or technologies but also of harmonizing the team's mindset and collaborative approach.

The first step in overcoming this challenge is to foster a unified team culture that emphasizes cross-functional collaboration, shared values, and a common vision. This requires a focused effort on team-building and knowledge-sharing. Bringing together UX designers, researchers, product managers, and developers from each acquired application to share their experiences, insights, and expertise can help create a common ground for cooperation.

A design leadership group should be formed to guide the integration process. This leadership group must emphasize the importance of cross-team collaboration and create a shared understanding of the goals. A set of guiding principles should be established to ensure that the teams are aligned around the larger mission of creating a unified data analytics solution for enterprise clients. Leadership must also create a transparent feedback loop, allowing teams to voice concerns, share challenges, and celebrate wins together.

For instance, if one team is used to an agile iterative process and another to waterfall methodologies, a hybrid approach to development and design might be introduced. This ensures that both teams can work effectively while gradually adopting new processes and tools that work for the newly merged team.

Building a cohesive design solution requires more than just merging teams—it requires a robust and well-coordinated design operations framework. The design operations team is responsible for streamlining workflows, optimizing resource allocation, managing design sprints, ensuring timely delivery, and tracking performance across various teams and products. In the case of multiple acquired applications, these operations can quickly become fragmented and inefficient without proper systems and processes in place.

To create an effective design operations structure, it is crucial to standardize workflows while maintaining the flexibility to accommodate the unique aspects of each product. One of the first steps is to conduct an audit of existing workflows across all acquired applications. Identify bottlenecks, inconsistencies, and inefficiencies in the design process—be it in research, prototyping, or development.

Once gaps are identified, the UX operations team should implement standardized practices, such as clear project management frameworks (e.g., Agile, Scrum), resource allocation strategies, and standardized reporting mechanisms. Establishing tools that allow teams to track progress, collaborate in real-time, and share assets is crucial for scaling design operations.

Additionally, a centralized design management platform—where teams can access design assets, documentation, and templates—should be adopted to ensure that everyone works from a single source of truth.

Suppose there is a need for a UX research team to conduct usability tests on both an acquired tool and a core product. The design operations team should coordinate the research efforts, ensuring that findings are shared across teams and that learnings from one product can be applied to others. This reduces redundant efforts and helps create a cohesive user experience across products.

Perhaps the most significant challenge in building a coherent solution offer for B2B SaaS data analytics software is the creation of a unified design system. Each acquired application will have its own design language, UI components, interaction patterns, and user flows. Over time, these differences can create a fragmented and inconsistent user experience across the suite of applications. Users who move between different tools within the suite may encounter drastically different interfaces and user journeys, which can lead to confusion, inefficiency, and frustration.

To overcome this challenge, the UX team must build a comprehensive and scalable design system that unifies visual design, interaction patterns, and UX principles across all applications. This system should be modular, reusable, and adaptable to future acquisitions, ensuring consistency while maintaining flexibility.

The first step in building the design system is to audit the current design languages of each acquired application. Identify commonalities and discrepancies in key areas such as typography, color schemes, iconography, layout grids, and interactive elements. From this audit, establish a set of core design principles that will guide all design decisions. This should include an overarching brand guideline, a component library (buttons, dropdowns, tables, forms, etc.), and a pattern library (navigation, modals, sidebars, etc.) that all teams can use as a foundation.

Additionally, a style guide should be created to define not only the visual aspects but also the voice and tone of the product. This is especially critical for B2B SaaS analytics tools, where users expect a high degree of professionalism, clarity, and consistency in how information is presented. The design system must be flexible enough to accommodate the unique requirements of each product (for example, complex data visualizations in one tool and reporting dashboards in another) while ensuring that the overall brand identity remains consistent across the suite.

A key to success is documentation and communication—the design system must be easy to access and updated regularly. To ensure smooth adoption, a design system evangelism approach should be taken, where members of the design team act as champions for the system, educating other teams and continuously gathering feedback to improve the system.

In a portfolio of B2B enterprise analytics tools, one product might feature an advanced dashboard with intricate data visualizations, while another might focus on team collaboration and reporting. The design system can provide flexible UI components for both types of experiences—data tables for one, interactive charts for the other—while ensuring that the visual language remains consistent across all products. A user, transitioning from one tool to another, should feel like they are using products from the same ecosystem, not disparate solutions.

In the world of data analytics, where user needs and technologies evolve rapidly, it is essential that any design system or integrated solution not only solves current challenges but is also adaptable for future growth.

To address this, the design system and operations framework must be treated as living entities that evolve with feedback, user insights, and technological advancements. UX teams should regularly revisit their design system to incorporate new trends, usability best practices, and emerging technologies (such as AI-driven analytics or predictive data features).

Additionally, as new acquisitions are made, the design system should be flexible enough to integrate these new tools seamlessly into the existing ecosystem. A continuous feedback loop with users, product managers, and developers will ensure that the system adapts in real time to the changing needs of the business and its users.

Surpassing the challenges of building a coherent solution offer from a broad portfolio of acquired applications in the context of B2B SaaS enterprise data analytics software requires a holistic approach. UX design and research teams must first address the challenge of team consolidation by fostering collaboration and building a shared vision. Next, they must streamline design operations to optimize workflows, resource allocation, and communication. Finally, they must create a robust, adaptable design system that unifies the user experience across products, ensuring consistency while accommodating the unique needs of each tool.

By taking a thoughtful and strategic approach to these challenges, UX teams can create a unified solution offer that not only delivers seamless user experiences across multiple applications but also future-proofs the portfolio for scalability and innovation in the fast-evolving field of data analytics.