The past few years have brought a surge of investments in association technology companies that can improve the quality of products available to organizations. But after an investment, merger, or acquisition, there may be a lot of uncertainty among employees, customers, and prospective customers. The vendor often issues a press release with two main messages: First, this transaction will improve our products and strengthen the combined companies, and second, there may be some growing pains, but in the end, our transition will be smooth. One of these is usually truer than the other.

In fact, the transition may be bumpy. Change is hard. It's not something that people naturally embrace. During the transition, investors may make decisions that seem inconvenient or severe to customers, such as:

• decommissioning products
• changing or eliminating product features
• releasing long-time, well-known staff in favor of executives deemed to be more appropriate for the growth phase, but who may come off as strict and unhelpful
• introducing more efficient, automated support procedures, like contextual help, wikis, and peer-to-peer support forums, reducing the high-touch support experience

Associations should anticipate more mergers, acquisitions, and investments in technology firms. You can expect periodic churn in the ownership and management of association technology partners, knowing that investors must eventually be paid back.

The relationships that you've developed with your vendor are likely to change after an acquisition or merger, and user conferences are the best opportunities to build relationships up and down your vendor's chain of command.

We're also seeing the emergence of association technology "empires," which offer a suite of products like association management software, learning management systems, online communities, job boards, and email management systems that work together without costly integrations. This alignment runs counter to the prevailing "best of breed" approach that many association technology leaders and larger organizations ascribe to, but it may be useful for smaller associations that are understaffed, particularly in their technology department.

Tips for Clients

Based on advice from IT leaders at associations and IT consultants, as well as my own research and experience, here are some recommendations for organizations whose technology vendors have been acquired, merged, or invested in.

First, find out when your association's next renewal date is and mark the date on your calendar. At the point of renewal, call your account representative to explain that, based on what you've heard about other mergers and acquisitions, you're feeling uncertain and would like to transition your contract to a shorter renewal cycle: month-to-month, three months, or six months. This will allow you to easily cancel your contract if the vendor's service or product quality significantly deteriorates during the transition.

If your vendor offers a user conference, make plans to attend. The relationships that you've developed with your vendor are likely to change after an acquisition or merger, and these conferences are the best opportunities to build relationships up and down your vendor's chain of command. You'll also get information (whether explicit or implied) from the vendor's executives during their "state of the company" address that may inform your thinking on whether to stay with the merged company.

If you can't attend the conference or if your vendor doesn't offer one, ask your legacy contacts to introduce you to newly hired executives. Keep in mind that your established contacts may resign or be laid off after an acquisition, so you'll want to start building new relationships quickly.

Finally, don't delay in expressing concerns to your vendor's new leadership if the level of service that you're accustomed to worsens. Study your contract's service level agreement, especially as it relates to guarantees about response time, and be prepared to reference it if your vendor fails to meet them. You want to send a clear message that your organization won't tolerate any disruption to its normal business operations.

In the long run, the vendor usually gets it right. One of investors' top goals is to improve product quality. With new money to spend, management will implement best practices, hire the right people, upgrade infrastructure, and repeat what they've done several times before at other companies to improve their products and services.

Learn more about investments in the association technology market at TheNIRD.org.