The M&A Leadership Council welcomes our newest partner company, Binary Tree. Recently I had a chance to speak with Steven Pivnik, CEO of Binary Tree, to get his take on the relationship and what his company does to improve M&A results.
Jim: Hello Steven, and welcome to the Leadership Council.I’m anxious for our readers to learn more about Binary Tree and how your company can benefit the M&A community.Please give us some background on your company.
Steven: Binary Tree is a global provider of email and calendar migration software and solutions for Lotus Notes, Microsoft Exchange, Active Directory, and Windows Server environments. As I like to say, we’re the moving van for enterprise email data. We’ve been around for 20 years, but still have the vibrant energy of a start-up… even though we have migrated more than 30 million users for companies across the globe.
Binary Tree is a Microsoft Gold Messaging Partner, an IBM Advanced Business Partner, and is one of Microsoft’s preferred vendors for migrating to Microsoft Office 365. This level of partnership, with two of the largest email software providers in the world, means our clients know we are a trusted provider for migration solutions. A newer area of growth is helping companies migrate to the cloud, per their unique requirements.
We’ve experienced continued annual growth in this space, and see a bright future for Binary Tree in 2014 and beyond. We have made the Inc 5000 list of fastest growing companies for the last seven years in a row.
Jim: That’s a great track record and an impressive growth trajectory. So tell everyone, how is your work related to mergers and acquisitions?
Steven: A merger or acquisition environment is one of the best opportunities for Binary Tree’s portfolio of software and services. Our solutions have been used in hundreds of M&A integrations over the last two decades. Whether Company A is merging with Company B, or Company A is acquiring Company B, email is one of the more critical elements for these companies to collaborate and communicate effectively. Think of all the daily collaboration opportunities that email supports – internal and external meetings, knowledge sharing, project communication and more. Our software enables companies in an M&A combination to quickly, accurately and comprehensively migrate and merge their employees’ email and calendar environments to their specific requirements, so the newly merged organization can be stabilized and focus on business objectives.
Jim: Steven, stablility is one of thee most important things management can focus on in a merger and we know through our alumni conversations that email is still one of the most personal enablers for stabilizing the employee base. From your perspective, why do you feel it's important to be a member of the M&A Leadership Council?
Steven: The M&A Leadership Council gives us the opportunity to share knowledge with other companies in this space, and to be part of a network of companies that supports firms going through mergers or acquisitions. Participating in the training, communications and other activities offered by the Council helps Binary Tree stay focused on ensuring our clients’ success through this phase of their business “lives.”