A merger is an exciting time for any professional services firm. Bringing two teams together unlocks new opportunities: broader expertise, deeper client relationships, and the chance to win bigger, more complex projects. But to realize that potential, both firms need to present themselves as one unified team from the very start.
In consulting, engineering, construction, or legal firms, clients don’t buy a product — they buy expertise. That means proposals become the real test of whether a merger is working. Can you quickly and convincingly showcase your people, your experience, and your capabilities under one identity?
While HR systems can consolidate basic employee data, proposals demand more. They require a clear, unified view of skills, experiences, and roles — plus the ability to package that information into consistent resumes, aligned case studies, and branded templates. Building a searchable database of expertise across the combined firm is one of the most important (and often overlooked) steps in post-merger integration.
Handled well, this process ensures clients see the full strength of the new firm. Handled poorly, it leads to a patchwork of mismatched documents, outdated terminology, and missed opportunities.
The goal is simple: get everyone on the same page.
Here are the key considerations to focus on.
Understanding Skills Across the Firm
One of the first priorities in a merger should be building a clear picture of the combined expertise. On paper, the merger promises greater capabilities and new opportunities — but unless you can see exactly what skills exist across both teams, it’s impossible to deliver on that promise.
Merging firms often know their headcount, titles, and departments. What they don’t always know is:
- Who has delivered which types of projects.
- Which employees hold critical certifications or accreditations.
- Where there are overlaps — or gaps — in expertise.
Without this visibility, the combined firm risks underutilizing its talent and missing opportunities to highlight its strongest assets in proposals.
Creating a unified, searchable database of skills, roles, and project experience ensures you can:
- Quickly identify the right people for each bid or project.
- Demonstrate the full strength of the combined firm to clients.
- Help employees see where their expertise fits into the bigger picture.
This visibility doesn’t just streamline proposals — it also builds internal confidence, showing both legacy teams that their capabilities are recognized and valued in the new organization.
Creating Consistency in Processes
Once you understand the skills across the combined firm, the next step is to align how work gets done. A merger often brings together two sets of habits, workflows, and proposal practices. If left as-is, these differences can slow teams down and create inconsistencies in how the new firm presents itself to clients.
Consistency in processes is about more than efficiency — it’s about building trust. Clients notice when proposals look polished and consistent, and they also notice when submissions vary in structure, tone, or quality. Standardized processes help ensure that every proposal tells the same story, no matter who puts it together.
This includes:
- Setting clear guidelines for how content, such as resumes and case studies, should be structured, formatted, and submitted.
- Establishing common templates for proposals, resumes, and case studies.
- Creating a shared review and approval workflow to avoid bottlenecks or duplicated effort.
By aligning processes early, the merged firm avoids the risk of fragmentation — where teams continue working in silos and clients receive different versions of “who you are.” Instead, employees know exactly how to contribute, and clients see one unified organization.
Getting Everyone Using the Same Language
When two firms come together, one of the subtler challenges is terminology. Each organization has its own way of describing services, roles, and outcomes — and those differences can quickly create confusion in proposals.
For example:
- One firm calls a role Project Lead, while the other uses Engagement Manager.
- Similar services are described differently, like Change Management versus Organizational Transformation.
- Project outcomes might be framed in inconsistent ways, making it harder to compare or combine case studies.
Clients may not see these inconsistencies as small details — they may interpret them as signs of disorganization or misalignment. Internally, employees can feel just as frustrated if they don’t know which terms to use or if their work gets edited multiple times to “fit” the other firm’s style.
Unifying language helps everyone — from proposal writers to client-facing consultants — speak with one voice. Establishing a shared glossary or metadata system ensures that terminology is consistent across resumes, case studies, and proposals. It also reduces friction internally by giving teams a single reference point for how the firm presents itself.
Rebranding Proposal Documents
Rebranding is usually the first thing people think of in a merger — a new logo, updated colors, refreshed templates. But in reality, it should be the final step. Without a clear understanding of skills, consistent processes, and unified terminology, rebranding risks being a surface-level change that doesn’t solve deeper alignment challenges.
Handled in the right order, though, rebranding becomes far more powerful. By the time you update resumes, case studies, and proposal templates with the new brand identity, the foundations are already in place:
- Resumes can instantly be re-exported consistently to reflect the new firm’s identity.
- Case studies can be updated not just with a new logo, but with standardized language and structure.
- Proposal templates can tell a unified story that feels credible because it’s supported by aligned processes and shared terminology.
Rebranding is ultimately how clients see the merger. When done last, it doesn’t just look good — it authentically represents a firm that has already aligned its people, processes, and language behind the scenes.
How Flowcase Helps
Merging professional services firms is as much about alignment as it is about growth. Flowcase was built to make that alignment easier — helping firms quickly bring their people, processes, language, and branding together in one platform. Here’s how:
Searchable Skills Database
Flowcase creates a unified, searchable database of employee experience, skills, certifications, and project history. Instead of filing through spreadsheets or shared drives, firms can instantly search across the combined organization to identify the right people for proposals. This ensures that the full breadth of expertise is visible and accessible from day one.
Additionally, getting new data into Flowcase is easier than you could imagine:
Creating Consistency in Processes
Inherently, because both firms are now working from the same system, Flowcase ensures firms use the same structure and sections when creating their resumes and case studies. Using our intuitive interface, any team can work within a single, consistent process, making experience content faster to produce and easier to quality-check.
Getting Everyone Using the Same Language
Additionally, Flowcase introduces a centralized glossary and metadata system that locks in approved terminology. Whether it’s role titles, service descriptions, or project outcomes, firms can ensure that everyone is speaking with one voice across resumes, case studies, and proposals. This avoids confusion internally and builds credibility with clients externally. Additionally, existing terminology from a merging firm can be bulk-changed - ensuring content is updated across all their people and projects.
Rebranding at Scale
When the time comes to rebrand, Flowcase makes it simple. Resume and case study templates can easily be edited, or created from new. Colours, fonts, logos, and more can easily be switched out to fit the new merged organizations branding. Then, with a single template to work from, your firm’s resumes and case studies can be bulk-generated with the new branding applied. Instead of months of manual reformatting, firms can roll out their new identity quickly and confidently — with the reassurance that the underlying data is already standardized and aligned.
Read more via the blog below:
Getting started with a successful PMI
Mergers are full of potential. They bring together new skills, broader expertise, and bigger opportunities to win work. But that potential is only realized if the new firm can quickly present itself as one unified team — both internally and to clients.
By first consolidating skills, then creating consistent processes, unifying language, and finally rebranding, firms can make sure the merger story comes through clearly in every proposal. That’s where clients see the real value of the combined entity.
Flowcase helps firms make this happen. With a single platform to map expertise, standardize documents, align terminology, and rebrand at scale, professional services firms can move past the complexity of integration and focus on what matters most: winning work together.
To learn more, book a personalized demo today.
