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Mergers and acquisitions are supposed to create strength through scale. But for AEC and consulting firms, the reality often looks very different.
After the deal closes, leaders are left juggling multiple file systems, duplicate templates, and hundreds of resumes in different formats. Proposal teams can’t find what they need. Marketing teams struggle to keep the brand consistent. And the new, combined company starts feeling slower, not stronger.
For firms that win work through proposals, this chaos doesn’t just create inefficiency. It threatens growth itself.
The Hidden Chaos Behind Growth
When two firms merge, their data doesn’t automatically merge with them.
Each brings its own SharePoint sites, naming conventions, resume templates, and folder hierarchies. Suddenly, instead of one organized firm, you have ten places to look for the same information.
Resumes sit on local drives or email attachments. Case studies exist in three different versions. Proposal teams waste hours tracking down the right bios.
Meanwhile, leadership teams lack visibility into who’s actually on their roster. They don’t know which certifications, experiences, or skills exist across newly acquired offices. And as teams scramble to deliver proposals under tight deadlines, opportunities are lost, or worse, credibility is questioned.
This is the quiet reality of many post-M&A integrations: a firm that looks bigger, but operates smaller.
Why Mergers Strain Proposal and Marketing Teams the Most
In the AEC and consulting world, proposals aren’t a formality, they’re the front door to revenue. Yet they’re also the first process to break when organizations expand through acquisition.
When systems aren’t aligned, proposal teams face three major challenges:
- They can’t find the right people for each bid.
Skills and certifications are hidden across multiple databases, and teams default to whoever they can reach first, not who’s best suited. - They waste days chasing resumes and reformatting content.
Outdated or incomplete resumes must be rewritten for every new pursuit, slowing proposal turnaround and frustrating both marketing and technical staff. - They lose consistency and brand control.
With multiple templates and file types, every proposal looks slightly different, sending the wrong signal to clients and stakeholders.
The impact isn’t just operational. It affects how clients perceive your expertise, how employees feel about the merger, and how efficiently leadership can turn scale into competitive advantage.
What Private Equity and Boards Are Watching
For private equity firms and boards overseeing these integrations, the goal is clear: create a unified, efficient organization that can scale quickly and predictably.
But without systems that consolidate expertise and standardize proposal workflows, the opposite happens. Teams stay siloed. Growth slows. The combined company underperforms the sum of its parts.
PE firms want to see visibility into who’s on the team, what capabilities exist, and how fast the firm can mobilize expertise for new opportunities. They want to know that every office can work as one.
That requires a modern system of record for the most valuable data an AEC or consulting firm has: its people and its project experience.
Flowcase: The Glue That Holds Growth Together
Flowcase is built for exactly this moment. The messy, high-stakes period when firms are integrating systems, people, and brands after a merger or acquisition.
As the proposal content management platform for professional services, Flowcase helps firms centralize their people and project data so that proposal, marketing, and business development teams can operate from one source of truth.
Here’s how it helps firms simplify post-M&A integration:
- Centralize expertise instantly.
Import and standardize resumes, case studies, and project histories from multiple acquired companies into one structured, searchable database. - Unify branding and templates.
Flowcase ensures every exported resume or case study reflects the right brand and visual identity whether your firm just acquired one company or five. - Make expertise instantly usable.
AI-powered workflows let proposal teams tailor resumes and project content in seconds, reducing time spent chasing down information. - Connect existing systems.
Flowcase integrates with tools like SharePoint, InDesign, and Workday, so firms don’t need to rip and replace their existing stack. - Drive adoption firm-wide.
From HR and marketing to technical leads, everyone gains visibility into who’s who, where expertise lives, and how to showcase it.
In short, Flowcase helps firms grow without losing control.
Case in Point: How WSB Unified Five Acquired Firms
When engineering and design consulting firm WSB grew from 450 to more than 1,600 employees through a series of acquisitions, they faced the same challenge many firms encounter: their most valuable data (their people and project experience) was scattered across five different organizations.
Resumes lived in SharePoint folders, emails, and Word docs. Branding was inconsistent. Proposal teams were manually editing resumes and reformatting bios every time a new bid came in.
After implementing Flowcase, WSB centralized over 900 resumes and standardized them across the firm. Proposal managers could now find and tailor resumes in minutes instead of days, reducing resume preparation time by 90% and overall proposal turnaround by 20%.
“Before Flowcase, pulling resumes together was a nightmare. Different versions in Word, SharePoint, or emails. Now we have a single source of truth. It used to take days, but now I can tailor 10 resumes in under an hour.”
— Paul Reinhart, Proposal Manager, WSB
Flowcase also helped WSB integrate the acquired teams seamlessly. As Director of Marketing Val Brennan put it:
“Flowcase helped us scale without losing control. Our company doubled in size through acquisitions, and keeping our resumes and project data consistent was a nightmare. Flowcase gave us structure and visibility, so we can grow fast without losing control of our systems.”
Today, WSB’s marketing, HR, and technical teams all use Flowcase to search for expertise, validate credentials, and understand their workforce at a glance. What started as a proposal fix became a foundational platform for collaboration and reputation management.
The Bottom Line
M&A should accelerate growth, not slow it down. But without unified data and scalable processes, even the most promising acquisition can create internal friction that erodes value.
Flowcase helps AEC and consulting firms turn that friction into focus—transforming scattered resumes and case studies into a cohesive, trusted system that powers proposals, showcases expertise, and supports long-term growth.
For proposal teams, it means faster, easier, higher-quality output.
For marketing, it means brand consistency across every acquired firm.
For executives and PE stakeholders, it means visibility, confidence, and scalability.
Because growth shouldn’t create chaos, it should showcase your reputation.
See how Flowcase helps firms simplify post-merger integration and scale proposal operations.
