Category: Integration
Post-merger integration: making the combined company work after closing.
10 articles in this category.
- Change management — The structured approach to transitioning people, teams and processes from a current state to a desired future state during integration — communications, training, role changes and adoption tracking.
- Cultural integration — The work of aligning the values, decision norms, communication patterns and incentives of the combining organisations. Often the slowest and most consequential PMI workstream.
- Day 1 readiness — The set of activities that must be completed by the closing date so the combined company can transact business — payroll, communications, customer-facing systems, regulatory filings.
- Day 100 plan — A first-100-days roadmap defining the integration's most consequential decisions, milestones, owners and metrics for the period immediately following closing.
- Integration Management Office — A dedicated team — usually with executive sponsorship — that coordinates the integration across functional workstreams. Cycles of weekly cadence and clear governance are standard.
- Integration playbook — A standardised, often industry-tailored set of procedures, checklists and templates used by repeat acquirers to execute integrations consistently across deals.
- IT integration — The technical workstream of post-merger integration: networks, identity, ERP, CRM, data, security and end-user computing. Frequently the longest pole in the integration tent.
- Post-merger integration — The combination of the two organisations' operations, systems, people and culture after closing. Most acquisitions that destroy value do so in PMI, not at the deal-pricing stage.
- Retention bonuses — Cash or equity payments contingent on key employees remaining with the combined company for a defined period after closing. Standard for engineering, sales and finance leadership in mid-market deals.
- Synergy realization — The execution side of the synergies underwritten in the deal model: tracking and capturing planned cost reductions and revenue uplifts against schedule and dollar targets.