TrueValue M&A Network
Integration specialists
The deal creates the opportunity; integration realises it or loses it. Integration specialists plan the first hundred days, run the workstreams that combine two businesses, and protect the customers, the people and the cash while it happens.
Integration specialists
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What integration specialists do
An integration specialist starts before completion, turning the investment case into an integration plan: what changes on day one, what waits, who owns each workstream, how customers and staff hear the news, and how the synergies in the model will actually be delivered and measured. After completion they run the programme — governance, tracking, escalation — and keep the acquiring management team focused on the business rather than on the integration.
Most value destroyed in acquisitions is destroyed here: through customer loss, staff departures and a management team that spends a year on integration instead of on trading.
When to engage them
Before completion — ideally as the diligence findings arrive, because the integration plan should be built on what diligence found rather than on the memorandum. A first-hundred-days plan that exists on completion day is worth several months of improvisation.
Usually active at
- In due diligence
- Legal documents and completion
- Completed
What they typically help with
- Integration planning from the diligence findings
- Day-one readiness and communications
- Programme governance and synergy tracking
- Systems, process and people integration
- Protecting customers and key staff through the change
Questions to ask before you engage
- 1. How many integrations have you run, and at what size and in what sectors?
- 2. How do you build the plan from the diligence, and when do you need to start?
- 3. What does your governance look like — who reports what to whom, how often?
- 4. How do you measure synergies, and what do you do when they slip?
- 5. How much of the acquiring team’s time will this take?
How integration specialists are paid
Day rates or fixed fees for the planning phase, then a retainer or day rate through the programme. Scale depends on the size of the businesses and how much is being combined; a bolt-on absorbing a small competitor and a merger of equals are different engagements.
How TrueValue fits alongside
TrueValue’s post-completion record in the deal workspace tracks integration milestones with their dependencies, expected and realised impact — realised counting only on a complete milestone with evidence — and the synergies by category with the unstated ones counted rather than zeroed. The deal review at the end is written against the plan the buyer set out at the start.
Frequently asked
What are the first hundred days?
- The period after completion in which the direction of an acquisition is usually set: whether customers stay, whether key people stay, whether the plan is credible. It is short enough to plan in detail and long enough to matter.
Do I need integration help for a small bolt-on?
- Perhaps not a full programme, but a plan: who tells whom what on day one, which systems change and when, and how the acquired staff are treated. Small acquisitions fail for the same reasons large ones do.
What is a synergy?
- A benefit that arises from combining two businesses — cost saved or revenue gained — that neither would have alone. Synergies in an investment case are forecasts; integration is where they are delivered or not.
Listings in the TrueValue M&A Network are provided for information. A listing is not an endorsement or a recommendation, and TrueValue does not guarantee any professional’s performance. You must carry out your own due diligence before engaging anyone, verify regulated status independently with the relevant regulator, and seek qualified legal, financial and tax advice where appropriate.