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Acquisition Integration
Decisions that reshape organizational direction, structure, and partnerships.
Example organizations in this space:
Accenture
McKinsey
BCG
Kearney
This interactive experience is the shipped product itself — the same application code customers run in production, mounted read-only in your browser over a real sample journey. Not a video, not a mockup: because the demo and the product are one codebase, it can never drift from the real thing.
Inside this journey
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Pre-Sales
Qualify and diagnose the deal readiness before committing to the assessment and integration.
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Qualification
Confirm deal timing, decision authority, budget window, and urgency before investing in a full discovery and assessment.
Qualification Questions
Primary integration requirements
- So we can make the best use of your time, which of these integration outcomes must be delivered for this acquisition?
- Does this engagement require ERP or CRM migration to be completed within 90 days (the standard delivery window)?
People and retention considerations
- Are there specific employees or roles whose retention is critical to deal success (name roles or headcount), and are any retention commitments already in place?
- How quickly do you need clarity on equity, comp, or reporting for key people to reduce attrition risk?
Budget and scope authorization
- Is there an allocated budget or a budget window for a paid pre-close readiness assessment plus integration execution? If allocated, select the closest range.
Decision authority and timing
- Who is the primary decision maker for approving an external integration partner, and who else materially influences that decision? (titles are fine)
- What is the expected close date or the date by which integration work needs to begin?
- Which of the following documents or access can you confirm now to make a discovery productive? Select all that apply.
- Are there any immediate constraints or high‑risk flags we should know before scheduling a full discovery (briefly describe)?
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Outcome Discovery
Map the buyer's desired 90-day synergy targets, critical risks, stakeholder owners, and constraints that will shape the integration plan.
Discovery Questions
Setting the stage: your 90-day target
- Tell me about the run-rate cost or revenue targets your team must achieve within 90 days after close.
- How many months remain until your target close or Day One?
- Who in your organization is held accountable if the 90-day target is missed, and what authority do they have?
- Which three metrics will you use to prove the plan is working at day 90?
- Pinpoint the single decision or missing authority in the last missed 90-day push that would have changed the outcome.
What could stop you from hitting the 90-day target?
- If you had to name the single operational failure that would force you to miss the 90-day target, what would it be?
- Walk me through the last acquisition where systems migration stretched beyond 90 days, from the first sign of trouble to how you addressed it.
- Which functions have historically created the largest drag during cutover?
- How does a six-week delay in financial consolidation translate into cost, forecasting error, or missed decisions for your business?
- What single contractual or people issue would make you halt the integration until after close?
Where people and retention create the real risk
- Imagine the top three engineers or revenue owners resign within 60 days, what immediate revenue or delivery impact would you see?
- Who needs a named retention plan to keep revenue intact, and which leader will own that plan?
- List any incentives, equity treatments, or reporting changes that are promised to target staff but not yet documented.
- Tell me about the last time a promised reporting line change led to an unexpected departure, and what you changed afterward.
- Do you have named backup owners for each critical role during the first 90 days?
- If key staff decline the buyer's standard offer, what fallback steps will you take within the first 30 days?
Systems and contracts that will determine Day One
- What would happen to your consolidated reporting timeline if the target's ERP cannot be migrated within 90 days?
- Identify the core ledger, payroll, billing, and CRM systems currently live in the acquired business.
- Estimate how many of those systems have documented APIs, standard export utilities, or vendor-supported migration paths.
- Name the person or team that controls administrative access to those systems and the typical lead time to grant access.
- Describe any contract clauses in vendor or customer agreements that could trigger renegotiation or assignment requirements on change of control.
- Would you pause the plan or authorize a parallel run if system access cannot be provided within your targeted cutover window?
Where timelines compress and decisions matter
- Assuming the close date shifts up by two weeks, which single timeline conflict becomes infeasible for your team?
- When do you typically lock chart-of-accounts changes, data-freeze dates, and cutover windows in past integrations?
- List the stakeholder groups that must sign Day One acceptance before consolidated reporting can occur.
- Estimate the number of internal full-time equivalents you can dedicate to cutover activities for the first 90 days.
- Select the factors that would force you to push the Day One target.
The alternatives you're weighing
- Provide the alternatives you are currently considering instead of hiring an external integration partner, including internal plans and incumbents.
- Has any internal team proposed handling this integration without outside help?
- Under what conditions would you stay with your current approach rather than change to an external partner?
- Select the incumbent or competitor options you have evaluated or have existing relationships with.
- Could you sign within a week if an external partner demonstrated the required migration and retention results in a short pilot?
What readiness looks like in practice: technical, legal, and people constraints
- Name the critical prerequisites that must be in place for an integration to proceed on your target timeline.
- On a scale from 1 to 5, how ready is your data for a straight migration into the buyer's systems, with 1 meaning heavily remediated is required and 5 meaning largely clean?
- Identify the owner of API keys, connectors, and service accounts required for migration, and whether they can provide them within two weeks.
- Do you have a legal or procurement gate that must approve contract assignments or vendor consolidations before Day One?
- Provide a list of compliance or regulatory approvals that could block access to customer or financial data during migration.
- Pinpoint the single missing readiness item that would make you decline to proceed before close.
If we prove the plan, how fast can you move?
- Assuming a pilot proves the migration timing and retention outcomes, what internal approvals remain to sign the execution SOW?
- When you review SOWs, what commercial deviations typically cause you to walk away or insist on renegotiation?
- Give an ordered list of the decision gates and signatories required before financing can commit to payment terms.
- Could you commit to a paid pre-close readiness assessment within two to four weeks of receiving a proposal?
- Would an explicit Day One plus 90-day remediation plan that names owners and acceptance criteria remove your final internal objections?
- State the earliest cutover weekend you could approve if all prerequisites are met.
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Solution Experience
Walk through the repeatable integration playbook in the buyer's context, focusing on ERP/CRM migration, contract conversion, vendor rationalization, and retention tactics.
Solution Experience
- Solution Experience: Integration Playbook Walkthrough
- Confirm the current state and what it is costing
- Deliver a tailored 90-day cutover timeline with named owners and RACI based on inputs from this session.
- You confirm the described current state and accept the quantified cost if unaddressed.
- You confirm the ERP/CRM playbook removes the need for a six-month parallel run in your scenario.
- Walk the ERP/CRM migration playbook in your context
- Provide the target's system inventory and a list of vendor contracts with change-of-control clauses for contract flags review.
- You agree the contract conversion and vendor rationalization approach protects projected procurement savings and that the retention plan addresses the top attrition risk.
- Show the contract conversion and vendor rationalization proof
- Share an org chart and identify the top five revenue-driving engineers plus current equity and reporting status.
- Run the retention tactics and Day 1 communications plan
- Draft sample contract amendment language and a vendor consolidation recommendation for your review.
- You agree on the remaining evidence required to move to mutual commit and a paid pre-close readiness assessment.
- Validate the future state with a direct confirmation
- Confirm the decision gate and single SOW scope needed to proceed with the paid pre-close readiness assessment.
- Solution Experience: Integration Playbook Walkthrough
- Solution Experience Deck
- Solution Brief — Integration Playbook
- meeting
- slides
- document
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Integration Scope
Define deliverables, timeline, responsibilities, modules (systems, procurement, people), acceptance criteria, and explicit out-of-scope items for assessment plus implementation.
Scope Configuration
- Execute ERP Go-Live Cutover
- Migrate General Ledger and Chart of Accounts
- Migrate Accounts Payable and Vendor Balances
- Migrate Accounts Receivable and Open Invoices
- Migrate CRM Records and Opportunity Pipeline
- Convert Customer Contracts to Buyer Paper
- Novate or Consolidate Vendor Contracts
- Replatform Inventory and Warehouse Records
- Consolidate Pricing, SKUs, and Product Catalog
- Migrate Recurring Billing and Payment Gateways
- Migrate Payroll and Employee Records
- Execute Equity and Retention Communications
- Provision User Access and Role Permissions
- Establish Intercompany Accounting and Eliminations
Scope Questions
Execute ERP Go-Live Cutover
- How many legal entities and GL (general ledger) ledgers must be cut over during the same weekend?
- Estimate the number of distinct cutover tasks (data migration, FX rates, open PO/PO confirmations, tax codes, intercompany clearing) you expect on Day One
- Provide the list of system endpoints that must be switched at cutover (ERP instance, payroll system endpoint, billing engine merchant ID, tax engine)
- Which cutover window do you prefer for the ERP go-live (national holiday weekend, weekend, weekday overnight)?
- Confirm the data-freeze date you can commit to for source systems prior to cutover (date or number of hours before cutover)
- How will you verify the ERP go-live is successful (example: GL trial balance matches source within tolerance, sales orders flowing, customer invoices generated)?
Migrate General Ledger and Chart of Accounts
- Provide sample mapping artifacts you have for chart-of-accounts (mapping spreadsheet, COA crosswalk, segment mapping)
- Describe the mapping complexity for COA (one-to-one, many-to-one, segment concatenation required)
- Indicate timing for trial-balance reconciliation deliverables (pre-close mock, Day One trial balance, Day 30 reconciliation)
- Which reports must reconcile post-migration (GL trial balance, A/P aging by vendor, A/R aging by customer, inventory valuation)
- What acceptance criteria will validate GL migration accuracy (example: trial balance variance <0.25% and no missing account balances)
- Specify ownership for COA cutover tasks (who provides mappings, who validates mapping load)
Migrate Accounts Payable and Vendor Balances
- How many active vendor master records need migration and deduplication?
- Detail the vendor master attributes required in target ERP (payment terms, remit-to address, tax ID, bank ACH details)
- Indicate the invoice aging buckets that must be preserved (30/60/90, disputed vs undisputed)
- Which vendor contracts contain change-of-control or assignment clauses requiring legal review before migrating payables?
- Name the person or team that will approve vendor master merges and payment-method changes
- Describe the reconciliation threshold for migrated AP balances (e.g., tolerance per vendor or percentage)
Migrate Accounts Receivable and Open Invoices
- Estimate the volume of open AR invoices by count and total value at cutover
- Which aging segments and dispute flags must be preserved for collections (e.g., 0-30/31-60/61-90, credits, unapplied cash)
- Which billing templates or formats must generate identical invoices post-migration (PDF header/footer, tax calculation method)
- Provide the list of top customers by AR balance that require account-level reconciliation before Day One
- Who will own unapplied cash resolution and customer statement sign-off during the first 30 days?
- Specify cutover rules for partially billed projects or subscriptions (carry-forward, pro-rate, or close and re-bill)
Migrate CRM Records and Opportunity Pipeline
- How many contact and account records must be migrated from the source CRM?
- Which opportunity stages must be preserved and how should stage mapping align to the buyer pipeline?
- Provide the fields that are mandatory in the target CRM for closed-won conversion (close date, ACV, product SKU, contract reference)
- Which custom objects or integrations must remain live on Day One (billing connector, support ticket sync, marketing automation)
- Identify SLA targets for opportunity data accuracy post-migration (e.g., pipeline variance <10% by value)
- Do you require preservation of activity history and attachments for migrated CRM records?
Convert Customer Contracts to Buyer Paper
- Provide the number of customer contracts and the count of contracts with assignment or change-of-control clauses
- Which contract elements must be migrated unchanged (pricing schedules, SLAs, renewal terms, service-level credits)?
- Clarify the contract redlines you will accept during conversion (title changes only, full renegotiation permitted, novation with notice)
- Which contracts require customer consent before assignment and therefore need a consent campaign before Day One?
- Who will provide legal sign-off for converted customer contracts and who is the authorized signer for the converted paper?
Novate or Consolidate Vendor Contracts
- Detail the count of vendor contracts and highlight those with termination-for-change-of-control or assignment fees
- Which vendors are strategic and require an account continuity plan rather than immediate novation?
- Provide the vendor consolidation rule set you want applied (by spend threshold, by service type, by geography)
- Identify the procurement approvals required to change vendor payment terms or bank details at cutover
- Specify the fallback plan if a vendor refuses assignment (maintain separate vendor record, renegotiate, or transition to alternative)
- Who will own vendor novation communications and supply the executed novation/assignment documents?
Replatform Inventory and Warehouse Records
- Estimate transactional volume for inventory movements during the first 90 days post-migration (pick/pack counts, receipts)
- Which warehouse locations and bin structures must be migrated (site codes, bins, shelf locations)?
- Describe the item master attributes that must survive replatforming (unit of measure, lot/serial control, lead time, reorder point)
- Which inventory valuation method must be preserved post-migration (FIFO, LIFO, weighted average, standard cost)?
- Do you require physical cycle counts or full physical inventory before cutover to validate balances?
- Indicate required reconciliation tolerances for inventory value at Day One (currency variance or percentage)
Consolidate Pricing, SKUs, and Product Catalog
- How many SKUs and pricing records exist across the acquired entity that need consolidation?
- Which pricing components must be preserved (list price, discounts, contract-specific prices, tier pricing)
- Describe the SKU deduplication rule you want applied (match by UPC, description similarity, manufacturer part number)
- List channel-specific pricing that must remain separate (marketplace channels, reseller agreements, direct sales)
- Identify who will approve price-list changes and the governance process for price overrides post-consolidation
- Provide example product bundles or kits that require BOM (bill of materials) migration or recreation
Migrate Recurring Billing and Payment Gateways
- Which recurring billing models must be migrated (subscription, usage-based, milestone, retainers)?
- Provide the list of payment gateway merchant IDs and payment providers currently in use
- Which customers have stored payment instruments that require token migration and PCI compliance validation?
- Indicate the re-billing approach for active subscriptions at cutover (resume on new platform, invoice manually, pro-rate)
- Do you require settlement and reconciliation of gateway payouts for the prior period before cutover?
- Identify expected chargeback or dispute volumes during first 90 days that need monitoring
Migrate Payroll and Employee Records
- Which payroll elements must be migrated (year-to-date earnings, tax withholding status, benefit deductions, direct deposit information)?
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Mutual Commit
Finalize commercial terms, data-access authorizations, decision gates, and the single SOW that covers the pre-close assessment and the integration execution.
Agreement Modules
- Master Services Agreement (MSA)
- Single Statement of Work (SOW)
- Order Form & Commercial Terms
- Data Access & Security Authorization
- Data Processing Agreement (DPA)
- Decision Gates & Acceptance Criteria Addendum
- Payment Schedule Agreement
- Change Order Agreement
- Confidentiality & Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA)
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Pre-Close Readiness Assessment
Deliver the paid pre-close diagnostic: systems inventory, contract-change flags, retention risk map, and a specific Day One + 90-day remediation plan.
- current_state
- decision_readiness
- success_criteria
- desired_state
- gaps
- stakeholders
- gaps
- stakeholders
- desired_state
- success_criteria
- decision_readiness
- current_state
- gaps
- current_state
- desired_state
- success_criteria
- stakeholders
- decision_readiness
- decision_readiness
- decision_readiness
- decision_readiness
- decision_readiness
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Deployment
Lock readiness facts and configuration values before execution begins.
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Pre-Deployment Readiness
Confirm concrete readiness facts — owners, cutover windows, data-freeze dates, access approvals, and contingency plans required before execution.
Pre-Deployment Questions
Environment and access
- Which system categories are in scope for this cutover? (select all that apply)
- Are the production environments for the in‑scope systems approved for cutover? (this confirms we can schedule a live window)
- If approvals are partial or pending, list the systems and the expected approval date for each (so we can lock the cutover sequence)
Data and configuration
- Has a data‑freeze date been scheduled for each migration source system? If yes, provide the freeze date per system or write 'Not set' (we need the freeze to plan final extracts)
- Is the source→target field mapping and conversion approach finalized and assigned an owner?
- Are the conversion acceptance criteria and verification (post‑cutover) tests signed off?
People and ownership
- Has an operational owner been named for each workstream (ERP, CRM, Contracts, Procurement, People)?
- If any owners are missing or provisional, list the missing workstreams and the expected owner (name + role) so we can assign tasks immediately
- Who is the single Day‑One go/no‑go decision owner (name and role)? This person must have authority to stop or proceed during cutover.
Timing, constraints, and contingency
- What cutover windows are approved (dates and time zones or weekend designation) for each system/site? (we use this to schedule sequenced tasks)
- Are contingency / rollback plans and escalation contacts documented and approved for each in‑scope system?
- Are there known regulatory, financial‑close, customer contractual, or site blackout periods in the next 90 days that would block cutover?
- If you answered 'Yes' or 'Unsure' above, briefly describe the constraint(s), the affected system/site, the date ranges, and the owner who can resolve them (so we can deconflict schedule risks)
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Configuration Details
Lock exact migration mappings, system credentials, chart-of-accounts conversions, vendor consolidation rules, and runbook steps the team will execute.
Configuration Details
ENVIRONMENTS & ENDPOINTS — Exact targets the migration will call
- Production ERP instance identifier (enter the exact system name/ID used in your ERP; consumed by the migration engine). Default: "prod"
- Production ERP API base URL (format: https://<host>/api/ ; exact base URL the migration will call; consumed by connectors)
AUTH & CREDENTIALS — Non-secret identifiers and how secrets will be exchanged
- Integration service account identifier for source ERP (non-secret username or service principal name; the secret itself will be delivered via your secrets manager)
- Credentials handoff method (select one; this determines how the implementation retrieves secrets — we do NOT collect secrets in this sheet)
MAPPINGS & VENDOR RULES — Files, fallback rules, and vendor consolidation keys
- Chart-of-accounts conversion mapping file location (enter exact URL or file path where the mapping CSV/XLSX will be uploaded; format examples: https://..., s3://bucket/path, file:///path/to/file)
- Default G/L mapping fallback rule (select one; used during automated validation and staging)
- Primary vendor consolidation key (select one; applied by vendor-consolidation step)
RUNBOOK, CUTOVER & ACCEPTANCE — Timers, owners, and runbook references
- Cutover data-freeze lead time in hours (numeric). Default: 72
- Post-cutover rollback window in hours (numeric). Default: 6
- Primary cutover owner role (enter exact role title used in your org, e.g., "ERP lead"; this is the role we will escalate to during cutover)
- Acceptance checklist / runbook location (enter exact URL or file path the automation and runbook will reference; format: https://... or file path)
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Integration Execution
Execute the cutover and functional playbooks with sequenced tasks, named owners, escalation paths, and live progress tracking.
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Go-Live Acceptance
Formal go/no-go gate: verify financial consolidation, data integrity, contract assignments, and key-person retention criteria before declaring the rollout complete.
Checklist items
- Obtain written finance consolidation sign-off
- Confirm data integrity reconciliation completed for all migrated domains
- Verify rollback point created and rollback test executed for irreversible cutovers
- Receive legal sign-off on contract assignment and novation status
- Validate user acceptance sign-off for core financial and customer-facing processes
- Confirm all required system access and data-authorizations provisioned
- Secure documented retention commitments for key personnel meeting retention criteria
- Confirm vendor transition actions completed or approved exceptions logged
- Close or formally accept critical open issues required for go-live
- Publish and distribute 90‑day post-go-live monitoring and escalation runbook
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Sustain & Run
Track realized synergies, conduct recurring reviews, capture lessons, and maintain an issues/enhancements channel during handoff to internal operations.
Success Reviews
- Go-Live Health Check (weeks 1-4)
- First Measurement Review (weeks 4-10)
- 90-Day Realization Review (around day 90)
- Quarterly Business Review, Sustain & Run
- Annual Realization & Lessons Learned
Issues & Enhancements
- Publish the quarter's metric dashboard and the prioritized enhancement backlog with expected delivery quarters.
- Create a run-team dashboard spec showing month-end close cycle time, hypercare ticket burn-down, and user proficiency to drive quarterly reviews.
- Circulate the final transition checklist confirming run-team ownership and escalation contacts.
- Quarterly metrics review
- Confirm whether month-end close cycle time and hypercare ticket burn-down continue on a positive trajectory or require corrective investment.
- Prioritize enhancement backlog items that materially affect realized synergies and set delivery quarters.
- Ensure at-risk critical roles have mitigation or knowledge-transfer plans documented.
- Re-confirm deliverables and owners from Integration Scope
- Open mitigation workstreams for any persistent high-impact tickets and document escalation steps.
- Create a knowledge-transfer plan for any critical-role attrition risk with timelines for completion.
- Year-to-date realized synergies summary
- Record the final realization position against Integration Scope targets and identify any residual remediation with owners and timelines.
- Agree a set of lasting process changes and documentation updates to prevent recurrence of major issues.
- Hand off the monitoring dashboard and escalation contacts to internal operations for ongoing governance.
- Publish the annual realization report, including metric trends, financial reconciliations, and outstanding remediation items.
- Deliver updated run-books and post-mortem documentation capturing lessons learned and permanent process changes.
- Transition the monitoring dashboard and escalation contacts to internal operations and confirm the first quarterly check-in under run-team ownership.
- Confirm the cutover completed with no unresolved high-severity data-loss or connector outages.
- Establish owners and target resolution dates for all critical open issues.
- Produce a short go-live health snapshot for distribution to the run team.
- Publish the go-live health snapshot with open-ticket list and owner names for run-team visibility.
- Schedule the first hotfix window for critical defects and document rollback criteria.
- Collect and circulate logs and data-load verification artifacts needed for sign-off of resolved items.
- Present first measurement data
- Determine whether month-end close cycle time and data migration completeness percentage are trending acceptably toward Integration Scope targets.
- Own and document the legacy system wind-down checklist with dates for contract closure or retention-as-read-only.
- Agree a remediation plan with clear verification steps and target dates to close the largest metric gaps.
- Publish the first-measurement dashboard with metric definitions, baselines, and variance commentary for stakeholder review.
- Create a remediation plan for data migration completeness with specific data reconciliations and a verification script.
- Finalize the legacy system decommission timeline, contract handover notes, and archive schedule.
- Restate Integration Scope acceptance criteria
- Establish the current realization position for each Integration Scope criterion and record any unmet items as open remediation with target close dates.
- Agree the steady-state reporting cadence and the run-team acceptance of monitoring responsibilities.
- Ensure no remaining procedural dependencies block financial consolidation or regulatory reporting.
- Publish the 90-day realization report summarizing each Integration Scope criterion, status, and remediation owners and dates.
- Deployment and migration validation
- Open issue burn-down and escalation status
- Metric detailed review
- Present outcome data against each criterion
- Diagnose gaps and root causes
- Incumbent system wind-down checkpoint
- Document remaining remediation and closure plan
- Lessons learned and process adjustments
- Early adoption signals and usage patterns
- Enhancement and backlog triage
- Open critical issues and blockers
- People retention and role continuity
- Finalize long-term monitoring and escalation plan
- Agree corrective actions and timelines
- Agree transition to steady-state reporting
- Agree immediate remediation actions