We acquired a company and nobody owns the systems integration.
The deal closed. Both companies still run their own finance system, their own email, their own everything. Two IT arrangements, neither of which was built to absorb the other. The synergy case assumed an integration that nobody has been made accountable for.
Meanwhile both businesses have to keep operating, and the people who understand the acquired systems are the most likely to leave in the first year.
The default is to migrate the acquired company onto the acquirer's systems because that sounds like the simple direction. Sometimes it is right. Often the acquired company had the better system, and the decision gets made on org chart rather than on merit, which is how you end up paying to downgrade.
The other default is to leave both running and deal with it later. That is a legitimate choice for a while, but it is a choice, and it needs a date and an owner. Left unstated it becomes permanent, and the cost shows up in every future close, audit, and integration.
One accountable owner, immediately
Integration fails for lack of an owner more often than for lack of a plan. A fractional executive can hold that seat for the twelve to eighteen months it takes, then hand it over and step out.
Sequence by risk, not by tidiness
Identity, email, and financial consolidation first, because they gate everything else and they carry the audit exposure. The systems that merely offend a diagram can wait.
Capture what is in people's heads early
The acquired company's institutional knowledge walks out the door on its own schedule. Documenting the systems those people run is time-sensitive work that almost always gets deferred past the point of usefulness.
Pick the better system, not the bigger company's
Each consolidation decision gets made on fit and cost to switch. Some of them will go the acquired company's way, and saying so early buys credibility with people you need to keep.
Mid-integration with nobody holding it?
Tell us where the deal landed and what is still running twice. We will tell you what to sequence first.
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