Grade your Integration

What Grade is Your Acquisition Integration?

Graph showing how to grade the success of an acquisition

Grade, based on Success Score

A+ Grade >100%

Example Reasons for Awarding:

Product brought to market ahead of schedule. Exceptional market reception and high sales volume
Clear brand identity, sales overachieving with supportive marketing
Innovative IT integration completed ahead of schedule
Org. chart changes completed. HR benefits improved. Exceptional staff retention
Strong partner and customer loyalty
Exceeds all planned objectives and timelines

A Grade 90-100%

Example Reasons for Awarding:

Product brought to market on schedule. Positive market reception and sales meet expectations
Effective brand identity, sales is empowered with supportive marketing
IT integration completed on schedule
Org. chart changes completed. HR benefits aligned. Good staff retention
High partner and customer satisfaction
All integration objectives and timelines met

B Grade 80-90%

Example Reasons for Awarding:

Product brought to market slightly behind schedule. Moderate market reception and sales slightly below expectations
Adequate brand identity, sales is aligned with marketing
IT solutions implemented, but behind schedule
Most org. chart changes made. HR benefits aligned. Acceptable staff retention
Good partner and customer satisfaction
Most integration objectives and timelines met

C Grade 60-80%

Example Reasons for Awarding:

Product brought to market significantly behind schedule. Mixed market reception and sales below expectations
Unclear brand identity, sales is mostly aligned with marketing
Noticeable IT issues with incomplete data migration and integration
Org. chart changes incomplete. HR benefits not yet aligned. Acceptable staff retention
Acceptable partner and customer satisfaction
Some integration objectives and timelines met

D Grade 30-60%

Example Reasons for Awarding:

Product brought to market with major delays. Poor market reception and low sales
Major issues with brand identity. Sales slow and unaligned with marketing
IT integration completed with major delays, poor performance, or unhelpful solutions
Large amount of org. chart changes no started. HR benefits not yet aligned. Poor staff retention
Partner and customer dissatisfaction
Few integration objectives and timelines met

F Grade 0-30%

Example Reasons for Awarding:

Product not brought to market. No market reception or sales
No brand identity. Sales dropping and unaligned with marketing
Insufficient IT solutions implemented. Severe system performance and reliability issues
No org. chart changes made. HR benefits alignment not planned. Key staff attrition
Significant partner and customer dissatisfaction
Integration objectives and timelines not met

Take Our Short Survey to Grade your Integration

Invest 3 minutes to get an approximate Success Score

Letters spelling the word Gap, with the letter A missing

Take Completeness Survey

Take this short survey to get an approximation score of how complete your acquisition integration could be. This survey is based upon some important indicators of success, but is not at all exhaustive

For an accurate Success Score, contact Intista for an Integration Assessment

If your score is below your expectations, let's have a conversation about how Intista can help.

Schedule a Meeting

Root Causes

Finding the underlying reasons why your acquisition integration is incomplete or stalled

When an acquisition integration stalls or stops without delivering the results envisioned, the business must decide if it will settle for an incomplete solution or re-energize the original initiative. Before we restart the process, we explore whether sufficient time was allocated, adequate effort expended, enough resources budgeted, proper manpower prepared, and whether there was clear communication about what was needed to achieve the value projected during the deal preparation.

Moving an integration from a stalled or incomplete position to completion demands some adjustments. It will take an honest, often difficult, assessment of the original reasons for the acquisition, the actual achievements, and uncovering the challenges that prevent reaching the desired outcomes. An assessment should find the root causes of shortcomings and help prepare a proposal for what needs to be addressed.

What does the Integration Assessment Include?

Intista will

Examine the existing status, discover roadblocks, and determine cause(s) of the issues
Hold formal interviews and informal discussions regarding how the different businesses operate
Review the preparation, announcement, and execution of earlier integration(s)
Evaluate the business cultures, learning about the working styles and personalities of the employees
Map the root causes for the specific issues that impaired the integration
Create a report or presentation with our findings, which includes:
- A summary of which issues we want to address
- A summary of any specific expertise we think will be needed to reboot and complete the initiative
- An estimation of the cost
- A credit for the cost of the assessment in our engagement

The Integration Assessment is step 2 in our methodology to fix integrations.

Engaging us does not include a guarantee of success

Schedule a Meeting

Start with a no obligation conversation to learn more

Fixing Troubled Acquisition Integrations

Addressing issues identified in an assessment will require a reset of expectations:

Freeing sufficient time inside already busy schedules
Soliciting effort above and beyond the day-to-day work
Allocating budgetary resources
Retaining, recruiting, training and organizing the necessary manpower
Shifting to a different emotional mindset

Learn more about Fixing Acquisition Integrations

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