Most companies have some kind of integration with third-party providers these days. Think of the various SaaS providers you work with, and how you get data either to them, or from them. This could even be other parts of your business. On-prem inventory systems syncing up with your ERP system, various IoT sensors phoning home to provide telemetry data.

Got the picture?

Now what kind of partnerships do you have with other companies? Custom software or services you provide for the partnership, or that you expose to your employees?

When you acquire another company, there are going to have their own versions of this as well. This sounds obvious, but is it?

Moving software and replicating data is one thing, but what I’m describing is the unwritten agreements between producers and consumers. The interfaces outlining where, and even how, to exchange data and interact with each other. Yes the actual act of migration will happen during the integration phase, but if you are waiting until then to get the acquired company’s partners on the phone to cut over when you migrate their apps, then you have just guaranteed the integration will not be complete in time.

For most data exchange, this is some coordination and collaboration that must be done. The due diligence pre-close can help expose the number of partners that will need to be notified, and this will need to be accounted for as a part of your TSAs and built into the integration schedule when you do your planning.

You could be lucky, and it is just a matter of having your partners point to your new home for the components. Worst case, you will need to go through a full security review and on-boarding process and revamp your test harnesses that verify the functionality of the interactions between the partners.

Similarly, if the company you just acquired hosts private APIs that are public or published through third-party partnerships such as the various app stores, then you also have to think about what that transition looks like, and how that will factor in to your TSA agreements.

Activities where, if you are looking at it during the integration planning meetings, then you are more than likely too late.

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