Does he mean acquisition, buyout, or IPO?

In this case, I’m talking about the phases of the acquisition cycle:

  • Announce
  • Close (day 0)
  • … (day 1+)

If the acquisition is small enough, the announcement and close are effectively done at the same time. However, what is the ...?

Welcome to the world of the nebulous integration phase and clearly defining what your milestones really are. Is this when you have to report numbers for the first quarter? Is this when everything is conveyed (people and tech)? Is this when other acquisition terms are reached such as the TSAs expiring?

This is where aligning the remaining business needs, acquisition goals, and the technical goals can play a factor in defining what these timetables look like.

Some examples:

  1. Next quarter reporting deadline: convey financials, customer, and deal data has top priority
  2. Employee migration: convey HR and internal tooling as needed
  3. TSA timeline: all applications, data, and customers that fall under the contractual obligations

Some others that may not be obvious:

  1. Correcting numbers post-reporting
  2. “Duct tape” and exceptions that went in to get the project done before the hard finish line
  3. Retiring shims that were created to facilitate the on-boarding, but no longer needed

Isn’t ... too late to begin planning for and accounting for these cases?

cab