In the beginning, there is the sense of overwhelm after close about how to integrate the two companies together. Then comes the mad blitz to bring everyone and everything over. On-boarding people, migrating apps and data, etc. Then you finally cross day 1 at the end of the TSA with much celebration.

Then what?

Hopefully, your team will have kept note of some of the things they’ve had to do with the conveying of apps and data. Some cleanup and remediation work to bring the conveyed apps up to snuff. Cleaning up the data that hit the corner cases.

The project team may still be in place to assist with this remediation, but then what?

One common theme is to assemble a project team to work with the migration and conveying of apps and data. While this will consist mainly of your team: PMs, developers, architects, etc., there will be some people coming in from the acquired company, and others that will be brought in on a temporary basis.

Once the dust has settled, and the project closes, someone will have to maintain them from your company. Maybe this will be the transfers of knowledge to your ops group, but hopefully you have not only identified the owners, but also included them as a part of your transition team. This will not only ensure proper coverage to account for current business, but also allow you to plan out the future vision.

Especially since the next phase will be to take the apps and data, and put it to use in your company. How you do this will determine whether your acquisition meets the original goals.

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