Direct answer
From Deal to Value takes a closed transaction and turns the investment thesis into an executed integration: which systems merge, which stay separate, which are retired, in what order, and who owns the result. The synergies named in the model become a dated delivery plan with an accountable owner.
Typical phases
What the programme decides
- Target operating model for the combined technology function
- Which estates merge, coexist or retire
- Data, identity and security consolidation
- Licence, contract and vendor rationalisation
- The integration sequence and its dependencies
- Day-one, day-hundred and end-state boundaries
Why it follows a diligence
A diligence names the risks and the value levers. It does not execute them. The gap between the two is where most synergy estimates are lost — not because the thesis was wrong, but because no one held the integration to it.
What it is not
It is not a second due diligence, and it is not a legal or financial integration. The scope is the technology, product and data estate, and the organisation that runs it.
Day one, day one hundred, end state
Three boundaries, decided before closing rather than after. Day one is what must work the morning the deal completes — identity, payroll, the systems a regulator or a customer notices. Day one hundred is the first structural move, usually the one that unlocks the rest of the sequence. The end state is the combined operating model the synergies were modelled against.
Naming the three separately is what stops an integration collapsing into a single undated backlog, which is the shape in which synergies quietly stop being tracked.
Why synergies are lost after a diligence
Not because the thesis was wrong. Because nobody held the integration to it. A diligence names risks and value levers, then closes; the integration starts weeks later, under a different owner, against a plan built from what is operationally urgent rather than from what the model promised.
The two documents drift apart quietly. Twelve months on, the estate is merged, the run cost is lower, and no one can say which of the modelled synergies actually landed — because the plan that was executed was never expressed in the same terms as the plan that was funded.
This programme's first act is to restate the thesis as a dated delivery plan with an owner per line, so the two can be compared at any point. That translation is most of the value, and it is why the programme is bought before closing wherever the timetable allows.
The second act is the sequencing itself: what merges, what coexists, what retires, and what the dependencies between those decisions actually are. Integration plans fail on dependencies far more often than on effort estimates.
What the programme does not cover
It is not a second due diligence. It reads whichever one was run, including one produced by another firm, and starts from the thesis that diligence established rather than re-litigating it.
It is not the legal or financial integration. The scope is the technology, product and data estate and the organisation that runs them; the corporate and finance workstreams run alongside, and the integration sequence has to be arbitrated against them rather than in isolation.
It is not a headcount exercise. Where the combined operating model needs fewer people, that decision belongs to the client and its own process; the programme states the model and its implications and stops there.
Who holds it
One accountable owner for the integration, named before closing, with the authority to arbitrate between the two estates rather than to escalate between them. Integrations run by committee produce a plan everyone has agreed to and nobody is answerable for, which is the condition under which the synergy tracking quietly stops.
When to start
Before closing wherever the timetable allows. Day-one readiness is decided in the weeks before completion, not discovered in the days after it, and the integration owner needs access to both estates while the two organisations are still separately cooperative. Starting after close is possible and costs a quarter.
Exit
The combined estate runs under one operating model, the synergies named in the thesis are measured against real figures, and a permanent owner holds what remains.
Questions
- Do you need to have run the due diligence?
- No. The programme reads whichever diligence was run, including one produced by another firm, and starts from the thesis it established.
- When should this start?
- Before closing where possible. Day-one readiness is decided in the weeks before the deal completes, not after.
- How is this different from Build Direction?
- Build Direction holds one structural build. From Deal to Value holds the integration of two estates that already exist, which is a sequencing and arbitration problem before it is a build problem.
- What should a post-merger IT integration plan contain?
- Which estates merge, which coexist, which are retired, in what order, and who owns the result. Plus the day-one boundary — what has to work the morning after closing — which is decided in the weeks before the deal completes, not after.
- How long before the synergies show?
- The first are contractual and land within two quarters: licences, overlapping vendors, duplicated tooling. The structural ones follow the integration sequence and are measured against the thesis rather than against a milestone.