The deal closes in a day. The value you paid for is built, or lost, over the months that follow. Most acquisitions that disappoint don’t fail at signing. They drift afterwards, when the deal team moves on, nobody owns the plan and the business has to absorb change while still serving its customers.
A clear 100-day plan prevents that drift. Here is what ours covers.
Start before you close
The best integration plans are written during diligence. Every risk you found, such as a dependent customer, a weak control or an informal process, should become an action with a named owner before day one. If the plan starts after closing, you lose the first month to working out what to do.
Get day one right
Day one sets the tone for staff, customers and suppliers. Decide in advance:
- Who tells whom, and when. Staff hear first, from the new owner and the seller together. Key customers hear soon after, ideally in person.
- What changes and what doesn’t. People want to know whether their jobs, pay and reporting lines change. If nothing changes yet, say so.
- The essentials. Bank mandates, system access, insurance and approval limits all need to be in place on the first day.
Keep the founder engaged
If the seller holds key relationships, the transition period is where value is protected. Agree a schedule of customer introductions and knowledge handovers, and track it like any other workstream.
A handover that depends on goodwill alone is a risk. Write it into the plan.
Set a finance baseline
Within the first month, close the books cleanly and agree an opening position. From then on, produce monthly reporting in a consistent format. You can’t manage what you can’t measure, and early, reliable numbers are the best early warning you have.
Don’t change everything at once
New owners often arrive with a long list of improvements. Prioritise. Fix what protects value first (controls, cash and key relationships), then what improves it. Changing systems, pricing and structure in the same quarter puts pressure on a team that is already adjusting to new ownership.
Review at 30, 60 and 90 days
Use fixed checkpoints to review progress against the plan, update the risk register and decide what comes next. By day 100 the business should be running to a reporting rhythm that doesn’t depend on the deal team, and the plan for the rest of the year should be clear.