Frequently Asked Questions.

We help you design and implement a full integration programme for your acquisition. We align your long-term objectives for the deal, construct an integration team and help you to consider which workstreams are necessary to make the integration a success. Once the team is in place, we meet weekly with each workstream to document progress and achieve consistent and value-driven project. Finally, we implement comprehensive reporting to inform the Board and your sponsors (e.g. private equity investors) of the overall progress of the project and how objectives are being met or delayed for any reason.

We form an embedded part of the integration management office (IMO) to make sure that goals are being set and met in a timely manner throughout the lifecycle of the integration programme. We set a weekly cadence of meetings with every workstream to manage any issues and find solutions to overcome roadblocks. We also provide guidance and advice on how to structure different sections of the integration based on our experience of helping multiple companies through these periods of change. Many of our clients have benefited greatly from integration templates and handbooks we have developed. O

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Our structure and process is tested over a multitude of clients and projects, which will ensure that the process will run efficiently and effectively - which means a saving of time and money. Scion's years of experience will bear out as different challenges are met over the life of the integration.

We will set a meeting with you and your senior team who are tasked with setting objectives and the initial deal rationale and integration. Then we schedule an IMO kick-off with your workstream leads so that we can communicate how the process will work and their roles to make the programme a success. After that, we are ready to begin with our weekly cadence and reporting schedule. Our approach is built on the following phased approach:

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(1) Build the strategy for the project

(2) Discuss the project in individual workstreams on a weekly basis

(3) Document progress towards the overall programme achievement

(4) Report on this progress on a monthly basis to the stakeholders of the deal.

As CEO of the Buyer, you will play two critical roles at this early phase. One is to build the appropriate workstream lead team with our advice and guidance. We will rely on you to identify the correct people in your organisation to assist us in the early development of the integration for their particular area of expertise (e.g. CFO for Finance, CSO for Sales, etc.). It is crucial for us to have the right team in place before we begin any integration actions and processes so that we can discuss workstream-specific objectives and timelines. The second role is one of communicator-in-chief of everything related to the integration. This is to various stakeholder audiences: the Target management team, your workstream leads, all employees at both organisations at the point of deal closing and invariably the sponsors and financial stakeholders of the deal. We will coach you through the multitude of messages that will need to be crafted and delivered and ensure that communication is maintained effectively throughout the different phases of the integration.

Create momentum with integration planning as soon as possible. This is an iterative process where ideas develop and change over time. As such, if there is a due diligence process underway, we are keen to work alongside them to plan how the DD results will impact integration efforts. There is a real benefit to having due diligence inform integration strategy meetings. 

One risk that is true for all acquisitions is to ensure that people involved in the integration are not being overwhelmed by the extra integration workload to the detriment of their day job. This is particularly important for the Target, as you want to ensure that their commercial viability and the "secret sauce" of what makes them a successful company holds true throughout the process.

This depends on how many workstreams the project will have - 80% of all integrations share the same key workstreams (Finance, HR, IT, Legal, etc). However, your integration will be customised based on the requirements of your industry, company and the objectives for the deal. For instance, if the role of intellectual property is crucial for the value of the deal, we will create a separate IP workstream for the project with people specifically dedicated to that effort.  Our aim is not to take more than 20% of your people's time for the integration effort - with our aim to be closer to 10%. It also depends on the phase of the integration as demands on time will shift based on priorities of the deal.

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The IMO team will consist of workstream leads for the Buyer and Target as well as our team at Scion. We may have a dedicated integration manager to work under our guidance to take on certain actions of the IMO and who will have familiarity of working within your organisation.

There is no perfect answer to this question - it all depends on what type of company you are and what you value most in relation to the deal objectives. Having said that, the three that are important for all projects to get right are your HR, Finance and Communication strategies. Every company has employees they wish to retain and engage every company has to deal with its finances correctly or there are serious consequences, and communications are key when dealing with such periods of significant change.

Yes and no - you will gain the benefit of us having done this for a number of deals, so we will come armed with "first ideas" of a successful integration programme but it will not be customised to your needs until we work closely with you to tweak the programme for your specific objectives.

We meet with workstream leads on a weekly basis to discuss issues within their functional area. We also meet on a weekly basis as the IMO strategy team to escalate these issues, particularly if they might have an effect on another workstream. This spotlights any interdependencies between the different actions and to sets out a path to priortise actions correctly. The workstream meetings can be 30-60 minutes long and the weekly IMO meetings will usually run around 1-hour long.

The most crucial part of an integration is the first 100 days. This is really to ensure that momentum is built effectively and most of the communication relating to the deal is rolled out to the relevant audiences in a well-managed way. However, after that there will be roll-out of systems and processes which may take months past the 100-day mark. Often, we see that all actions relating to the integration itself will stretch out for 18-24 months past the closing date.