Every Month of Delay Reduces Value: Achieve Day 1 Readiness in 3 Months
A familiar pattern derails too many integrations and carve-outs: plans look solid on paper, but value starts leaking long before Day 1. TSA exits run long, technology isn’t truly ready, and leadership gets dragged into firefighting instead of delivering the deal thesis. For Private Equity this erodes IRR; for corporate acquirers it delays synergies and distracts the business. In M&A, speed of execution isn’t “nice to have,” it is the difference between realising value and watching it slip away.
Why traditional models keep missing the mark
Many integrations still rely on heavy, bespoke builds and one-off teams. Extra staff are hired, processes are reinvented, and months turn into years. While large enterprises might absorb that inefficiency; most portfolio companies and business units cannot. Time is unforgiving. Every month of delay pushes out synergy realisation, keeps TSA fees ticking, and increases operational risk.
Execution still decides everything
Technology sets the stage, but it is management that decides whether an integration succeeds or fails. No platform delivers value if leadership and execution capacity are lacking.
The reality is that many organisations underestimate the leadership challenge. Existing teams are already fully committed to running the business. Recruiting senior expertise takes too long. One-off project teams lack the continuity to see an integration through from planning to stabilisation.
What makes integrations succeed is experienced leaders who can take ownership of the outcome: program directors who know how to run an integration office under time pressure, interim CIOs who can stabilise IT while building for the future, and change managers who ensure that new processes are adopted. These roles sound straightforward, but they require battle-tested experience, people who have done it before and can steer confidently when challenges arise.
The advantage for investors and acquirers is clear. with the right management capacity in place from the very start, execution becomes predictable. The organisation doesn’t need to stop to solve resourcing problems, and leadership can stay focused on capturing synergies and driving growth instead of firefighting.
And crucially, these leaders don’t work in a vacuum. They follow a proven management framework: the Business Technology Standard, the world’s only open operating model for managing business technology. It defines roles, responsibilities, and governance structures so that integration isn’t guesswork but a repeatable process. This gives investors’ confidence that outcomes will be consistent, transparent, and not dependent on reinventing the wheel each time.
Increasingly, this leadership capacity is strengthened by automation. The Business Technology Standard is no longer just a handbook; its steps, artefacts, and decision points are now embedded into a library of AI agents. Today there are more than 40 role- and task-based agents in use, supported by 3 reference books, 13 guides, and over 60 predefined artefacts. These agents act as digital colleagues for interim CIOs, program directors, and change leaders, helping them manage integration tasks, generate documents, and enforce governance consistently across projects.
The result is that leadership doesn’t just rely on individual expertise. It is supported by a structured, intelligent system that ensures nothing is missed and every project benefits from accumulated experience.
The better way: build the Day 1 operating backbone
Once the right leadership is in place, the focus shifts to the operating backbone. The fastest route to independence and synergy capture is to stand up this backbone quickly and plug the organisation into it.
The shift in recent years is clear. World-class cloud platforms now cover the vast majority of companies needs out of the box. Instead of designing everything from scratch, you start from proven capabilities and configure what is unique.
Why world-class platforms win
Think of ServiceNow as the global business services platform or Salesforce for customer growth, alongside peers like SAP, Microsoft and Oracle. Choosing this class of platform changes outcomes for five reasons:
- You inherit constant innovation. These vendors invest billions every year into security, automation, AI, and industry best practices. Companies don’t need to reinvent the wheel; they simply benefit from an ongoing stream of improvements.
- They cover the whole enterprise. ServiceNow is no longer just IT service management. It runs workflows across customer service, operations, risk management, and employee experience. Salesforce has grown far beyond CRM into data, digital engagement, and AI-driven customer journeys. One backbone, many processes.
- Configuration replaces customisation. Prebuilt processes make it possible to go live quickly while staying adaptable. This avoids the technical debt that slows down future changes.
- They connect easily. Mature APIs and data models mean finance, HR, and operations don’t end up in silos. Integrations are cleaner, making future acquisitions much easier to onboard.
- They reduce long-term risk and cost. Enterprise-grade security and SaaS economics mean fewer hidden costs and a lower total cost of ownership compared to bespoke systems.
But there is an additional layer that makes a real difference. While many firms can deliver ServiceNow or Salesforce, only one company in the world has intellectual property on automating the Business Technology Operating Model directly inside ServiceNow. This means the operating model itself, the way business technology is led and managed, is embedded in the platform rather than bolted on. For mid-sized to large organisations, this is transformative. It ensures not only that the system works, but that the organisation’s governance, roles, and processes are built into the very fabric of the platform.
The result is clear. Core platforms can be stood up in as little as three months. TSA exits happen faster, and the company gains a repeatable foundation that makes each future acquisition easier and cheaper to integrate.
What it looks like in practice
When Partners Group carved Gren out of Fortum, speed and independence were the mandate. The operating backbone: ERP, enterprise service management, integration platform and core IT was stood up quickly. TSA exit was achieved in months, and Gren was left not only independent but ready for further M&A. That is what stopping value leakage before Day 1 looks like.
The outcome that matters
Whether you are a PE owner or a corporate acquirer, the goal is the same: capture value quickly and keep the organisation focused on growth. World-class platforms provide the backbone, but it is experienced leadership that makes them deliver. And when both are guided by the Business Technology Standard and automated in platforms like ServiceNow in a way only one company can offer, the result is consistent, reliable value capture.
In successful integrations, these two elements always come together: technology that is proven and scalable, and leaders who execute with discipline under a standard that ensures nothing is left to chance. That combination is what stops value leakage, accelerates synergies, and makes the difference between a deal that struggles and a deal that transforms.
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