We have acquired a business and integration is not going well.

An acquisition has completed and the two businesses are still operating as two businesses. Synergies assumed in the model have not appeared, and both teams are busy protecting their own way of working.

Integration value decays quickly. What is not decided in the first hundred days usually becomes permanent.

• Nobody owns integration as a job, so it becomes everyone's side project.
• Systems, ranges and channels are left duplicated to avoid short-term disruption.
• Cost synergies are pursued while revenue and service quietly deteriorate.
• Culture is treated as a communications exercise rather than a decision-rights problem.
• Reporting continues in two formats, so performance cannot be seen as one business.

• What was the value case, stated in operating terms rather than deal terms?
• Which decisions must be made now, and who holds each one?
• What must be genuinely combined, and what is better left separate?
• Which people are critical to the value case, and are they staying?
• What single set of numbers will the board govern from?

• Name integration ownership with authority and a reporting line to the board.
• Sequence the small number of changes that carry most of the value.
• Consolidate reporting into one view of trading, margin and cash.
• Combine range, channel and supply decisions deliberately rather than by attrition.
• Track the value case against actuals, and correct the plan where it was wrong.