The situation
Integrate an acquisition on the floor, not just the org chart
Acquisition-driven groups add plants, systems and management teams faster than they integrate them. I take an acquired operation through the integration itself — common governance, justified consolidations, margin work on the floor — and leave a structure the next deal can reuse.
An acquisition closes on paper long before it closes on the floor
Signing the deal decides the price. What decides whether it creates value is what happens next — to the plants, the systems and the people the deal brought together, and how fast the group can do it again on the next one.
I take operational charge of the integration itself: the governance that replaces whatever arrived with the deal, the flows that have to reconnect across the old boundary, the consolidation calls where the case genuinely supports them, and the margin work that turns the investment thesis into the operation’s own numbers. I have carried this from more than one vantage point — leading the operational side of group consolidations that followed acquisitions, and, earlier in my career, once on the receiving end of exactly that kind of decision myself. That range is what an owner, a board or a private-equity firm is actually buying when they bring in outside judgement: someone who has sat on every side of this table.
What I own
- The honest read on the operation, before the deal and after
- Common governance across the newly combined operation
- Supply, planning and quality flows reconnected across the old boundary
- The consolidation and factory-transfer calls, where the case supports them
- The margin work that turns the model into the operation’s own numbers
- A structure the next acquisition can reuse
Behind every integration sits the same transfer record: five receiving factories in four countries, with customer deliveries protected throughout — proof the consolidation calls hold up in practice, not only on a slide.
The method
How I run an integration, end to end
Every deal is different; the method isn’t. This is the sequence behind a transfer record built across two full cross-European programmes — adapted here to what happens after a deal closes.
Read the operation
Operational due diligence, run honestly whether it happens before the deal or the moment it closes: the real state of delivery, cost, quality and governance — not the version in the deal deck.
Done when the operating picture is agreed with the board and the integration priorities are set.
Set common governance
One reporting rhythm, one KPI language and one decision-making structure across the acquired operation and the group it has joined — replacing whatever came with the deal by design, not by accident.
Done when the acquired site reports on the same cadence, and the same numbers, as the rest of the group.
Integrate the flows
Supply chain, planning, quality and engineering interfaces reconnected across the old boundary, so the acquisition runs as one operation rather than two that happen to share a logo.
Done when goods, information and decisions cross the old boundary without a workaround.
Consolidate where justified
Where the case genuinely supports it, footprint moves — a line, a site, sometimes a whole operation — run on the same method as any transfer: buffer stock, competence handover and delivery protected throughout. Not every acquisition needs this step; the ones that do get the full discipline, not an afterthought.
Done when any consolidation has cleared its own feasibility case and the receiving site has proven it can hold the work.
Work the margin on the floor
The value-creation plan lives in a model until someone makes it true on the shop floor — cost, productivity and quality worked the same way as any turnaround, inside the newly combined operation.
Done when the margin gains show up in the operation’s own numbers, not only in the investment case.
Leave a reusable structure
For a group that will do this again, the real deliverable is not one integrated site — it is a governance and integration structure the next acquisition can reuse, so the second deal integrates faster than the first.
Done when the structure is documented, owned by the organisation, and provably reusable on the next deal.
Across all six steps, two things never move: deliveries stay protected, and the plan the deal was priced on is tested against what the operation can actually deliver.
When it matters most
The window that decides whether the deal pays off
The ownership cycle has two ends where an operator makes the difference — before the deal, and in the months that actually prove it out.
That timing shapes how I take the mandate: sometimes as the operating partner reading the plan from outside, sometimes running the integration from inside, and quite often both in sequence on the same deal.
Typical situations
- A platform or bolt-on acquisition that hasn’t been integrated yet
- A serial acquirer whose deal pace has outrun its integration capability
- Operational due diligence ahead of a deal
- Exit-readiness ahead of a sale
The clock starts at signing, but the real test runs from month three to month twelve, when the value-creation plan either becomes daily operating fact or stays a slide.That window, and the read before it, is what the independent operating partner form is for. I bring a transfer record to it: five receiving factories in four countries, deliveries protected throughout.
Common questions
Post-acquisition integration, answered
We acquire companies faster than we integrate them — how do you help?
That gap is common in acquisition-driven groups: each deal adds plants, systems and management teams faster than the integration capability grows. I take the acquired operation through the integration itself — common governance, factory moves and consolidations where they are justified, margin work on the floor — and leave a structure your next acquisition can reuse. Behind it sits a transfer record of five receiving factories in four countries, with customer deliveries protected throughout.
When in the ownership cycle do you add the most value?
Most leverage sits in months three to twelve after a change of ownership, when the value-creation plan has to become operational fact. I also work at both ends of the cycle: operational due diligence before a deal, and exit-readiness before a sale — stable numbers, a governance structure that stands on its own, and no dependence on any one person.
Operating partner or interim role?
It depends on whether the gap is judgement or execution. As an independent operating partner the work runs alongside the board and management team — periodic, outside the org chart, reading whether the value-creation plan is becoming real. As an interim I sit inside the organisation and am accountable for delivery myself. Acquisitions often start with the first and move to the second once the diagnosis is done; which one fits is something we settle in the first conversation.
Do you do the operational due diligence too?
Yes. Pre-deal due diligence and post-deal integration are the same discipline pointed at two different moments: reading the operation honestly before you sign, and again the day the deal closes. Doing both means the integration plan is built on the same read as the investment case, not a handover between two different views of the business.
Related situations: Factory relocation & transfer · Factory closure · Operating partnerAll services · About Soheil
Let’s talk
Integrating an acquisition?
If a deal has closed and the operation now has to actually merge — governance, consolidation calls, margin on the floor — let’s have a conversation. Fifteen minutes is usually enough to see whether I can help.
I reply within 24 hours.