Board and leadership alignment
The board has a view of the acquired company that the acquired company would not recognise.
Advisory at board level. Alignment between the acquiring board and the executive team of the acquired business. Cross-cultural leadership support, and a trustworthy channel between Japanese ownership and local management. Decisions get made once, and mean the same thing in both places.
- Deliverables
- Direct counsel to the chairman, facilitated board and executive sessions, and a candid standing read on the relationship.
- Duration
- Continuing, usually a retained arrangement.
- When to involve us
- From completion onward, and urgently if the relationship has cooled.
Integration design and delivery
The integration plan exists as a document, not as a set of things anyone is accountable for.
Pre-completion integration planning, first hundred-day planning, integration governance and programme management, decision-making and reporting frameworks, organisational design and accountability. The integration proceeds on a schedule rather than by exception.
- Deliverables
- An integration plan the board and management have both signed, governance that survives contact with the business, and reporting the board can read in ten minutes.
- Duration
- Defined project, usually three to nine months.
- When to involve us
- Ideally before completion, usefully at any point in the first year.
Independent assessment
The board suspects something is wrong and has no way to test it that does not run through the people it concerns.
Independent integration health checks, post-acquisition performance reviews, synergy validation and delivery, risk identification and escalation, management assessment and succession planning. The board learns what is actually happening, early enough to act on it.
- Deliverables
- A written, confidential assessment to the board, with what we would do about it.
- Duration
- Short and defined, usually four to eight weeks.
- When to involve us
- At six or twelve months after completion, or whenever the reporting doesn't feel right.
Reset and resolution
The integration has stalled, or the relationship between owner and management has broken down.
Rescue or reset of underperforming integrations, conflict resolution and mediation, and interim integration leadership where it is genuinely needed. A recoverable position instead of a departure, a write-down, or both.
- Deliverables
- A diagnosis both sides accept, a reset plan, and the conversations required to restart.
- Duration
- Intensive, usually two to four months.
- When to involve us
- Immediately. These situations do not improve with time.
