When to engage
Most boards call once the reporting stops feeling right.
Kizuna PMI is usually engaged after completion, when something has begun to surface but has not yet been named. These are the signals worth taking seriously.
Signals
- Reporting from the acquired company has become slower, thinner, or unfailingly positive.
- The local management team agrees in meetings, but nothing changes afterwards.
- People who mattered to the original investment case have started to leave.
- Synergies committed to at deal approval have quietly been moved to next year.
- Decisions that should take a week take a quarter.
- Neither side says so, but both have stopped raising problems.
None of these on its own proves a failing integration. All of them are worth an independent view before they compound.
How we can be engaged
Board or chairman advisory mandate
A discrete, continuing advisory relationship with the chairman or the board.
Defined integration project
A scoped piece of integration work with an agreed end point.
Independent integration health check
A short, confidential assessment reported directly to the chairman.
Ongoing monthly retainer
Continuing availability and a standing read on the relationship.
Interim integration leadership
Hands-on leadership of the integration where the business lacks the capacity.
Management workshops
Facilitated sessions bringing Japanese and European management teams into one conversation.
Crisis intervention or reset
Immediate engagement where the integration has stalled or the relationship has broken down.
An introduction, in confidence
If more than one of the signals above is familiar, a conversation commits you to nothing.