You bought the company. Now unify the technology.
Acquisitions create value on paper. Technology integration makes it real. Most M&A deals underestimate the complexity of merging two technology estates — different stacks, overlapping vendors, competing architectures, and teams who've never worked together. I provide technical due diligence before the deal and a structured 100-day integration playbook after. The goal: unified technology, retained talent, and no revenue disruption.
Sound familiar?
“You inherited two competing tech stacks and need to decide which one survives”
“The acquired company has undocumented technical debt that was not surfaced during due diligence”
“Engineering teams from both sides are uncertain about their roles and starting to leave”
“Vendor contracts overlap and renewal deadlines are approaching fast”
“Security postures differ significantly and compliance gaps are emerging”
“There is no integration plan — just a vague directive to 'make it work'”
What this engagement looks like
Strategic
- →Pre-acquisition technical due diligence: architecture, infrastructure, security, and team assessment
- →Technology risk register with probability, impact, and mitigation strategies
- →100-day integration playbook: Day 1–30 Stabilise, Day 31–60 Integrate, Day 61–90 Optimise, Day 91–100 Govern
- →Build vs buy vs retire decision framework for overlapping systems
- →Vendor contract consolidation roadmap with renewal timeline management
- →Board-ready integration progress reporting with RAG status and risk tracking
- →Due diligence checklist: tech stack audit, vendor contracts, security posture, team capability, compliance status
- →Technology synergy identification with projected savings timeline
Operational
- →Day 1 readiness: system access, critical path documentation, and communication plan
- →Platform consolidation execution: identity management, data migration, API integration
- →Team integration: org design, role mapping, knowledge transfer, and retention planning
- →Security harmonisation: unified access controls, vulnerability remediation, compliance alignment
- →Infrastructure rationalisation: eliminate duplicate environments, consolidate hosting, optimise spend
- →Runbook creation for combined operations, incident management, and on-call rotation
- →Post-integration governance: architecture review board, shared standards, tech radar
Frequently asked questions
Typically within 48–72 hours. M&A timelines are tight and I work around yours. I can deliver an initial findings summary within the first week for time-sensitive deals, followed by a comprehensive report within 2–3 weeks.
Architecture quality and scalability, infrastructure costs and capacity, technical debt quantification, team capability assessment, security posture and compliance status, vendor contract analysis, and integration complexity scoring. The output is a structured risk register with a risk-adjusted valuation input for deal teams.
Yes. I integrate with legal, financial, and commercial due diligence streams. I deliver technology findings in a format that deal teams, boards, and investors can act on — not buried in engineering jargon.
Absolutely. I'll run a rapid assessment of what was acquired — architecture, team, vendors, security — and build the integration playbook from there. Starting post-deal means more discovery upfront, but the 100-day framework still applies.
Undocumented infrastructure dependencies, outdated frameworks with no upgrade path, manual deployment processes, missing or inadequate test coverage, and security vulnerabilities that were deprioritised under commercial pressure. These often surface in the first two weeks of integration and can significantly affect the integration timeline if not identified during due diligence.
I evaluate both stacks against criteria that matter: scalability, maintainability, team expertise, vendor lock-in, and cost. The decision is rarely purely technical — it also depends on which team is being retained, contractual obligations, and migration effort. I build a decision matrix and recommend a path, but the final call involves business context too.
Day 1–30 (Stabilise): system access, critical path protection, team communication, and quick security fixes. Day 31–60 (Integrate): identity unification, data migration, API consolidation, and team org design. Day 61–90 (Optimise): eliminate duplicates, consolidate vendors, rationalise infrastructure, and establish shared standards. Day 91–100 (Govern): architecture review board, tech radar, combined runbooks, and handover to BAU teams.
Talent retention starts on Day 1. I map roles across both organisations immediately, identify key individuals whose departure would create critical risk, and work with HR to put retention plans in place before uncertainty drives attrition. Clear communication about the technology direction — and each person's role in it — is the single most effective retention tool.
Often combined with:
Fractional CTO
Senior technical leadership embedded in your business — without the full-time hire.
Cloud Cost Optimisation
Most scale-ups overspend 30–50% on cloud without realising it. Oversized instances, idle dev environments, on-demand pricing for predictable workloads, and architectural inefficiencies add up fast. I bring a structured FinOps methodology — Discover, Analyse, Optimise, Govern — to find the waste, fix it without touching performance, and build lasting governance so costs stay controlled as you scale.
AI Governance & Compliance
Practical governance frameworks that satisfy regulators without paralysing engineering.