MERGE · Our method
We synchronise the merger before it is signed, then run it. MERGE is how.
Outside in, back to you within a day.
The method
One integration method and one team throughout. Every step has an owner, a date and a number. Evolve feeds the next deal.
Step 1
Risks, dependencies and hidden work understood
Step 2
Integration, separation and run costs quantified
Step 3
Target state agreed and Day One ready
Step 4
Milestones delivered and the business transitions
Step 5
Value captured and lessons fed into the next deal
Step 1
Risks, dependencies and hidden work understood
Keeps running through Estimate and Realise
Step 2
Integration, separation and run costs quantified
Step 3
Target state agreed and Day One ready
Step 4
Milestones delivered and the business transitions
Step 5
Value captured and lessons fed into the next deal
Evolve returns to Map, the next deal
Diligence / Deal / Day One / Integration / Returns delivered / Next deal
Deep diligence that continues into the deal. The outside-in assessment and the twelve scope areas, on both sides of the line, including what a seller has not separated yet. We map your own business too: your team, your stakeholders and how you run deals, because that is where most integrations are won or lost.
The number that matters. Unbudgeted spend uncovered before you commit.
Outcome. Risks, dependencies, opportunities and hidden work understood.
Cost the integration and the future run-state. Every line built from the ground up, standalone and integrated, with an owner and a date against each.
The number that matters. A defensible cost to run and a cost to separate, carried into the deal model rather than discovered after signing.
Outcome. Integration, separation, investment and run costs quantified.
Architecture, designs and executable plans. Target architecture, sequencing, Day One scope, and the people who will run it.
The number that matters. A blueprint the board can approve, before the go-ahead.
Outcome. Target state agreed, workstreams mobilised and Day One ready.
Deliver Day One and execute the integration. The systems, the teams and the savings the deal was priced on, run by the people who wrote the report.
The number that matters. Milestones hit against the dates set at Estimate.
Outcome. Critical milestones delivered and the business transitions.
Create value and improve the M&A machine. Consolidation, spend taken out, AI put to work, exit from transitional services, and what this deal taught fed into the next one.
The number that matters. Opex removed and platforms retired, measured against the Map.
Outcome. Value captured, platforms and cost removed, lessons fed into the next deal.
Four moments we get the call
Six to eighteen months in, team built, board backing, nothing closed yet.
Start hereAnnouncement out, no integration plan, the board watching.
Post-Merger IntegrationStill running as two strangers. Key people drifting, savings not showing.
People and operating designEarlier integrations still live, the next target already on the board.
How we workThe work
A commercial verdict across twelve scope areas, priced and owned.
You're buying into a sector nobody in the room can technically judge, and the IC needs an opinion it can price.
Learn moreThe plan in the report, delivered, by the people who wrote it.
The deal closed, the plan exists on a slide, and nobody internally has the time or the scars to run it.
Learn moreSeparation, Day One and the exit from transitional services.
Learn moreThe same work read backwards, before a sale process starts.
You're going to market, and the technology story is about to be tested by someone who does this for a living.
Learn moreSized to the deal and written for an investment committee. Every area comes back with a number, an owner and a recommendation, not a risk list.
Team and leadership
Commercial model
Product and tech roadmap
AI: use and defensibility
Technology and architecture
Cybersecurity
Operations
Development processes
Customer onboarding
Back-office IT
Technology spend
Integration readiness
Track record
The challenge in each case, and what we actually did about it. Some of this work goes back years. It is included because the pattern has not changed: the estate is never the hard part, the two teams are.
The challenge
Around 30 acquisitions over a decade, with no M&A process in place when we started.
What we did
We worked alongside the internal team to build the process deal by deal, and became part of that team rather than a supplier to it.
The challenge
An acquisition out of distress, with immovable deadlines.
What we did
We helped the internal team set a Day 1 scope that could actually be delivered in the time available, then delivered it with them.
The challenge
A divestment where the original programme had stalled.
What we did
We re-planned the programme with the people already running it, and put the sequencing back on a footing the board could sign.
The challenge
Two global multi-site firms merging into a centralised directory.
What we did
We worked with the architecture and security teams to land a design every global stakeholder bought into.
The challenge
Business requirements that kept moving during the separation.
What we did
We built the relationships inside the technical teams so they could deliver a complex and risky cloud-to-cloud migration with us.
The challenge
Disparate data locations, with post-merger work still open years after the acquisition.
What we did
We rebuilt communication across the teams so they could finish the key upgrades and retire the legacy software and hardware.
The challenge
A sustained acquisition programme, with diligence and integration running back to back.
What we did
Across 50 plus diligences and integrations we worked as part of their team, and left the process stronger than we found it each time.
The challenge
The deal on your desk right now. A target you cannot see inside, an integration priced on assumption, or a carve-out nobody has costed from the ground up.
What we would do
Run MERGE on it. Map what is there, cost it, and stay on to deliver the number we put our name to.
One lens
Truth, Immediacy, Efficacy. It is how we decide what to say, when to say it, and what to recommend.
An honest verdict, including the one that kills the deal. No varnish in the report, no spin in the room.
Same-day responses while your process is live, not a silence that breaks at the readout.
The effective route, not the cheapest or the fastest. Every finding lands with a number, an owner and a recommendation.
Where we are different
Integration is the practice we are built around, not an add-on sold after the fact: Day 1 readiness, exit from transitional services, consolidation, and the savings and gains the deal was priced on. The people who wrote the report deliver the plan in it.
And because integration fails on people before it fails on platforms, the Kolbe people work runs inside it rather than beside it.
Post-Merger IntegrationWhy it holds
We cap for quality: only three mergers simultaneously.
What we believe
For the first year, because the staff are distracted. The work is getting that back.
The acquirer who imposes their way destroys what made the target worth buying.
Keeping the accountants happy won't keep your staff happy.
We won't
MERGE is Beyond M&A's method for technology in a deal: Map, Estimate, Realise, Go Live, Evolve. One team carries it from first look through Day One to the returns the deal was built to deliver, and what one deal teaches goes into the next.
Truth, Immediacy, Efficacy. Truth is the unvarnished position of the estate, Immediacy is what has to be dealt with now, and Efficacy is whether the plan can be delivered by the team that owns it.
Twelve areas covering architecture, code and IP, data, security, infrastructure, delivery, team and operating model, spend, obsolescence, resilience, scalability and AI position. Scope is sized to the deal rather than applied as a blanket template.
Them and Us is the pattern where an acquired business is integrated on paper but never culturally, so two organisations keep operating inside one company long after completion. Beyond M&A assesses it, predicts the friction and fixes the estate you already own.
Where to start
Tell us about the deal. We will say plainly where we can help, and where we cannot.
