70% of acquisitions fail after closing. Not on price. On the reality of the first Monday.

70% of acquisitions fail after closing. Not on price. On the reality of the first Monday.

They fail because, in the first 100 days, nobody decides who decides.

→ The deal is negotiated, the synergy story is in the board paper.

→ Then day 1 arrives. Two sales teams, two pricing approaches, two ERP worlds.

→ After 4 weeks, three ‘integration workstreams’ are running in parallel — without an agreed target state.

The result: 6 months of lost momentum. Key people leave. A 20% synergy upside becomes 8%.

The difference between the 70% that fail and the 30% that win is not in the deal team. It lies in three decisions in the first 30 of those 100 days:

1. Who owns the P&L from day 1? (Not: ‘We will clarify that later.’)
2. Which operating model applies — old, new, hybrid? (A decision, not an assessment.)
3. Which 5 KPIs are reported weekly? (Fewer, not more.)

These three decisions determine 4 quarters of performance.

#PostMergerIntegration #Leadership #Mittelstand