Corporate Development & Integration Teams
Test every synergy before you build the integration plan around it.
Corporate development leaders, integration management offices, and executives at the acquiring company who own the synergy case and the integration that has to deliver it.
A synergy case is usually built from management presentations and summary financials, and the integration plan inherits its assumptions. Cerenovus reads both companies' approved records (the data room before close, working systems after), rebuilds each synergy from the work behind it, and traces what each one depends on. Your team sets the order of the integration from evidence.
Questions this team brings
The questions acquirers bring when synergies promised to the board have to become a working integration plan.
- 01
Which synergies hold up against the records, and which rest on unchecked assumptions?
- 02
Which systems should the combined company keep, and what must move before each cutover?
- 03
Whom must the combined company retain for the synergy case to hold?
- 04
Which savings can start in year one, and which wait on another workstream?
What Cerenovus typically finds
When a synergy case meets the working records, the same patterns tend to appear. Each one changes what the integration plan should do first.
The same capacity counted twice
Freed capacity can appear in two synergy lines, once under finance consolidation and again under shared services. Cerenovus traces each line to the work and people behind it, so overlaps surface before targets are set.
Cross-sell targets who already buy
Cross-sell targets can count customers who already buy from both companies, listed under different names in two CRMs. Cerenovus matches the records, so the revenue case counts only accounts new to one side.
Vendor contracts that set the timing
Purchasing savings may assume combined volumes from day one, while notice periods, minimum commitments, and renewal dates in each company's contracts push them later. Cerenovus reads the contracts and dates each saving to when it can start.
Savings timed ahead of dependencies
The deal model may count single-close savings from the first quarter, though one close cannot start until the two charts of accounts map. Cerenovus traces these links, so synergy timing follows the order the integration can run.
Parallel running left out
The case may count system savings from cutover day while both teams run old and new systems side by side for months. Cerenovus sizes that overlap from tickets, hours, and vendor contracts, so savings start when the old system stops.
People the case depends on
Cross-sell revenue may rest on one account manager who handles most contact with the largest shared customers. Cerenovus flags people a synergy or workstream relies on, so retention terms run past the date their work moves.
5 steps from question to decision
Each engagement starts from the deal model your team already has and ends with evidence your integration office can sequence. Allow about one week from read-only access to ranked findings.
- 01
Load the synergy case and integration questions
- 02
Connect read-only to each company's approved sources
- 03
Rebuild each synergy from named inputs
- 04
Trace dependencies, systems, and critical people
- 05
Your team sets the workstream order
What your team receives
Every deliverable links back to its sources, so integration leads can check a number before it goes into a board update or a workstream charter.
Tested synergy register
Each synergy marked supported, partly supported, or not supported, rebuilt from named inputs such as volumes, hours, headcount, and cost, with ranges, stated assumptions, and gaps declared.
Integration sequence and cutover plan
The dependencies between workstreams found in the records, the work each retiring system still carries, and the earliest date each synergy can start.
Retention and dependency list
The people each synergy and workstream relies on, the customers, systems, or knowledge they hold, and how long the integration needs them.
Corporate development and integration leaders decide which synergies to pursue, which systems to keep, whom to retain, and the order of the work. Cerenovus tests the case and cites the records; it does not run the integration.
Build the integration plan on tested synergies
Cerenovus reads approved company data through read-only access and ranks what it finds by value.