[Sven Iten]

Hi everyone,

I’m currently working on several smaller acquisitions, and one recurring challenge keeps coming up: how to ensure management understands the need for dedicated integration resources — and how to determine the right level of resourcing.

In many organizations, integration work is expected to be handled “off the side of the desk” by operational leaders who are already running the business. This often leads to slow decision-making, inconsistent follow-up, and delayed value capture. Yet convincing management to allocate dedicated FTEs (or even part-time roles) can be difficult, especially when each individual acquisition is relatively small.

I’m interested in your experiences and strategies on two fronts:
– Making the case internally
– How do you demonstrate the risk of under-resourcing?
– What arguments, KPIs, or examples resonate most with senior leadership?

How do you show the link between dedicated resources and integration success?
– Figuring out how much resource is really needed
– Do you use rules of thumb (e.g., % of deal size, number of functions affected)?

Any frameworks, benchmarks, or real-world examples would be very helpful. I’m especially interested in how others structure integration teams for small but numerous acquisitions.

Looking forward to hearing your insights.

[Didrik Moe]

I am facing the same challenge. In many integrations, the work is still expected to be handled alongside day-to-day responsibilities, even when teams are already fully loaded. This often leads to slow decisions, missed follow-ups, and delayed value capture.

One thing I am increasingly convinced of is that integration resourcing needs to be explicitly built into the acquisition budget from the start, with its own dedicated line. When it is not costed upfront, it becomes very difficult to justify later, and integration quickly turns into “side-of-desk” work.

I do not have clear answers yet to the questions you raise, but I am very interested, like you, in hearing from others who may have found effective ways to solve this. It feels like a common challenge in many integrations, and I would value learning from practical examples that have worked in similar situations.

[Patricia Joye]

Executives tend to approve resources faster when issues are framed as financial risks. I would highlight which workstreams might face delays without integration management, linking these delays to potential lost benefits. I would show the overall effort needed for all acquisitions and emphasize on the necessity for temporary—rather than permanent—resources to protect value.
For each workstream, I used to track both capacity and capability using RAG (Red-Amber-Green) status, making interdependencies clear. If a critical stream was marked amber or red, I explained the related risks, which often led to swift action. Although you mention many small deals, my approach usually prioritizes deal complexity over size, assessed by systems to migrate, number of customers affected, product integration requirements, and specific expertise needed. This method enabled me to estimate resource needs and identify necessary expertise by arguing based on complexity and potential value loss.

[Shane Bullen]

This is clearly a hot topic—I’m facing the same challenge, and it can be hard to convey the realities to leadership. At times, leadership underestimates the mix of technical and soft skills required to deliver robust integration programmes, even the smaller ones. I agree with Patricia’s recommendations, and would add that strong governance and active SteerCo/Executive sponsorship are necessary but you also need functional and delivery leaders genuinely on board. That’s difficult when BAU resources are fully consumed and there’s no clear mechanism to release them from critical tasks.
Open, evidence‑based communication anchored in a simple risk–impact assessment helps set expectations. It won’t always unlock additional resources, but it does create shared understanding and tolerance if delays occur. From a commercial perspective, keeping integration‑ready resources idle between deals is costly, so the answer is flexible capacity: create overflow options within functional teams, and bring in contractors to handle peak demand—ideally with clear onboarding, exit, and knowledge‑transfer criteria to maintain momentum without inflating fixed costs.

[Mutahira Khan]

Great points so far. I’d would also like to add that the solution isn’t just about how many resources you have, but where they sit in the organization.
In my experience, the most successful serial acquirers establish a central Integration Management Office (IMO) that resides directly within the Corporate Development team. I think it is critical for two reasons:
– When the people responsible for integration are involved during the due diligence phase, they can identify “red flags” and integration complexities before the deal closes. This ensures that the synergy targets isn’t just a spreadsheet exercise but a realistic operational plan.
– If integration is handed off to a completely different team, valuable context from the negotiation phase is lost. Keeping the IMO within Corp Dev ensures that the strategic intent of the deal always remains the north star.
This would definitely help with numerous smaller acquisitions where a central IMO would provide a quick and established/well-tested framework. Instead of asking functional leaders to reinvent the wheel for every $5M–$10M deal, the IMO can provide the standardized playbooks and tracking allowing operational leaders to focus on their “day job” while the IMO handles the heavy lifting of project management.

[Author]

Posts