Don't just hand an integration plan to functional leaders post-close. Involve them early in the process as co-architects. Their input is crucial for validating financial models and strategic assumptions, ensuring realistic expectations and fostering ownership of the deal's success.

To ensure Day 1 alignment and retain key talent, treat integration planning as a collaborative process. Share the developing integration plan with the target's leadership during due diligence. This allows them to validate assumptions, provide critical feedback, and feel like partners in building the future company, rather than having a plan imposed on them.

Involve the integration lead early in the deal process to act as a 'red team.' Their role is to challenge the business case and probe the plan with practical, ground-level questions, preventing strategic 'echo chambers' and ensuring the deal is executable.

Advocate for a month-long period between signing and closing. This window allows you to ask detailed questions and plan openly with the target team without confidentiality barriers, transforming a potential shock into a collaborative process and setting the integration up for success.

Don't surprise an acquired company with an integration plan on day one. Snowflake turns diligence into a collaborative process post-term sheet. They work with the target's leadership to jointly build the integration thesis, define milestones, and agree on charters, ensuring buy-in and alignment before the deal is even signed.

By the time a strategic acquirer enters due diligence, the desire to do the deal is already high. The process's primary purpose is not to hunt for deal-breakers but to confirm key assumptions and, more importantly, to gather the necessary data to build a robust and successful integration plan.

Deals fail post-close when teams confuse systems integration (IT, HR processes) with value creation (hitting business case targets). The integration plan must be explicitly driven by the value creation thesis—like hiring 10 reps to drive cross-sell—not a generic checklist.

To ensure integration is considered from the start, embed a preliminary plan directly into the business case template. This forces the deal team to define key milestones for major workstreams (e.g., branding, IT, finance) before the deal is approved, creating a solid backbone for post-close execution.

Cisco's integration team partners with corporate development to formulate a multi-faceted integration strategy aligned with the deal thesis before an LOI. This initial plan is a critical component of the first-stage approval conversation with the CFO, which greenlights negotiations.