The synergy case, made real.
IT synergies get underwritten at diligence and delivered by nobody in particular. The window in which they are actually achievable is the first hundred days, and it closes quietly.
Software cost synergies are among the easiest line items to put in an investment committee paper and among the hardest to actually collect. The estimate is usually directionally right — two companies genuinely are paying for two of everything — but nothing in the standard integration playbook forces the duplicate contracts to be identified before they auto-renew.
The pattern is consistent. Integration attention goes to finance systems, HR and the customer-facing stack. The long tail of departmental software, overlapping tooling and duplicated infrastructure contracts is left for later. Later arrives after the renewal dates have passed, both teams have entrenched their preferred tools, and the saving that was underwritten at close is no longer available at any reasonable cost.
The other half of the problem is diligence. Software spend at a target is frequently understated because a material share of it never went through procurement — departmental cards, individual subscriptions, shadow tooling. A deal modelled on the reported number can be modelled on a figure that is meaningfully below the real one.
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An independent read on what a target actually spends on software, rather than what its finance function reports. The gap between those two figures is regularly material, because the reported number typically captures what went through procurement and misses departmental cards, individual subscriptions and infrastructure billed on consumption.
The output is a defensible spend baseline, an identified overlap list against the acquiring entity where relevant, and a realistic synergy range with the assumptions written down — so the number in the committee paper is one somebody can stand behind post-close.
The first hundred days are when duplicate contracts can still be cancelled cheaply, before renewal dates pass and before either team has entrenched. We work to that window deliberately: overlap identified in the first fortnight, decisions made by day sixty, and the first cancellations and consolidations executed before day one hundred.
Sequencing is driven by the renewal calendar rather than by system importance. A duplicate contract renewing in month four is urgent regardless of how minor the application is; a strategically important overlap that renews in month eleven can wait for a proper decision.
Portfolio companies almost always buy independently, at small-company pricing, from an overlapping set of vendors. Nobody has aggregated it, so nobody has ever negotiated as the size the portfolio actually is.
We build the cross-portfolio spend view first — which is often revealing on its own — and then identify where consolidated purchasing is genuinely available. Not everything is: some vendors will not contract that way and some companies have reasons to stay independent. The point is to know which is which rather than assume either.
Firms doing several deals a year benefit far more from a standard approach than from a bespoke exercise each time. We leave behind the diligence checklist, the first-hundred-days sequence and the reporting format, so the next deal team runs the same process without us.
That is deliberately not a retainer pitch. The value of this work compounds through repetition, and repetition requires the operating partner group to own the process rather than to re-buy it.
Want the numbers for your estate?
A free 30-minute assessment: the top three savings opportunities we can see in your portfolio, and a first step you can act on.
01
Independent software spend baseline for the target, with overlap identified against the existing estate and a documented synergy range.
02
Both estates inventoried, duplicate contracts identified and the renewal calendar built. Nothing is cancelled yet.
03
Decisions made, cancellations issued ahead of renewal dates, and the first consolidations delivered inside the window.
04
Verified savings reported against the synergy case, and the process documented so the next deal runs it without us.
Where This Starts
Private equity engagements run on our post-merger methodology, applied at deal pace. If you want the underlying integration process in detail, start there.
Post-Merger IT RationalizationA software spend read on a single target is a matter of weeks rather than months, and can run in parallel with commercial and financial diligence. The constraint is normally data room access and how much of the target's spend sits outside procurement — the messier that picture, the more valuable the exercise and the longer it takes.
Reduced, not gone. What is lost is the cheap cancellation window on contracts that have since renewed, which typically means waiting out a term. Overlap analysis, consolidation and the licensing position all remain fully available, and the renewal calendar simply becomes the sequencing constraint rather than the deadline.
Both, and the distinction matters. Diligence work is for the fund. Integration and rationalization delivery has to be run with the portfolio company management team, because savings that are imposed rather than owned do not survive the first budget cycle after the engagement ends.
Yes, and there is a specific reason to. The cross-portfolio spend view is only visible when the companies are looked at together, and it is where consolidated purchasing leverage comes from. Running the companies sequentially produces the same per-company savings and misses that entirely.
Book a 30-minute call. No commitment, no sales pitch — just the three biggest opportunities we can see.
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