The 5 Levels of M&A Technology Integration: An Introduction

In this Spend Matters PRO series, we will define, introduce and explore the five levels of M&A technology integration that vendors must go through when bringing together different companies and platforms.

We hope this will allow everyone in the market — customers especially — to plan for and assess different levels of vendor integration, and ultimately, will contribute to aligning the value created over an extended time horizon for technology buyers and shareholders alike.

This is important because while mergers and acquisitions (M&A) often generate value for shareholders, they do not always do so for customers — or at least not at the level they are “sold.” Such a strategy can create obfuscation for users and result in solution components that do not necessarily “talk to each other” or “work together” as well as a PowerPoint or demonstration might suggest.

And since every suite vendor in the source-to-pay market (except Zycus) got to where they are at least in part — and sometimes as a primary strategy — by acquiring other providers, this is a particularly important topic. We should note Zycus does not get a free pass here either: It has had its own issues making different, internally developed platforms and codebases talk to each other, however, which mirror M&A integration challenges.*

Today, we introduce and define the five levels of M&A technology integration, where Stage 0 is no integration at all. And we’ll explain why the five stages matter, starting first with establishing a reference framework for customers, vendors, consultants and investors.

* This topic applies beyond M&A as well, in cases of internal vendor re-platforming of solutions, integrating different internally developed platforms and customer migration (e.g., a transition from enterprise software or early SaaS or to a modern cloud architecture).

Now let's delve into the details about solution integrations.