What is a 100-day plan?
Short Answer
A 100-day plan is the structured programme an acquirer follows in the first roughly three months after completion to stabilise the business, retain its people and customers, and begin realising the synergies that justified the deal.
Full Explanation
The first hundred days after an acquisition are where most deals succeed or quietly fail, and a 100-day plan is how good acquirers take control of them.
The plan sequences priorities so that value is protected before it is pursued. Early actions secure the key people and customers, communicate clearly with staff, and connect essential systems and controls. Only then does the plan turn to the synergies — cost and revenue — that justified the price. The reason for the sequence is that the intangible assets a buyer paid for, from customer relationships to institutional knowledge, are most fragile during the disruption of a change of ownership.
A good 100-day plan is drafted before completion, informed by what diligence revealed, and owned by a named integration lead with clear milestones. For buy-and-build acquirers it becomes a repeatable playbook applied to every bolt-on, which is what lets a platform absorb acquisitions without losing what made them worth buying.
See post-acquisition integration: the 100-day plan and the 100-day plan definition.
Related Glossary Terms
Related Questions
In a management buyout (MBO) the existing team buys the business it already runs; in a management buy-in (MBI) an external team buys it and takes over...
Synergies are the additional value created by combining two businesses — cost synergies from removing duplication, and revenue synergies from cross-se...
Often yes. Lenders commonly secure acquisition finance on the target's assets and cash flows, including receivables, stock and plant, and increasingly...
Want to see these concepts in action?
Take the free intangible asset assessment to see how these concepts apply to your business.