A merger left a telecoms group with two of everything across 40+ markets — two rosters, two media models, overlapping sub-brands, duplicated contracts — while the integration thesis depended on marketing efficiency. No single owner could see the combined picture, and in a business where churn moves daily, every week of paralysis carried a price.
VA ran parallel, time-boxed, strictly confidential selections to converge two supplier lists into one fit-for-purpose roster on a single commercial framework — capturing the deal’s marketing synergies at speed, without freezing the business.
CMO, Head of Brand, Head of Marketing Operations
The strategic problem
A merger left the group with two of everything across over 40 markets: two rosters, two media models, overlapping sub-brands and duplicated contracts, all while the integration thesis depended on marketing efficiency. With no single owner able to see the combined picture, decisions stalled — and in a business where churn moves daily, every week of paralysis carried a real price.
Diagnose & Design
VA ran a marketing & production ecosystem audit across both legacy organisations and a spend mapping & cost baseline analysis that exposed the full extent of duplication; a gap & maturity assessment then defined a single target operating model and the order of consolidation — what could merge at once, what needed sequencing — so the integration converged on one destination rather than two. This fed directly into operating model design and governance design (RACI, KPI framework, scorecards) built for the merged entity.
Ecosystem & Remuneration
Rather than freeze the business, partner ecosystem design and roster rationalisation & consolidation ran the two supplier lists down to one fit-for-purpose roster through parallel, time-boxed, strictly confidential selections; remuneration model design with fee benchmarking & validation set one commercial framework; pitch & tender management and scoping & SOW design (AURA/PRP (Pitch Readiness Pulse), AURA/Strategic Mapping Expectation, AURA/FRC (Fulltime Ratecard Calculator)) kept the selections moving at speed.
Rollout & relationship management
Contracting & onboarding and handover, rollout & commitment tracking ran in parallel across markets under the same confidentiality; AURA/Planner back-planned the integration sequence to two fixed go-live dates, ensuring pitch commitments were tracked into delivery; relationship management held the single target model steady through the rollout, absorbing the commercial and organisational turbulence typical of merger integration.
Execution Oversight
VA ran bid governance across the parallel renegotiations, applied production cost validation & budget control to harmonise commercial terms onto the single framework, and performed final reconciliation to confirm that the consolidated baseline cleanly replaced the two legacy cost structures.
Performance Measurement
KPIs and scorecards from governance design tracked via partner performance evaluation on a 90/180/360 appraisal cadence; cost saving of 28% on combined marketing-services spend and cost avoidance of 15% from eliminated duplication reported separately; 50% of duplication removed [illustrative, to be confirmed]; today AURA delivers closure reports on these outcomes — full performance measurement as a continuous platform is on the roadmap.
Why VA
Post-merger synergy is promised in the deal model and routinely lost in the operational detail; by selecting in parallel rather than pausing, VA converts that promise into one governed ecosystem fast enough that the marketing synergy lands on the P&L where the Board can see it.
Common questions
How do you integrate two marketing ecosystems after a merger?
By converging two rosters, two media models and overlapping sub-brands onto one governed operating model with a single commercial framework — decided through structured selections rather than freezing activity while the integration is negotiated.
Why run parallel confidential selections instead of pausing?
Because in a churn-driven business every week of paralysis has a cost; time-boxed, confidential competitions let the group converge on one fit-for-purpose roster at speed, so the synergy promised in the deal model lands on the P&L rather than leaking in the detail.
How are post-merger synergies actually captured, not just projected?
One rationalised roster on one benchmarked commercial framework, with cost saving and cost avoidance reported separately and a 90/180/360 performance cadence — so the combined-spend reduction is visible to the Board rather than lost in integration.