DayOne+ Deal
Technology diligence through Day One and the first 100 days. Findings translated into commercial implications, Day One priorities and an executable roadmap.
- Technology and cyber diligence
- Day One readiness plan
- First-100-day roadmap
DayOne+ for private equity
Technology certainty at every stage of the deal.
Technology risk is often invisible before close, painful after close and expensive when left unmanaged. DayOne+ helps investors, deal teams and management identify risk, prepare for Day One and turn technology into a practical driver of value throughout the investment lifecycle.
- Deal, Value, Portfolio
- Before signing
- Four continents
The risk
Technology can protect the deal, or quietly undermine it.
Technology now sits inside almost every investment assumption: operational continuity, cyber exposure, regulatory compliance, separation complexity, transformation cost, scalability and the ability to deliver the value-creation plan. DayOne+ gives deal teams a clearer view of what is hidden inside the technology environment before it becomes a post-close problem.
Hidden technology debt
Cost and constraints surface after signing.
Cyber and resilience exposure
Material risk may threaten continuity or insurability.
Separation and integration dependencies
TSA, data, identity and supplier issues delay Day One.
Unclear ownership and investment
Findings stall without owners, funding and gates.
One partner
One advisory partner from diligence to exit.
The investment lifecycle does not break into pieces, but the advice usually does. This is the difference between one accountable technology partner across the whole hold period and the stitched-together alternative.
One partner, one continuous engagement
Findings and value at stake
Continuity, security, control
Owners, funding, gates
Roadmap in delivery
Evidence a buyer can test
The team that quantified the risk before signing is the team that runs Day One, owns the roadmap and prepares the technology evidence a buyer will test at exit. Nothing is handed over, so nothing has to be rediscovered.
Five parties, four handovers
Diligence firm
Report ends at signing
Internal IT
Day One scope inherited cold
Project vendors
Findings restated, work repriced
Incumbent MSP
Run and change pull apart
Corporate finance
Technology evidence rebuilt late
Each break is a handover. Context is lost, findings are restated, risk is reset to zero and the investment case waits while a new party learns the estate. The gaps rarely appear in a budget, but they surface in the first hundred days.
Findings and value at stake
Diligence firm: Report ends at signing
Continuity, security, control
Internal IT: Day One scope inherited cold
Owners, funding, gates
Project vendors: Findings restated, work repriced
Roadmap in delivery
Incumbent MSP: Run and change pull apart
Evidence a buyer can test
Corporate finance: Technology evidence rebuilt late
Accountability
One partner answerable from diligence through exit.
Accountability changes hands at every stage boundary.
Evidence
Diligence findings become the roadmap and the exit pack.
Each party re-discovers the estate and restates the risk.
Speed after signing
Day One plan already written and owned before close.
Weeks lost to procurement, onboarding and context transfer.
Cost of rework
Investment sequenced once, against the value creation plan.
Overlapping scopes, duplicated assessments, unplanned spend.
- What technology risk are we acquiring?
- What must be ready for Day One?
- How can technology accelerate the investment thesis?
Deal, Value, Portfolio
Three engagements, one continuous team.
DayOne+ Value
Stabilise, modernise and create measurable operating value. Strategic oversight combined with hands-on delivery, so recommendations do not disappear into a deck.
- Stabilisation and cyber remediation
- Modernisation and cost optimisation
- Roadmap execution and managed services
DayOne+ Portfolio
Portfolio-wide visibility, governance and intervention. A consistent framework for risk, maturity, remediation and technology-enabled growth across the book.
- Common risk and maturity framework
- Cyber posture and performance scorecards
- Board and IC reporting
Where it earns its keep
Seven jobs DayOne+ is built for.
Technology due diligence
Understand estate, operating capability, security exposure, technical debt and likely investment before committing capital.
Carve-outs and separations
Identify shared systems, services, people and contracts. Define the target environment and a practical transition plan.
Day One readiness
Ensure systems, connectivity, security, support, identity, licensing and governance are operational at change of control.
Post-merger integration
Translate synergy assumptions into a sequenced integration plan that protects continuity and customer experience.
Cybersecurity and compliance
Assess material cyber risk and align controls with commercial, regulatory and contractual obligations.
Technology-enabled value creation
Use cloud, automation, data, AI and modern workplace to improve productivity, scalability and management visibility.
Exit readiness
Resolve weaknesses, improve documentation and reduce key-person dependency to withstand buyer scrutiny.
Assess
Sell the decision the investment committee has to make.
A six-step diagnostic that closes with an IC-ready view of what to accept, protect, fund and own, and whether the deal is ready to move.
Mobilise
Confirm scope, access and success criteria.
Orient
Understand the business, carve-out and technology landscape.
Diagnose
Identify risks, dependencies and Day One conditions.
Quantify
Assess impact, likelihood and value at stake.
Decide
Prioritise actions, protections and investment with gates.
Commit
Agree decisions, owners, funding and next steps.
IC technology decision
- Accept
- Residual risk with mitigations.
- Protect
- Deal and investment with conditions.
- Fund
- Initiatives that reduce risk or release value.
- Own
- Ownership and delivery accountability.
Readiness gate
- Ready
- All criteria met and evidence validated.
- Ready with condition
- Conditions in place with due dates and owners.
- At risk
- Material gaps or uncertain evidence.
- Not ready
- Criteria not met; actions required before proceeding.
One Value Plan
The thread that connects thesis, risk, action and evidence.
Every DayOne+ engagement is anchored in one living document that IC, operating partners and management can read on a single page. Eight columns, one source of truth, from signing to exit.
Thesis
Why we invest, and the value we will create.
Risks
Material technology risks and dependencies.
Initiatives
Actions to reduce risk and release value.
Owners
Executive and delivery accountability.
Funding
Investment and operating resources.
Gates
Milestones, criteria and go/no-go points.
Benefits
Expected outcomes and value captured.
Evidence
Proof points and performance indicators.
Technology lens
A commercial view across the technology estate.
Composed around the transaction, not as a generic service bundle.
IT Strategy, Risk & Compliance
Cyber Resilience
Data Protection
IT Operations
Modern Work Enablement
AI & Data Enablement
The team
The team that identifies the risk remains accountable for mobilisation.
Role model
PE sponsor
Sets direction, risk appetite and decision expectations.
DayOne+ Partner
Owns the plan, quality and delivery of outcomes.
Technology Operating Partner
Operating expertise, ensures value delivery.
Governance principles
- Every initiative has an executive owner, delivery owner, due date and success measure.
- No report without a mobilisation path.
- Exit evidence begins accumulating on Day One.
Fit and boundaries
- Platform or add-on deal
- Carve-out or integration
- Refinancing or pre-exit review
- Executive sponsorship
- Defined decision timetable
Scope limits, evidence confidence and residual uncertainty stay explicit. Specialist legal, tax and regulatory opinions sit outside the technology assurance scope unless separately agreed.
Case studies
DayOne+ in the field.
Anonymised engagements across Deal, Value and Portfolio. Client, parent-company, project and site names have been withheld under NDA; scope, sequencing and outcomes are drawn from the underlying programme records.
From parent-company dependency to standalone operations.
A global industrial technology business was being separated from a larger parent estate under a nine-month Transition Services Agreement. Identity, email, collaboration, network and endpoint services were all provided by the parent. The team needed a defensible plan that protected users through the deal, cleared TSA obligations on time, and left the business standing on its own supportable operating model.
Corporate divestiture · Global industrial technology · Multi-region
- 9 mo
- TSA runway managed from announcement to independent operations
- 72 hrs
- Microsoft 365 cutover across email, Teams, SharePoint and OneDrive
- 0
- Business-critical outages through cutover weekend
Merger integration, then a clean carve-out of the consulting arm.
A regional accounting and advisory firm was integrated into a larger professional services group. Years later, the consulting entity had to be separated back out. Both events had to keep client-facing teams productive across Microsoft 365, practice management, audit tooling, network, print and telephony, without disruption to live engagements.
Merger integration, later entity separation · Professional services · Southern Africa
- 2
- Transactions supported: merger integration and later entity carve-out
- 4-week
- Migration window covering M365, file server, practice and audit data
- Full
- Security uplift: MFA, Conditional Access, EDR, DLP and managed backups
De-risking a compliance-sensitive aerospace carve-out.
A newly independent aerospace manufacturing group needed to separate from its former parent across the US, UK, Malaysia and Thailand. Controlled Unclassified Information (CUI) handling, CMMC and NIST 800-171 obligations sat at the centre of the transaction. Identity, email, licensing, secure file transfer and the learning platform all had to be operational at change of control, in a design that a future US federal auditor would accept.
PE-backed divestiture · Aerospace manufacturing · US, UK, APAC
- 4
- Countries co-ordinated across US, UK, Malaysia and Thailand
- Day 1
- Continuity plan covering identity, email, licensing, SFTP and LMS
- GCC-aware
- Tenant and collaboration design mapped to CMMC and NIST 800-171
Multi-site separation from a shared legacy estate.
A newly formed family office and investment group had to separate from two shared Active Directory forests and a legacy on-premises estate. Sites ranged from head offices to remote estates with limited connectivity. Identity, collaboration, network, telephony and video conferencing all had to be re-platformed without disrupting principals, family members or portfolio operations.
Corporate restructure · Family office / investment group · UK & Southern Africa
- 2 → 1
- Legacy AD forests consolidated into a dedicated identity platform
- 9+
- Sites migrated, from head offices to remote estates
- 8 yrs
- From carve-out delivery into ongoing strategic partnership
Standing up a newly independent professional services business.
A specialist team was separating from a larger accounting network. They needed their own Microsoft 365, identity, licensing, security, voice and connectivity stack. The engagement moved from carve-out advisory into a formal stand-up scope, and the TSA needed to be framed on confirmed services, data, access, ownership and timelines from the parent firm.
Corporate carve-out and IT stand-up · Professional services · South Africa
- 4
- Workstreams: governance, IT separation, licensing and managed services
- TSA-ready
- Risk and compliance pack driving explicit parent-firm commitments
- Baseline
- MFA, Conditional Access, Intune, Defender, BitLocker and DLP scoped from day one
A secure Microsoft 365 stand-up for a newly independent US advisory firm.
A small risk advisory team was separating from its parent firm's Microsoft 365 tenant as the parent exited the US market. Users, devices, mailboxes, SharePoint deal data and licences all had to be carved out in a controlled, amicable way, and the new entity needed to land on a secure, managed footing from day one.
Corporate carve-out and managed services stand-up · Risk advisory · United States
- 100%
- Users, devices and data carved out under a phased, amicable separation plan
- ~4 mo
- From introduction to independent tenant, endpoints and managed services live
- Day 1
- Entra ID, MFA, Conditional Access, Intune, BitLocker and Defender baselines in place
All DayOne+ case studies are fully anonymised. Client names, parent-company and buyer names, individual names, project code-names, office and site locations, domain and tenant identifiers, vendor-specific technical detail and commercial figures have been removed or generalised. Nothing on this page should be read as confirming or denying any specific transaction. Named references are available under NDA on request.
FAQs
Common questions about DayOne+.
How is DayOne+ different from a traditional tech diligence provider?
Most diligence stops at a red-flag report. DayOne+ Deal translates findings into Day One priorities, first-100-day actions and a costed roadmap, then the same team can execute through DayOne+ Value. Deal teams get continuity from IC to integration, not a handover.
When should we engage DayOne+ Deal in the transaction cycle?
Ideally before signing, so technology and cyber findings shape the SPA, TSA and value creation plan. We can also run compressed diligence in exclusivity windows, and pick up post-signing to build a Day One and 100-day plan where diligence was light.
What does DayOne+ Value actually deliver post-acquisition?
Stabilisation and cyber remediation first, then modernisation and cost optimisation aligned to the investment thesis. We combine strategic oversight with hands-on delivery and managed services, so recommendations turn into operating results rather than shelfware.
We already have internal IT and an MSP. Where does DayOne+ Value fit?
We wrap around existing teams as the technology operating partner. That can mean augmenting the CIO/CTO, running a specific programme (cyber, cloud, ERP migration, carve-out), or providing managed services in geographies where the portfolio company has gaps.
How does DayOne+ Portfolio work across multiple investments?
One common framework for risk, cyber maturity and technology performance across the book. Each company is scored consistently, reported into a portfolio scorecard for the deal team and IC, and prioritised for intervention where risk or value creation potential is highest.
Is DayOne+ Portfolio only for large portfolios?
No. It scales from a handful of platform investments to full mid-market portfolios. Smaller books use a lighter cadence with an annual maturity refresh and quarterly cyber posture reporting; larger books add sector benchmarking and cross-portfolio remediation programmes.
Which sectors and geographies do you cover?
We operate across North America, Europe, Africa and Asia Pacific, with sector depth in professional services, financial services, industrials, healthcare and technology. Cross-border carve-outs and multi-jurisdiction integrations are a core part of the practice.
How do you price DayOne+ engagements?
Deal is typically fixed-fee by scope and timeline. Value is a blend of programme fees and managed service subscriptions tied to the roadmap. Portfolio is an annual subscription per company with clear inclusions, so sponsors can budget with confidence across the fund.
Signature programmes
The other named programmes.
Each one packages the same operating standard into a named engagement with a defined scope, cadence and way of evidencing progress.
NumataOne™
The operating model everything else runs on: one lifecycle, one accountable partner and one reporting cadence across the six categories.
Managed AI practice
AI adopted as a managed capability, with governance, adoption and measurement wrapped around Microsoft Copilot and departmental use cases.
Workplace Device Subscription
Devices delivered as a managed subscription: specified, secured, supported and refreshed on a predictable per-user cost, with the lifecycle handled for you.
Technology should strengthen
the investment thesis.
Book a 30-minute M&A technology briefing with a DayOne+ partner. We will pressure-test where you are in the deal cycle and agree the fastest path to certainty.