Curious on Integration Approaches — Data Ops in Roll-Ups

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June 19, 2025

by a searcher from University of Missouri - Columbia in Chicago, IL, USA

Hey all — curious to get your thoughts. For those actively acquiring or operating in roll-up strategies, how do you approach integrating and normalizing data operations post-close? Kudos to anyone working in industries where recordkeeping, systems, and data hygiene are often weak or fragmented (a challenge I know well). In past roles, I’ve handled data ops across product, revenue, sales, and marketing channels — but always within software companies. Curious how folks here tackle it when rolling up multiple small businesses with inconsistent data environments. Any frameworks, playbooks, or key lessons you lean on? Thanks in advance!
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Reply by a searcher
from The University of Chicago in Chicago, IL, United States
Hi Erick - I have done this from a technology / software company stand point and as an operator of multi location dental practices. My 2 cents are from the later Within the healthcare world, there are typically a handful of EMR / EHR systems in a vertical (Epic for healthcare, Dentrix for dental, etc.). When doing a rollup quite often different practices run on different systems and this is based on when the owner made a decision. I will make an assumption that this is typical in other industries as well. Ex: A provider may have made a decision to go with a on prem server based EMR system in the early 90's compared to a owner making a cloud based EMR decision in 2010. First thing you have to make a decision is whether you want to go with a cloud based system. You typically pick the one that is one of the top 3 in the space. The biggest challenge comes from converting data from a server based / legacy system to a cloud based system compared to one cloud based to another could based system. Most often the data extracts are not in excel and are in pdf formats. You will have manually convert these into excel and then work with the cloud based EMR company to upload them. Data will not be clean and structured so quite a bit of clean up time and effort goes into this. But once you do it a couple of times you will understand which legacy data is not that important and you tend to focus on the ones that is imp for you and make some assumptions on others that do not have a significant impact on your operations. You will come up with a template / framework, along with timelines and cost associated with it. We have always been of the mindset to convert not just the data, but also other systems such as phones, internet, credit card machines, etc. so all locations run on similar platforms, which then becomes easier to train employees and maintain them. Hope this helps!
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Reply by a professional
from Yale University in Bedford, NH, USA
Hi Erick, I was an operator in a PE-backed manufacturing company where we had multiple acquisitions that resulted in operating across 4 different ERPs. Data was very messy and the translation of seemingly simple analyses took a lot of time. We evaluated an ERP consolidation but decided against it because of the ROI on a significant cash outlay. I think a lot of it comes down to your overall strategy and timeline. If you’re going to be a long-term holder, you can probably recoup the cost of a consolidation and data clean-up. But if you’re looking to sell any time soon, it’s probably better to keep the structure as is and simply invest in a team that’s adept at operating the current systems.
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