Cross-organisation sentiment rose from 4.3 to 7.1 over the integration year, as the relationship network knitted two silos into one.
Helio Group formed when legacy Helio merged with the acquired Brandt & Cole, creating a 900-person professional-services firm across London and Frankfurt. On the org chart the merger was complete; in practice the two firms barely worked together. SentiTrack's relationship network graph mapped two warm, dense internal clusters, joined by only three thin, cold cross-org bridges, with aggregate cross-organisation sentiment at 4.3. Over a deliberate integration year, leadership rebuilt the network across the seam, and cross-org sentiment climbed to 7.1 while cross-org working ties roughly tripled.
A merger that closed on paper but not in behaviour
When the acquisition of Brandt & Cole closed in January, Helio Group looked like a single 900-person firm. Shared leadership, one logo, one org chart across London and Frankfurt. The structure said merged.
The day-to-day told a different story. Client work, hiring, and decisions still ran along the old company lines. Integration risk in deals like this is rarely visible in headcount or revenue until attrition or a lost account makes it obvious.
Leadership needed an early, objective read on whether the two firms were actually working as one, not a survey taken months too late.
What SentiTrack saw
The relationship network graph drew the problem in one frame. Twelve teams, six from legacy Helio and six from Brandt & Cole, resolved into two distinct clusters. Each cluster was dense and warm internally, with within-firm sentiment at roughly 7.5 for legacy Helio and 7.4 for Brandt & Cole.
Between the two clusters the graph showed only three cross-org edges, and all three were cold, at around 4.0 to 4.5. Aggregate cross-organisation sentiment sat at 4.3: polite, transactional, distant. The picture was unambiguous. Two warm hubs, a near-empty space between them, and a handful of thin cold ties spanning the gap where the merger was supposed to happen.
Those cold cross-org edges were the signal, not low morale inside either firm but the near-absence of warm working relationships across the seam. In the first weeks the cross-org line even drifted slightly, from 4.3 to 4.2, confirming the gap was not closing on its own.
Cross-org sentiment between legacy Helio and Brandt & Cole holds flat near 4.3 through Q1, then climbs to 7.1 across 14 months, against a flat within-Helio line at about 7.5 and a company average rising from 6.3 to 7.2. Markers: acquisition closes (Jan), SentiTrack maps two siloed orgs (Feb), integration programme launches (Apr), joint client teams formed (Jun), single operating model live (Sep).
Before (Q1): two dense, warm clusters, six green legacy-Helio teams and six violet Brandt & Cole teams, joined by only three thin cold bridges at 4.0 to 4.5. After (Q4): the within-cluster edges stay warm, and roughly eight new warm cross-org edges at 6.7 to 7.2 interweave the two clusters into a single network.
A deliberate integration programme, tracked at the edges
SentiTrack does not integrate companies; people do. What the network graph gave leadership was a precise map of where to act and a baseline to measure against. The integration programme launched in April with three moves: joint client teams, a single operating model, and shared functions.
Joint client teams formed in June, deliberately pairing people across the old company lines so new cross-org edges had a reason to exist. Each month the board reviewed a SentiTrack PDF report, Post-Merger Integration Health, covering the cross-org sentiment trend, a collaboration-network snapshot, an attrition and flight-risk watch, and topic friction by function.
Because the report tracked the cross-org edges specifically, leadership could watch the network thicken month by month rather than wait for a year-end engagement survey.
Two silos became one network
The cross-org line held flat near 4.3 through the first quarter, then turned up once the programme and joint client teams took hold. Over the integration year it climbed to 7.1, a gain of 2.8 points, moving the cross-org relationship from cold and transactional to warm and collaborative. The company average rose in step, from 6.3 to 7.2.
The network told the same story structurally. The three thin cold bridges of Q1 became roughly eight new warm cross-org edges, at 6.7 to 7.2, by Q4, a tripling of cross-org working ties, with the within-cluster edges staying warm throughout at about 7.5 and 7.4. The two clusters that started visibly separate ended visibly interwoven.
The single operating model went live within two quarters, by September, and leadership retention held at 94% through the integration. The timing maps the work, not the tool: sentiment moved after the programme launched. The monthly board PDF gave the directors a consistent, evidence-led view of whether the merger was becoming real.
Shared as a scheduled PDF report
Recipients: Board, integration steering committee, function leads
- Cross-organisation sentiment trend
- Collaboration network snapshot
- Attrition & flight-risk watch
- Topic friction by function
Every month the steering committee opened with this SentiTrack PDF — the cross-org trend and the collaboration-network snapshot — so integration was tracked on evidence, not anecdote.
The org chart told us the merger was done. SentiTrack showed us three cold edges where two companies were still standing apart. Watching those edges go warm was how we knew integration was actually happening.
- Structure is not behaviour. A merger can be complete on the org chart while the relationship network still shows two separate, barely connected companies.
- The cold cross-org edges were the early signal. Mapping sentiment as a network surfaced exactly where integration was failing, months before attrition or a lost account would have shown it.
- Measured at the edges, integration is trackable. Cross-org sentiment rising from 4.3 to 7.1 and ties tripling gave the board an objective monthly read of whether the two firms were truly becoming one.
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