- Solutions
- AI First Services
- Business Outcomes
- Industry AI Accelerators
- Insights & Resources
- About
For business management solutions email us or call 020 3004 4600
A merger or acquisition changes everything, overnight. Two sets of financials, two CRM systems, two ways of working, two cultures. The deal may be done, but the hard work of becoming one business has only just begun. The SMEs that get this right are the ones that take control of their systems and data from day one.
EdgeFusion™ is a tailored integration programme built on interconnected Microsoft solutions covering finance, customers, collaboration, infrastructure, AI and reporting. Rather than forcing your deal into a fixed template, we design and sequence it around your situation, then bring both businesses onto one connected platform.
We start from a proven integration approach, so you don't pay to reinvent the basics. Then we shape every part around the businesses involved, their systems, your timeline and your commercial priorities. No two deals are the same, so no two EdgeFusion™ programmes are either.
EdgeFusion™ brings both businesses onto connected Microsoft solutions, so information flows across the combined organisation. Each one is adapted to your deal.
Key technologies include:
Most M&A deals don't fail because of the commercial terms. They fail, or underperform, because the operational and technology integration is underestimated. Disconnected systems create blind spots. Duplicate processes create inefficiency. Unmerged data creates conflicting reports. And a leadership team managing a combined business from two sets of spreadsheets can't make the fast, confident decisions the post-deal period demands.
For SMEs, the pressure is acute. There's rarely a large integration team. The business still needs to run while integration happens. And decisions made in the first few months set the course for everything that follows.
EdgeFusion™ gives you a structured, accelerated path to one connected Microsoft platform, designed around your deal. It shortens the time to genuine operational unity and gives leadership visibility from the earliest possible stage.
Common integration challenges EdgeFusion™ addresses:
Financial Consolidation & Reporting
The fastest route to leadership confidence in a combined business is unified financials. EdgeFusion™ uses Dynamics 365 Business Central to bring together both entities' financial operations, consolidating reporting, standardising processes and giving leadership a real-time view of group performance.
Benefits include:
Customer & Commercial Integration
Losing customers after a deal is a real risk, especially if teams are working from inconsistent data or duplicating account management. EdgeFusion™ uses Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement to bring CRM data together, remove duplication and give sales and account teams one reliable view of every customer.
This enables:
People, Collaboration & the Modern Workplace
Integration isn't just about systems. It's about people. EdgeFusion™ uses Microsoft 365 to standardise collaboration tools, communication channels and working practices, helping teams feel and function as one organisation sooner.
This includes:
EdgeFusion™ doesn't force your deal into a fixed template. Our M&A integration experience and proven approach speed up the work. The programme itself is shaped entirely around your situation: the size of the businesses, the complexity of their systems, the pace of integration and your commercial priorities.
We shape EdgeFusion™ around:
Whether you're a founder-led business making a first acquisition, a management team integrating a bolt-on, or a PE-backed group managing several deals, EdgeFusion™ is designed around your situation.
1. Rapid discovery We assess both businesses' systems, data, processes and priorities, and agree what must happen first.
2. Integration design and sequencing We design the target platform and plan the order of work, so the business keeps running while it comes together.
3. Migrate, connect and consolidate We move data from legacy systems, deduplicate customers, connect both businesses onto the shared solutions and retire what's no longer needed.
4. Adopt and optimise We bring both teams onto the new platform with training and change support, then keep refining it as the combined business evolves.
EdgeFusion™ is designed for SMEs facing the technology and operational challenges of M&A activity, including:
If your business is changing shape through M&A, EdgeFusion™ gives you the technology foundation to make it work.
As a Microsoft Solutions Partner with experience supporting SMEs through complex business change, Advantage brings both technical expertise and commercial understanding to integrations that have to work under real-world pressure.
We know M&A integration happens while the business is still running. Speed matters, disruption must be kept to a minimum, and decisions made during implementation have long-term consequences. We work with you to sequence the integration intelligently, prioritise what matters most and build a Microsoft platform the combined business will rely on long after integration is complete.
Talk to our M&A technology team about your integration challenges. There's no commitment, just a practical conversation about what your situation needs.
Getting an acquisition right means more than closing the deal. It means bringing systems, data and people together quickly enough that the value you modelled is the value you realise. EdgeFusion™ Insights brings together practical guides and strategic insight for business owners, management teams and finance leaders navigating the technology and operational side of mergers and acquisitions.
A great technology solution still needs a compelling business case to get approved. Advantage CaseReady™ helps you build a board-ready justification, with financial modelling, risk analysis and strategic alignment, so your decision-makers have everything they need to say yes.
Delivered in partnership with Shark Finesse, the UK's leading Business Case Engagement Platform, CaseReady™ is designed for senior leaders and project sponsors who need to secure internal approval for a Microsoft Dynamics 365, Business Central, Power Platform, or Copilot investment.
Ready to take control of your M&A technology integration?
Common questions about EdgeFusion™, Advantage's tailored programme of connected Microsoft solutions for post-merger integration: what it is, how it's shaped around your deal, and how it helps SMEs bring systems, data and operations together.
EdgeFusion™ is a tailored integration programme that brings two or more businesses onto connected Microsoft solutions after a merger or acquisition. It centres on Dynamics 365 Business Central for finance and operations, connected to Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement for CRM, Microsoft 365 and Copilot, Power BI and Power Platform.
A merger or acquisition creates an immediate technology problem: two sets of financials, two CRM systems, two ways of working and often two different technology stacks. EdgeFusion™ resolves that as quickly and cleanly as possible, combining a proven integration approach and data migration expertise with a programme designed around your deal.
No. EdgeFusion™ is not a packaged product. Every deal involves different businesses, systems, data and priorities, so every EdgeFusion™ programme is designed and sequenced individually.
What each programme shares is Advantage's proven integration approach and experience. This keeps projects faster and lower-risk than starting from scratch, while the end result is a platform built around the combined business you're creating.
Post-merger integration usually involves several overlapping challenges:
EdgeFusion™ addresses these by bringing the combined business onto connected Dynamics 365 and Microsoft solutions, in the order that makes most sense for your deal.
Speed is central to EdgeFusion™. Starting from a proven integration approach and structured data migration method, rather than designing everything from scratch, shortens the time from project start to go-live considerably.
The timeline depends on the complexity of both businesses' systems, the volume and quality of data, and how much process alignment is needed. We confirm a realistic timeline during Discovery, which is itself designed to be quick, so the integration can move forward without delay.
Data migration is one of the most demanding parts of any post-merger integration, and one of EdgeFusion™'s core strengths. Our approach covers extraction from legacy systems (including older versions of Dynamics, Sage, Xero, Salesforce and other common platforms), cleansing and deduplication, mapping to Dynamics 365, and a controlled cutover.
On the CRM side, deduplicating two customer databases is critical: identifying genuine duplicates, reconciling conflicting data and creating one clean customer record before go-live. Our data team manages this systematically, using Power Platform tools to automate matching and review where possible.
Yes, and it's one of the first high-value outcomes. Once both entities are on Dynamics 365 Business Central, the group finance team can produce consolidated statements, intercompany reconciliations and group management accounts in the same system. That removes the manual Excel consolidation that usually consumes so much finance time after a deal.
Power BI dashboards give real-time group-level visibility alongside entity-level detail, so boards and investors get the combined picture while each entity keeps working within its own structure.
Yes. CRM consolidation is one of the two main workstreams in most EdgeFusion™ programmes, alongside finance. Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement provides one platform where both businesses' customer and prospect data is consolidated, deduplicated and structured consistently.
We configure it around your combined go-to-market model, with shared pipeline stages, common dashboards, unified security roles and consistent data standards. Microsoft Copilot helps sales staff with customer communication and account insight from day one, making the new system useful straight away.
Yes. Moving from Dynamics GP, NAV or AX to Dynamics 365 Business Central is a common EdgeFusion™ scenario, and Advantage has specific experience with these migrations. The data structures are closely related, which reduces complexity compared with moving from non-Microsoft platforms.
Where one entity is already on Business Central and the acquired business is on a legacy product, we can make that migration the critical path, getting both entities onto the same modern platform first and following with further consolidation after go-live.
Technology and people integration go hand in hand. We run the technical migration alongside change management, communication planning and role-based training, so both teams adopt the new system with confidence.
Building on Microsoft helps here, because most staff in both businesses already use Outlook, Teams and Excel. That shortens the learning curve and reduces resistance. User adoption and training are part of every EdgeFusion™ programme.
No. EdgeFusion™ is just as relevant to businesses that merged or acquired some time ago but never fully integrated, and still run as two businesses on different platforms with all the reporting and cost inefficiencies that brings. This is very common among SMEs, where closing the deal took priority and systems integration was put off.
If you're running two finance systems, two CRM databases or a fragmented estate across several acquired entities, EdgeFusion™ offers the same accelerated route to consolidation.
Start with a conversation with our M&A technology team. We'll learn about the structure of the deal, the current state of both businesses' systems, your timeline and leadership priorities, then outline how EdgeFusion™ could bring the combined business onto one Microsoft platform.
Get in touch via our contact page, call 020 3004 4600 or email hello@advantage.co.uk.
The technology you use should help you move faster, not hold you back. At Advantage, we help SMEs unlock the full power of Microsoft - from cloud and security to AI and automation. Whether you're modernising systems or exploring Copilot, we'll help you transform the way you work. Let's build something smarter. Together.
Contact Us Today 020 3004 4600
