Technology Due Diligence for M&A in Baytown
Before you sign, you should know what the target's technology will actually cost you after closing. We assess systems, security posture, technical debt, and the real price of integration, then hand you a written memo your deal team, your lender, and your operators can all read.
The Problem
Industrial services companies on the east side get bought often, and most of them were never built to be bought. The confidential information memorandum says the business runs on a modern ERP; the walk-through finds a nine year old server in a closet behind the parts counter, a dispatch spreadsheet only one person understands, and refinery badging and training records living in three unconnected places. Sellers are rarely hiding any of this. They have simply never been asked, because nobody in a family owned valve shop or trucking outfit has a CIO to ask. Buyers who skip technology diligence find out in month two, when the integration budget doubles and a plant customer wants to know who now owns the contractor security obligations written into the master service agreement.
The Solution
We work a target the way a reliability engineer works a unit: document what is actually installed, test the claims, then price the fix. Most of the work is remote (interviews, read-only tooling access, contract and license review), and because Baytown sits inside our on-site service area we can walk the yard, the shop, and the plant-adjacent field office when the environment is more physical than the data room suggests. You receive findings ranked by deal impact, a one time integration cost estimate, a defensible post-close run rate, and specific language you can take back to the purchase agreement. We do not resell the systems we recommend, so the conclusions belong to you rather than to a vendor.
Core Responsibilities
What we actually examine
Security and obligation exposure
Numbers your deal team needs
Engagement Process
Scope against the deal clock
We start from your exclusivity window and the thesis behind the acquisition. A tuck-in that will be folded into your existing systems gets a different scope than a platform purchase you intend to run standalone.
Collect evidence, not assertions
Data room documents, read-only access where the seller allows it, short interviews with the people who actually operate the systems, and a site visit when the business runs on physical assets in Baytown or along the ship channel.
Test the claims that matter
We verify the items that create post-close surprises: whether backups have ever been restored, whether administrator access is controlled, whether the ERP is genuinely supported, and whether signed customer security terms are being met.
Memo, costs, and a live readout
You get a written report with findings graded by deal impact, integration and run rate numbers, and a call with your deal team where we answer the hard questions in plain language rather than acronyms.
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Common Questions
Can you finish inside a short exclusivity window?
Usually yes, if we are engaged when exclusivity starts rather than a week before it ends. Scope drives the timeline, and the constraint is normally seller responsiveness, not our capacity. We will tell you at scoping what we can responsibly cover in the time available and what would have to move to a post-close review.
The target is a refinery contractor. Does that change the review?
Substantially. Companies working inside the ExxonMobil Baytown complex or the Chevron Phillips and Cedar Bayou plants sign contractor security, background, and data handling terms that follow the business through a sale. We read those obligations, check whether the target is actually meeting them, and flag anything that could put a renewal at risk under new ownership.
Can this be done quietly, without alarming the target's staff?
Yes. Most diligence work is done through the data room and a small number of management interviews framed as an operational review. Where the seller prefers no employee contact at all, we work from documents and the owner's knowledge, and we note in the memo which conclusions carry lower confidence as a result.
We are the seller. Is there value in doing this before going to market?
There is. Sell side technology diligence lets you fix cheap, embarrassing problems before a buyer prices them into a discount. It also gives you documented answers ready for the data room, which shortens the buyer's question list and removes a common reason for retrades late in a process.
Do you run the integration afterward, or just write the report?
Either. Some clients take the memo and execute with their own team. Others ask us to stay on as fractional CIO through the first year and run the migration, the license consolidation, and the security cleanup. Pricing for ongoing work is scoped on a discovery call as a fixed monthly retainer.
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BOOK A CONSULTATIONTechnology Due Diligence for M&A for Baytown, Texas
Baytown deals rarely look like software deals. The businesses trading hands here are industrial services firms, scaffolding and insulation contractors, valve and rotating equipment shops, tank cleaning outfits, drayage and warehousing companies feeding Barbours Cut and Bayport, and specialty clinics serving a workforce that lives east of the ship channel. Their value sits in crews, equipment, and standing relationships with the ExxonMobil Baytown complex, Chevron Phillips, and the Cedar Bayou plants, which means the technology is usually an afterthought that grew out of necessity. That is exactly why it hurts after closing. Turnaround scheduling, certification tracking, and plant badging data are often the operational heart of the company and often the least documented part of it. A buyer rolling up three east side contractors will find three different job costing approaches, three timekeeping methods, and three sets of customer security commitments that all have to survive the transition. Healthcare acquisitions around Houston Methodist Baytown add a further layer, since patient data obligations do not pause for a change of control. Being inside the Houston metro matters here. We can be at a Baytown yard or a plant-adjacent field office in person, which is the only reliable way to learn what the data room left out.
See the statewide overview of Technology Due Diligence for M&A or all services available in Baytown.