Premiere of the new season of Raiff Chat by Raiffeisen #1: About M&A, suits and data migration

In addition to interesting facts, case studies, and the latest events related to Raiffeisen Tech employees, we will be joined by special guests from the PMI team: Mariusz Rygielski – Delivery Manager, Klaudia Skwarło – Project Manager, and Marcin Mach – Project Manager.

What are M&A transactions (mergers and acquisitions)? What does the process of company takeover and integration look like? Why is it not enough to simply "buy and sell" in this business? How is "fitting a suit" different from shopping at a supermarket? Is GoLive like a wedding – full of joy but with potential missteps on the dance floor? What myths and facts surround M&A transactions? And the most important question – do PMI specialists enjoy shopping? We will discuss all this with our guests!

You can find Raiff Chat by Raifffeisen Tech on: 

• Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/0s2J9stiGhledgLt9gUmlm (polish version) 
  
• YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@RaiffeisenTechPoland/podcasts (polish version)

Klaudia Bednarczyk: If the new year started as intensely for you as it did for us, despite the plans and assumptions, then let's start the first episode of our podcast in the new season with a virtual high five. If not, then even more so, we give you a high five and are happy for your good fortune. Well, a lot has happened, you could say that the post-holiday and New Year's shopping rush caught us. And since we're talking about shopping, we can reveal what we'll be discussing today. Tomek, buying cheap – selling high. What does that remind you of?
Tomasz Przewłocki: It’s a challenge. Every time we go shopping, we want to make a good deal. We've just been through the sales period, so it’s always associated with buying cheap. But it’s definitely a challenge, especially for people who look for pearls.
KB: Exactly, and that’s exactly what we’re talking about today. Sounds like a flipping idea? The direction of stock market investments? Selling on the antiques collectors’ market? Or flipping used cars?
Although this is a universal concept used in business, investments, and everyday transactions, it’s not exactly what we’ll be discussing today. Buying and selling can also apply to the technological services provided by companies like ours or financial institutions. Today, we’ll take you behind the scenes of the PMI team’s work. We’ll talk about procurement processes, mergers, and integrations that fall under the term M&A. You’ll learn what differentiates “fitting a suit” from shopping at a supermarket, what the biggest challenges in M&A projects are, and whether GoLive is like a wedding – full of joy but also potential missteps on the dance floor.
TP: That was Part 1. We greeted you – me, Tomek.
KB: And Klaudia. And we’ll talk more about the PMI team and shopping in Part 2. Stay with us.

TP: Part 2, our semi-final, where you'll meet the heroes of today’s episode. This is the first time we’re gathering such a large group, so let us stray a bit from our usual tradition of introducing our guests.
KB: Today, we’ve prepared something different. We’ve asked our heroes to tell us something about each other.
TP: And with us are the members of the PMI team: Mariusz Rygielski – Delivery Manager, Klaudia Skwarło – Project Manager, and Marcin Mach – Project Manager. Welcome!
KB: In a moment, we’ll share a few fun facts about you, which will help us introduce you. After each one, we’ll ask the person who thinks it's about them to speak up. Ready?
KB: A graduate in architecture and a Project Manager for special tasks. Fill-the gaps, runbooks, performance tests, slides, reports, analyses... the harder it gets, the more interesting it becomes.
Mariusz Rygielski: I have no idea who this is about!
TP: This person spent the last Christmas and New Year's Eve in Buenos Aires, enjoying the Argentine sun, tango on every corner, and local delicacies.
Klaudia Skwarło: Something tells me… that could be me.
KB: Doesn’t use ChatGPT, because they know banking inside and out. This person actively participated in creating this sector in Poland.
Marcin Mach: I definitely don’t use ChatGPT, so that’s definitely me.
TP: Can't imagine life without two wheels. If there was ever a heated discussion about bikes and cycling gadgets in the kitchen, you can be sure that this person was involved.
MR: Yes, that’s me. I get reminded of it all the time. But yes, it’s true. I’m also a gadget enthusiast. And that goes hand in hand.
KB: Loves cycling because it’s the only time they can quickly escape from the storm of ideas for new projects at work.
KS: Yes, that’s me!
TS: In between breaking records on Strava, this person devours crime podcasts and series at a pace that would shame many Netflix marathoners.
MR: That’s probably me.
TS: Travels the world in various ways: sometimes in a leather jacket on a motorcycle, and sometimes with colleagues from the team... strolling through Google Maps.
MM: That could be true about me.
KB: They play tennis with passion, and watch matches with such engagement that sometimes they even get up from the couch, ready to return the serve from the TV screen.
KS: That’s definitely me.
TP: After hours, they trade the computer for pots and pans – there’s no dish they can’t prepare, and Michelin should have sent at least one star by now.
MR: I definitely don’t avoid the kitchen. I love cooking.
KB: And after such an introduction, we’re even more pleased to welcome you. To begin with, does the concept of M&A relate to your team? Mariusz, how would you explain it to someone hearing this term for the first time? And, of course, what does your team do in this context?
MR: The term M&A stands for Mergers and Acquisitions – fusions and acquisitions. These are transactions in which one company merges with another, integrating their structures – that’s a merger. However, when one company takes over another but both remain separate entities, we have an acquisition. In the context of banks, it looks similar. You could compare it to everyday shopping – we go to a store and buy, for example, a suit. Why do people buy banks? Primarily to expand their product offerings, gain access to a broader market quickly, or gain innovative solutions and technologies. Of course, when buying, sometimes selling is also involved. We participate in sales transactions, but we won’t talk about them today – we’ll save that topic for the future. If Klaudia invites us again, we’d be happy to discuss it. Today, we’ll focus on the process of buying a bank and its impact on our team. We’re here with Klaudia, Marcin, and also – we send our greetings to – Edyta and Tomek. Our team handles the IT part throughout the entire transaction lifecycle. From the very beginning, when we explore acquisition opportunities, through preparing documentation, to integration. We make sure that IT and technology bring benefits, rather than generating additional risks for the transaction. And why do we do all this? So that the transaction benefits both the bank, the company, and the entire RBI Group.

TP: Mariusz, you mentioned an analogy to shopping, and I think we can stick with that concept – is this process more like buying a suit, or like shopping at a supermarket?
MR: I think it’s more like buying a suit. When I go for a suit, I already have in mind what I want – whether I need a light or dark one, single-breasted or double-breasted. I’m focused on that purchase. I also know what’s already in my wardrobe, what shirts I own, and what I’ll need to diversify or match for a specific occasion. Buying a suit is different from shopping at a supermarket, which seems more random. Often, we get tempted by promotions, fall for marketing, and stray from the shopping list we made earlier. Standing at the checkout, seeing colorful products on the shelves, we add something to the basket – for example, cola. In a transaction, this doesn’t happen. Even though it’s a complicated process, it’s very focused. We know exactly what we’re looking for. That’s why buying a suit is a better comparison.
KB: And how does this "fitting the suit" work in the context of financial institutions, banks?
MR: Continuing with the suit analogy, we walk into the store and look around to see what’s available. We already know that we’re looking for something darker, so we don’t pay attention to the light-colored suits. We check them out because we like them, see if we like the material they’re made of. Then we take the chosen suit to the fitting room and try it on. We look at how it fits, whether the sleeves are the right length.
MM: If we leave the tailoring analogy for a moment and look at it from our team’s perspective, we focus on two key elements of this process. First, we assist our colleagues from the business department in analyzing data related to the bank we’re considering for acquisition. It’s crucial to price the transaction correctly – to determine whether it’s an attractive purchase, who the bank’s customers are, whether they’re individual or corporate clients, what assets they hold, what banking products they use, how often they use them, and whether they’re active. The number of products held helps our colleagues estimate the value of the transaction and the attractiveness of the bank and its portfolio. This stage is called due diligence. It’s equivalent to fitting the suit and making adjustments at the tailor’s. From an IT perspective, we analyze the entire infrastructure of the potential bank for acquisition. We assess its technological attractiveness – checking if the technologies used there are beneficial to us and if they can easily be integrated with our solutions.
TS: That leads to the question – what happens if the suit doesn’t fit?
MM: Can we even say that the transaction "doesn’t fit"? This is exactly why we conduct the entire analysis process – to identify potential differences and determine what needs to be adjusted. If the trousers are too wide, they can be tapered by a tailor. If the pants are too long, they can be shortened. However, some adjustments are difficult, expensive, or even impossible to make. This can affect the attractiveness of the transaction – even if it seems financially beneficial from a business perspective, high costs and time-consuming IT integration may ultimately lead us to decide against the acquisition.
KB: Alright, let’s assume you’ve tried it on. Marcin, what happens next?
MM: The next step looks like any other transaction. If we ultimately decide to purchase because it’s financially attractive and we assess that we won’t have to allocate too many resources to make the IT integration work, which could make the acquisition not worthwhile, we move to the next phase. We negotiate the price, which in our case is called making a binding offer. If the offer is accepted by the seller, we sign the agreement and proceed with implementation. Then we implement the previously prepared adjustments.
TP: Klaudia, what exactly do these adjustments look like?
KS: The list is long, but I think we should start with the most common form of our adjustments, called "feel the gap." They weren't supposed to be in English, so let's translate them loosely as "gap fillers," and I’ll explain what this means. During the due diligence stage, which Marcin already talked about, we carefully analyze the architecture of the systems of the bank we might want to acquire. We make a list and say, for example, that this system won't be needed, so we need to extract data from it and transfer it to our side, and then shut it down. We go through system by system, but often we come across interesting features or entire products that we’d like to adopt into our bank. In such cases, we analyze whether these are products that can benefit us. We check if it makes business sense and if it can be technically integrated. If we decide that we want to enrich our offering with such a product, one that was not previously available in our bank, then specialists from both sides – the buyer’s and seller’s – sit down to work out the integration. Another example is the unification of business processes, especially those that are supported by technology. Before the transaction, they are two separate entities working under their own rules. For us, as Raiffeisen Group, which has many integrated systems, it’s important that processes from both banks can cooperate. This requires a lot of adjustments, and sometimes it impacts reporting. In such cases, we need to check if any modifications are needed, whether something should be added, removed, or if a new reporting path should be created. And what’s important is that this is only one side of the coin. The integration process actually involves the entire bank, and it’s hard to find a department that won’t be affected by such a major change. One of the most interesting preparatory aspects before the transaction, I personally believe, is the task of the marketing department, which faces a big challenge. They are responsible for phasing out the brand we’re acquiring and merging it under our joint logo. It’s a massive amount of work, starting from removing old logos from all systems, changing the website, and making adjustments in mobile banking. But that’s not the end. There’s the physical task of replacing business cards at branches, changing paper in printers, repainting walls to the appropriate color, and finally replacing the sign, so that everything looks cohesive and forms one whole.
KB: Klaudia, let’s go back to the buying and selling process. Tell us, what’s the most intense moment in such a process?
KS: Apart from analyzing the transaction itself, this is the most intense moment, and it’s when the entire transaction becomes very visible. I’m not talking about our work, but about what happens in the background. That’s when preparations really pick up pace, but the climax, which I find the most interesting (and I think the guys will completely agree with me), is what's called the "Migration Weekend." It starts on Friday morning and usually lasts until Sunday evening. That’s when at least several dozen people sit in front of their computers and perform the tasks assigned to them. Why several dozen, sometimes more? We need to bring together people from both the buying and selling banks to carry out the migration together. The migration weekend also involves testers, additional developers, transaction advisors, and even catering staff, as these two days must somehow be survived, practically without sleep. It lasts almost the entire weekend – from Friday to Saturday. Of course, we switch shifts, so I can briefly close my eyes and sleep for a bit, and then we switch again. But it’s really intense, because we have several thousand tasks to complete in the right order. We always plan ahead, identifying dependencies – who needs to do something first so that someone else can perform their task. The goal is to avoid discovering a mistake on Saturday afternoon and having to roll the process back 10 hours because we found something that shouldn’t have happened. Such things can happen too. As for the data transformation during the migration weekend, we have to transport data from one side to the other. To use a clothing analogy, we’re pulling things out of one closet and putting them into another. But this isn’t a trivial process because the data just doesn’t fit together. I’ll give a simple example: in the acquired bank, a customer’s date of birth is recorded in the format day, month, year, while for us, it’s month, day, year. If we were to dump the data in the wrong format, it could lead to a small, or maybe even a larger, disaster. That’s why we need to unify the data. The process is as follows: first, we extract the data, checking that we haven’t missed anything. For the migration, we build migration engines where the magic happens – the data is adjusted to a format that can be safely loaded into our "Raiffeisen closet." After each step, we do a reconciliation because we need to make sure we haven’t lost any records, values, or introduced unwanted duplicates. At this stage, mistakes can happen both ways, so the risk is high. Two days later, someone could wake up with a mortgage they didn’t have, or conversely, they might find they don’t have a mortgage they expected. During the migration weekend, another important element is monitoring the onboarding process, because after the migration, we open the bank for new customers, who need to go through a special onboarding process. We also open the same bank for our existing customers, which is a nervous moment, because everyone wonders what will happen when they log in to their app – will their balance match, are the deposits in order, are the mortgages in place. We need to closely monitor what’s happening with our systems because they’re heavily loaded at this time. When a large number of customers suddenly tries to log in, and for example, the onboarding process requires the customer to call the customer service center, we monitor this process. In case of a failure, everyone might call at the same time. All of this affects the final customer perception. Our goal is that everything we do during the weekend doesn’t cause any issues for the customer. The customer should only get an SMS about the technical break, and after logging in on Monday, everything should be fine. That’s why, on Monday, when the bank opens, the phrase "reputational risk" flashes before our eyes. The bank is a public trust institution, so we don’t have much margin for error. We also monitor social media and the press to see what customers are saying. We often joke behind the scenes that no matter how much work we do over the weekend, the last word always belongs to the customer. It might happen that a customer encounters a problem that wasn’t resolved as it should have been. But only when we see that customers have logged in and everything is fine does the dust start to settle, and we return to the bank's normal operational activities. Then, if we still have energy, there’s champagne or, more likely, we just go to sleep – it varies.
KB: Do you participate together as a team in every transaction? Is this process happening parallel to other transactions?
KS: Usually, we only have one transaction at a time. As the guys mentioned earlier, buying banks is a very sensible purchase, so it’s not like I’m going to the mall and buying five blazers when I only need one – that’s not the problem. Additionally, these are such complex logistical operations that I’m not sure we could handle working on two or three transactions at the same time, because it requires a huge commitment from our side. We work with a large number of people, practically with the entire bank and every department.
KB: It sounds a bit like something out of this world – 48 hours? That’s really incredible. Do you prepare for this in advance?
KS: We have to – we go through several practice runs. It’s a very complex logistical operation, dozens of people, and several thousand tasks, so we need to ensure we’re ready. First, we need to check technological readiness – whether the migration engines, which perform wonders, work as they should. Does the reconciliation work properly? We need to be sure that we can correctly extract data from one "closet" and load it into another. That’s one issue, and the other is operational readiness – does everyone know when they’re supposed to perform their task? We’ve learned that delays usually occur at specific moments, so we need to track the duration of each task and find the sweet spot. After every migration practice, we conduct a retrospective, discussing what went well and what needs improvement. Our main goal is to master the process almost perfectly, so that everyone knows what to do, where to do it, how to complete their task correctly, and the whole process is predictable and runs smoothly.

TP: Marcin, is every transaction unique, or are there patterns that repeat?
MM: Based on the previous answers, it’s pretty easy to infer that these are very unique cases. Every bank is different. As Klaudia mentioned, we don’t go in and buy five suits to then decide which one fits us. That’s why we first go through these big processes to figure out if, in the end, we want to make the purchase or not. From our professional experience, there is no “golden book of rules.” It’s impossible to define exactly what needs to be done to conduct a good analysis of a bank we want to buy and have a hundred percent certainty that the purchase is the right one. You could say that after spending some time on these processes, we gained experience and know what to pay attention to. Experience and a lot of time spent on such transactions have helped us identify weak points and understand exactly what needs to be checked. Sometimes we need to lean on colleagues who have more expertise in a particular area because some topics go beyond our capabilities. However, we do understand a lot about these issues, but we need support in more advanced matters. Over time, we’ve also learned to estimate certain things, and we have indicators that allow us to assess how much time and money will be needed to cover the discrepancies we notice during the analysis of the bank we want to buy. This is very important in the whole process.

TP: It seems that experience is crucial in such transactions. Do you have any special tips or secret tricks that you use in relation to these tasks?
MM: I think this is generally unique knowledge regarding each bank. A team like ours exists in most institutions. However, after working together for three years, we’ve learned to recognize certain things. We don’t want to reveal all the secrets of our kitchen, but so far, we’ve managed to carry out these processes in the right way. I believe that, in addition to the effort put into the actual purchase process, when we know we want to acquire a given bank, we carry out the whole migration and adjustment process. However, the crucial stage is the one before that, which we call due diligence, and Mariusz, for the purposes of this podcast, called it a fitting. It is done correctly when we ultimately decide to purchase the bank, and the amount of money allocated for these improvements matches the budget we previously planned. Of course, there might be a margin for errors, but then we know the work has been done properly.

KB: This work seems quite time-consuming and detailed, requiring meticulous analysis and consideration. Do technologies in any way support you in this process, making your daily tasks easier and relieving you during this tedious stage?
MR: Yes, we use various toolsets that help us assess what risks might arise and how they could affect our situation. These tools provide us with insights, and based on our experiences, we've been through many transactions. We have the experience that allows us to predict what might work and where we might encounter challenges. We can estimate how much time and other resources we will need to spend to cover these gaps. Of course, all the input comes from us, and I fully agree with Marcin that it mainly stems from the experience gained by being involved in transactions. It also helps that the transactions we’re talking about happen within the RBI group. From the group’s perspective and the repeatability of some processes, it’s definitely easier because it allows us to more accurately assess risks and estimate their impact.

TP: Klaudia, tell us about what you’ve recently acquired.
KS: I have to admit that the last few years have been a period of intense acquisitions for us. In 2022, we acquired Equo Bank in the Czech market. This bank is quite distinctive because it offers a wide range of so-called “clowns,” and we decided to bring this product to our side to enrich our offerings. Additionally, thanks to this transaction, Raiffeisen Bank Czechia increased its customer base by more than 400,000 people. Expanding the customer base is one of the main reasons we go for such acquisitions. Of course, this process is not possible in every country, but a great example is the Serbian market, where a year later, we made another acquisition – we bought Credit Agricole and integrated it with Raiffeisen Bank Serbia. Thanks to this transaction, Raiffeisen Bank Serbia increased its customer base to over a million, and the acquired assets allowed the bank to jump into the top three largest banks in Serbia. As I mentioned earlier, not every country allows such an operation, but the characteristics of the Serbian market make it highly fragmented, with many players and numerous consolidation opportunities. When the opportunity arose, we performed the necessary analyses and calculations, which showed that this transaction should pay off, so we decided to go ahead with it. These acquisitions are a huge undertaking, involving great responsibility. It all falls on our shoulders, on our five-person team, which is really impressive. We are part of these processes and projects, but it’s worth remembering that hundreds of people participate in the migration. It’s really massive work, and the reward from this process should go to the whole team. These projects are on such a large scale that there’s nothing comparable to any other IT project, and that’s the most exciting part of it all.

KB: During the last live session, were there any particular moments that stood out to you? Can you share any behind-the-scenes details?
KS: You know, during one of the transactions, we had issues after launching the banks, especially with the customer service center. But again, we learn from this. As was rightly said, the retrospective of what happened allows us to build our knowledge and resilience for the future. By the time we were involved in the next transactions, everyone knew what we were talking about. The customer service center is my thing. We keep our finger on the pulse to ensure the center is prepared 110% and changes are made long before the migration weekend. We draw lessons from all of this. Often, when we discuss various possible scenarios with the project team, real-life examples that have occurred clear up any doubts, and everyone knows exactly what we’re talking about. That definitely helps in future projects.

KB: In such situations, do you work remotely, or do you all meet in person at one location?
KS: We definitely prefer to meet on-site at the bank. We create a large space, our internal management center. The room is always filled with screens – one shows how many tasks have been completed, another checks for critical errors, and a third monitors whether the data extraction and transformation went smoothly. We always have the schedule nearby. For example, if it’s 2 PM on a Saturday, and according to the plan, we should already be at stage X, we ask ourselves whether the delay is acceptable or if we need to speed up. If we need to speed up, it’s an interesting issue because you can really feel the pressure, especially when working on production. Your hand might shake before you click “OK” and move to the next stage. There’s always a lot of laughter, especially when we’re doing tasks at irregular hours, at night. It’s also part of our migration trials, which teach us about each other, especially when it comes to nighttime or early morning tasks. At those times, we test who we can trust enough to not have to call half an hour earlier to make sure they’re up. Sometimes, if someone is late, we catch it and write it into our migration plan that 15 minutes earlier, we need to call, wake them up, and remind them about the task. For example: “Check the report, click OK, confirm.” Such nighttime processes are part of our work and require supervision.

KB: Does the entire migration take place at night, or is only part of the process carried out during those hours?
KS: The whole night, because as I said, we actually start on Friday morning with the first tasks. In the afternoon, the bank closes, and we begin the extraction. Then we continue with data transformation, so we have to constantly monitor what’s happening, whether there are any critical errors. Sometimes, after a certain stage, we notice an error and have to go back to an earlier task, which requires informing the team that, despite completing their tasks, we need to repeat them. Someone always has to keep track of the pace and correctness of actions.

KB: So where does sleep fit into all of this?
KS: The adrenaline is so high that no one thinks about it during the weekend. That’s what keeps us going, at least personally, for a few days when I'm all charged up, and then it slowly drops. At that point, no one thinks about anything else; we all work as one team. We’re racing against time because our biggest enemy is the awareness that we need to open the bank on Monday morning. We all fight bravely.

TP: OK, so the clients have already been informed, and now they’re waiting to log into the application. What emotions accompany this?
MR: We were surprised because it turned out that clients are really interested in what’s happening in the bank, even though many of them might have thought they had no idea about it. It’s a lesson from previous integrations that, after the migration weekend, many clients log in just to check if everything is working. That sudden increase in logins and activity on the online platform is huge. It doesn’t go unnoticed, clients are really interested in what happened. Yes, it’s a sort of test – clients check if everything works, if their mortgage hasn’t disappeared, if the amounts in their accounts are correct. Although we didn’t delve that deeply into client psychology, the fact is that this traffic is enormous. You need to be properly prepared for it and scale the infrastructure to handle it.

TP: So, classic – trust, but verify. Do you enjoy going shopping? A little shift in perspective given what you do…
MM: Personally, I’m not a fan, but when it comes to the bank, I love integration projects. I love shopping, and I think we all specialize in that here. Integration projects are unique, they have a huge impact on clients, and the number of 400,000 new clients is hard to achieve in any project other than an integration. We’re also dealing with a project with a deadline, with a specific date by which we need to complete all actions – the migration must happen in the designated weekend. Despite the huge amount of work, there are also positive aspects to these projects. They definitely build strong interpersonal bonds, and after the project ends, we keep in touch with many people for a long time. These projects are full of challenges and many threads, because, as we mentioned, dozens, sometimes hundreds, of people are involved in the migration. The whole bank is involved, including the headquarters in Vienna, which shows how important these are priority projects for the institution and the whole group. On the one hand, it helps, but on the other hand, it can sometimes be distracting because all eyes are on the project you’re participating in. Nevertheless, in the end, when everything works out, these projects give enormous satisfaction. That’s why we really like integration projects and are already looking forward to the next one.

KB: Do these projects really have such a big impact on clients? If the deadline is moved, does it ever get postponed?
MR: Generally, deadlines are not moved. Sometimes there are delays for various reasons, but usually, these deadlines are non-negotiable. Why? Because otherwise, it would lead to many complications. You have to remember that before integrating the banks, depending on the markets, we need to notify our clients about the planned action. This is strictly regulated, and very often with a specific time, how many days before the actual migration we need to announce it. There are points beyond which there’s no turning back, and the action simply has to take place.

TP: Mariusz, so where’s the next shopping trip?
MR: Will there be another shopping trip? Maybe we’ll leave our listeners with a bit of suspense? There will be an opportunity to meet with you again.

KB: Thank you very much for all the shopping advice. Well, now it’s time to run to the stores
TP: This was part two, now we invite you to part three – true or false. 

TP: True or false – the final part of our episode, where together with our guests, we’ll debunk or confirm the most commonly repeated stories. Today, we’ll challenge Mariusz, Klaudia, and Marcin with frequent myths and statements related to acquisitions. Let’s get started.
KB: Here are some myths and hits for you. After each one is read, we’ll ask you to first say whether you think it’s a hit or a myth and explain why.
KB: True or false? M&A transactions are secret until the very end.
KS: That’s a myth. Confidentiality is important to us at the beginning because we are working through and analyzing many things. We don’t want this information to spread on the market, so we give these projects strange names, like "Project Tomato" or "Tango." However, later on, when we’re sure the transaction will actually happen, we change our strategy and communicate widely within the bank.

KB: Wow, really?
TP: Sounds like James Bond. Is there a key to how you name these projects? Why "tomato"? Do you go for vegetables or fruits?
KS: It varies, it depends. I remember that in my previous professional life, our partner was very fond of music and always came up with project names related to it, like "Tango project," "Salsa," "Cha-cha." Sometimes they were more related to the theme, sometimes less, and sometimes they had nothing to do with it at all. There were times when we wondered why someone proposed a project name that seemed completely unsuitable. Often, we created our own story, trying to understand what the author meant.
KB: Could you ever share with us the project names that particularly stuck in your memory or that you found interesting from previous transactions?
KS: We can say that in one of the processes or projects, we gave the name "Moon" and had fun with the idea of going to the Moon. The names vary, and of course, there’s a reason for that. When we talk about it among ourselves, we wouldn’t want someone to overhear and immediately understand what it's about. If we used full names, it would probably be easier to decipher, but there’s a hidden necessity behind it. And then it becomes an open secret, because the entire bank knows that "Project Tomato" is about this and that bank since everyone is involved, so that information becomes public. Plus, there’s the need to officially release such information, and from that moment, it really becomes fully open.
TP: Time for the next statement. True or false? Integration projects are exciting.
MR: Hit. They are very exciting because they have a scale that's hard to achieve in any other IT project. They come with many challenges, but the satisfaction at the end, when customers log into our systems and see everything as it should be, is the reward for us after months of intensive work. The excitement is even greater then, because it’s simply the reward for our work. Yes, these are very interesting, very demanding projects, but definitely exciting.
KB: True or false? The customer doesn’t notice that a system integration has taken place.
KS: That’s a hit, or at least we’d like it to be by the end of the day. Indeed, all these migration trials, testing, improvements, optimizations, and the entire migration weekend are carried out with surgical precision to make sure everything works as it should. We want the customer on the other side to only receive a text message about technical downtime at specific hours, and then on Monday morning, they’ll be greeted by our bank with a note saying we hope everything is working. Our main goal is for the customer not to feel any discomfort related to everything we’re doing behind the scenes over the weekend.

TP: True or false? PMI employees are mainly technical specialists.
MM: That's a myth. I think it was already mentioned in the previous section, but we try to combine at least three core competencies. First, from a business perspective, we help our colleagues assess the attractiveness of the bank they intend to acquire. Then we add a strong technical aspect to identify all the differences, evaluate them, and prepare for implementation. The third and most important aspect, as my colleague’s statement probably showed, is the strong organizational and project management skills, which are our main characteristic.

KB: Thank you so much for all the advice and interesting insights. This episode was full of shopping inspiration, but in a slightly different dimension. We learned what M&A is. Our guests shared anecdotes, challenges, and their biggest successes in mergers and acquisitions projects, as well as why M&A is not only work but also an exciting adventure.
MR: Thank you very much for the invitation.
TP: Thank you to our guests – Mariusz, Klaudia, and Marcin – for sharing their knowledge and passion. And thank you, listeners, for being with us.
KB: See you in the next episode. Bye!