Post-Merger IT Consolidation: Using Visual Mapping to Harmonize Legacy UI Workflows

M&A activity often leaves IT departments holding a "Frankenstein’s Monster" of redundant software. When two billion-dollar entities merge, they don’t just inherit each other's customers; they inherit decades of undocumented technical debt, conflicting UI patterns, and siloed business logic. The traditional approach—manual audits followed by a multi-year rewrite—is a recipe for disaster.

According to Replay's analysis, 70% of legacy rewrites fail or exceed their timeline, often because the tribal knowledge required to understand the original system has long since left the building. In the context of M&A, this friction is amplified. You aren't just modernizing one system; you are trying to find common ground between two entirely different architectures.

This is where postmerger consolidation using visual mapping changes the game. By leveraging visual reverse engineering, enterprises can bypass the "black box" problem of legacy code and move straight to a unified, modern React-based architecture.

TL;DR: Post-merger IT consolidation often fails due to a lack of documentation (67% of systems) and the sheer volume of technical debt ($3.6 trillion globally). Replay solves this by using visual reverse engineering to record legacy workflows and automatically generate documented React components and design systems. This reduces the average screen modernization time from 40 hours to just 4 hours, slashing consolidation timelines from years to weeks.

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The High Cost of Redundant Legacy Workflows#

When Company A acquires Company B, they often find themselves supporting two different ERPs, three different CRM overlays, and a dozen proprietary internal tools that perform identical functions. The maintenance overhead is staggering.

Industry experts recommend that the first 90 days of a merger should focus on "UI Harmonization"—the process of creating a single pane of glass for employees and customers. However, manual documentation is a bottleneck.

Visual Reverse Engineering is the process of recording real user interactions within legacy applications and using AI-driven analysis to extract UI components, state logic, and business workflows into modern code.

By utilizing Replay, architects can visualize the "as-is" state of both organizations without needing access to the original source code, which is often lost, obfuscated, or written in defunct languages like COBOL or PowerBuilder.

The Documentation Gap#

A staggering 67% of legacy systems lack documentation. In an M&A scenario, the developers who built the system at the acquired company might not be part of the transition team. This leaves the parent company guessing at the business logic hidden behind buttons and forms.

Postmerger consolidation using visual mapping allows you to create a "living blueprint" of these systems. Instead of reading thousands of lines of legacy code, you record the workflow. Replay then translates that recording into a structured Component Library and Flow map.

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Step 1: Auditing the "As-Is" State with Visual Mapping#

The first step in postmerger consolidation using visual workflows is to inventory what you actually have. You cannot consolidate what you don't understand.

Record Everything#

Instead of interviews and surveys, have subject matter experts (SMEs) from both companies record their daily workflows using Replay. This captures the "happy path" and the edge cases that are rarely documented.

Identify Redundancies#

By comparing the "Flows" generated by Replay, architects can see where Company A’s "Process Invoice" workflow differs from Company B’s. Often, the underlying logic is 90% identical, but the UI makes them appear worlds apart.

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Step 2: Extracting a Unified Design System#

One of the biggest challenges in postmerger consolidation using visual strategies is the visual "clash" of brands. You need a unified Design System that works for both sets of users.

Replay’s Library feature automatically extracts design tokens—colors, spacing, typography, and component structures—from the recorded sessions. Even if the legacy systems are built in different eras (e.g., a 1990s mainframe vs. a 2010s jQuery app), Replay identifies the functional components (buttons, inputs, modals) and maps them to a standardized React library.

Example: Mapping Legacy State to React#

When consolidating, you often need to bridge the gap between how a legacy system handles form state and how a modern React app should. Replay generates the functional logic required to maintain parity during the transition.

typescript
// Example of a generated React component from a Replay blueprint
// This component harmonizes a legacy 'Customer Search' from two different systems

import React, { useState, useEffect } from 'react';
import { Button, Input, Table, Card } from '@acme-corp/design-system';

interface SearchProps {
  onResultSelect: (id: string) => void;
  initialQuery?: string;
}

export const HarmonizedCustomerSearch: React.FC<SearchProps> = ({ 
  onResultSelect, 
  initialQuery = "" 
}) => {
  const [query, setQuery] = useState(initialQuery);
  const [results, setResults] = useState([]);
  const [loading, setLoading] = useState(false);

  // Replay identified this logic from Company B's legacy 'Search_Proc' 
  // and Company A's 'QueryClient'
  const handleSearch = async () => {
    setLoading(true);
    try {
      const response = await fetch(`/api/v1/customers?q=${query}`);
      const data = await response.json();
      setResults(data);
    } catch (error) {
      console.error("Consolidation Error: API Mismatch", error);
    } finally {
      setLoading(false);
    }
  };

  return (
    <Card title="Unified Customer Search">
      <div className="flex gap-4 mb-4">
        <Input 
          value={query} 
          onChange={(e) => setQuery(e.target.value)}
          placeholder="Enter Customer Name or ID..."
        />
        <Button onClick={handleSearch} loading={loading}>
          Search
        </Button>
      </div>
      <Table 
        data={results} 
        columns={['ID', 'Name', 'Status', 'Region']}
        onRowClick={(row) => onResultSelect(row.id)}
      />
    </Card>
  );
};

By using Replay's Blueprints, your team doesn't start with a blank screen. They start with a functional React component that already mirrors the business requirements of the legacy system.

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Step 3: Harmonizing Workflows with Visual Flows#

In postmerger consolidation using visual mapping, the "Flow" is more important than the individual screen. A flow represents a complete business process—like onboarding a new employee or processing a claim.

Legacy systems are often "chatty," requiring users to click through 10-15 screens to complete a task. During consolidation, you have the opportunity to optimize.

Flow Mapping is the visualization of the sequence of screens and state changes a user navigates to complete a business objective.

According to Replay's analysis, enterprise users spend 30% of their time navigating unnecessary UI hurdles in legacy software. When you map these flows visually, you can identify:

1. •Redundant Steps: Steps that exist only because of old database limitations.
2. •Data Gaps: Information required in System A that isn't captured in System B.
3. •Integration Points: Where the UI needs to talk to new, consolidated APIs.

Learn more about mapping legacy flows to see how visual documentation speeds up the transition to microservices.

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Step 4: Building the Bridge (The Hybrid Phase)#

You cannot flip a switch and turn off all legacy systems on day one. Postmerger consolidation using visual tools allows for a "Strangler Fig" approach. You can build the new, unified UI in React and have it communicate with the legacy backends of both companies simultaneously.

Replay helps here by providing the "Blueprints"—the architectural map of how the UI interacts with the data.

Code Block: Unified API Wrapper#

This TypeScript example shows how to create a service that bridges two different legacy backends, a common requirement in post-merger scenarios.

typescript
// Service layer generated to bridge Company A (REST) and Company B (SOAP/XML)
// Based on Replay's visual analysis of data requirements

export interface CustomerData {
  id: string;
  fullName: string;
  loyaltyTier: 'Gold' | 'Silver' | 'Bronze';
  lastPurchase: string;
}

export class ConsolidatedCustomerService {
  private static instance: ConsolidatedCustomerService;
  
  public async getCustomerRecord(id: string, source: 'CompanyA' | 'CompanyB'): Promise<CustomerData> {
    if (source === 'CompanyA') {
      const res = await fetch(`https://api.companya.com/v2/cust/${id}`);
      const data = await res.json();
      return {
        id: data.uuid,
        fullName: `${data.firstName} ${data.lastName}`,
        loyaltyTier: data.tier,
        lastPurchase: data.updatedAt
      };
    } else {
      // Legacy Company B uses a different structure identified by Replay
      const res = await fetch(`https://legacy.companyb.com/services/customer?id=${id}`);
      const data = await res.json();
      return {
        id: data.CUST_ID,
        fullName: data.DISPLAY_NAME,
        loyaltyTier: this.mapLegacyTier(data.RANK),
        lastPurchase: data.LAST_ACTION_DATE
      };
    }
  }

  private mapLegacyTier(rank: number): 'Gold' | 'Silver' | 'Bronze' {
    if (rank > 90) return 'Gold';
    if (rank > 50) return 'Silver';
    return 'Bronze';
  }
}

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Overcoming the "18-Month" Barrier#

The average enterprise rewrite takes 18 months. In the world of M&A, 18 months is an eternity. By the time the rewrite is finished, the market has moved, or another merger has occurred.

By using postmerger consolidation using visual techniques, you can cut that timeline by 70%. Instead of spending the first six months in "Discovery," you spend two weeks in "Recording." The AI Automation Suite in Replay handles the heavy lifting of component creation, leaving your senior architects free to focus on the high-level integration strategy.

Visual Mapping for Regulated Industries#

For those in Financial Services or Healthcare, the stakes are higher. You cannot afford to lose a single validation rule during consolidation. Replay is built for these environments—SOC2 and HIPAA-ready, with On-Premise options. When you use visual mapping, you create an audit trail of exactly how the legacy system functioned, ensuring that the new React application maintains 100% functional parity.

Modernizing Financial Services Legacy Systems provides a deeper dive into how visual reverse engineering meets compliance standards.

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The Role of AI in Post-Merger Harmonization#

We are currently facing a $3.6 trillion global technical debt crisis. Much of this is locked in "zombie" applications inherited through M&A. AI is the only way to scale the modernization effort.

Replay's AI doesn't just copy code; it understands intent. When it sees a user interacting with a grid in a 20-year-old Delphi app, it recognizes that as a "Data Table" with "Sorting" and "Filtering" capabilities. It then generates a modern, accessible React component that performs those same functions but uses modern best practices like hooks and functional components.

Postmerger consolidation using visual intelligence means you aren't just moving the mess to a new house; you are cleaning it as you go.

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Summary of the Replay Workflow for M&A#

1. •Record: SMEs record their workflows in both legacy systems.
2. •Extract: Replay extracts the Design System (Library) and the Business Logic (Flows).
3. •Map: Architects use Blueprints to decide which features to keep, merge, or discard.
4. •Generate: Replay's AI Automation Suite generates the React code for the unified interface.
5. •Deploy: The new application is deployed in weeks, not years, saving millions in maintenance costs.

By focusing on the visual layer, you bypass the complexity of the underlying legacy code. This is the fastest path to IT harmony.

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Frequently Asked Questions#

How does postmerger consolidation using visual mapping differ from traditional ETL?#

Traditional ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) focuses purely on the data layer. While data migration is crucial, it doesn't solve the user experience or business logic problem. Postmerger consolidation using visual mapping focuses on the "User Layer"—how people actually interact with the data. It ensures that the front-end workflows are harmonized, which is where the majority of employee productivity is lost during a merger.

Can Replay handle mainframe or "green screen" applications?#

Yes. Because Replay uses visual reverse engineering, it doesn't matter if the underlying technology is a 40-year-old mainframe or a 10-year-old Java app. If it can be displayed on a screen and recorded, Replay can analyze the workflows, extract the patterns, and help you map them to modern React components. This makes it ideal for the diverse tech stacks found in insurance and government M&A.

What happens to the business logic that isn't visible on the screen?#

While Replay excels at visual reverse engineering, it also captures the interactions between the UI and the API/Backend. By analyzing the network calls and state changes that occur during a recording, Replay can document the "hidden" logic. This provides a comprehensive blueprint for developers to follow when building the new consolidated services.

Is it possible to use Replay for only a portion of the consolidation?#

Absolutely. Many enterprises use Replay for their most critical or complex workflows first. For example, you might use postmerger consolidation using visual mapping to harmonize the "Customer Service Portal" while leaving the back-office accounting systems for a later phase. Replay is designed to be incremental, allowing for 70% time savings on a per-screen or per-flow basis.

How does this approach reduce the risk of the 70% failure rate?#

Most legacy rewrites fail because of "Scope Creep" and "Lost Requirements." When you don't have documentation, you spend months trying to figure out what the system does. Replay provides an instant, accurate source of truth. By seeing the workflow visually, stakeholders can agree on the "To-Be" state much faster, and developers have a clear, code-based blueprint to follow, eliminating the guesswork that leads to project failure.

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Ready to modernize without rewriting from scratch? Book a pilot with Replay and see how you can consolidate your legacy systems in weeks, not years.