You work for Picard Surgels, a French food company specialized in distribution of frozen products. These products are sold exclusively with the Picard brand in their own stores. Picard Surgels has more than 1000 stores in 6 countries and sells about 1100 different products, all developed by the company and manufactured by a network of 160 suppliers. They launch around 200 new products per year.

Your boss, the CEO of the company, is thinking about entering the US market. She thinks that starting from scratch in US could be a challenge and is considering the alternative of making an acquisition offer for Trader Joe's, a company she has admired for a long time. She wants to know many details about the company before making a commitment. She has asked you to report on whether Trader Joe's would be a good target for Picard, and even if your report recommends against the acquisition, she would like to know how to manage the post-merger integration process in case they decide to go ahead with the acquisition.

(you don't need to do research on Picard - just assume they have a focus on selling high quality frozen food, with a product profile similar to TJ's; major differences are that they develop in house all the products they sell in their stores, they don't sell fresh items and the other elements of their value chain are more similar to a traditional food retailer).