How to Successfully Navigate IT Integration for Mergers and Acquisitions
There are many caveats to any successful merger or acquisition. One critically important facet is IT integration which is required to connect unique servicedesk clients, legacy systems, support centres and various workflows. As a captain of IT processes, it is your job to navigate your newly merged company through the sea of IT.
Many M&As fail in their implementation of IT integration because too many changes are deployed too quickly and a newly annexed organization doesn’t have a chance to keep up. Worse than that, IT integration may not be considered at all which fails to realize synergies which will ultimately lead to fragmented communication. In either case, a newly merged organization that does not first consider IT integration stands the very real possibility of destroying value rather than creating it.
This doesn’t have to be a problem though and once you map a clear process for IT communication, you can worry about more of the fun stuff that go along with M&As.
We came across two good articles which touch on the subject of IT integration for effective M&A’s. They both do a great job talking about the methodology and why it’s important from a cultural perspective. We would just like to build on understanding gained here and introduce the central hub approach in order to hasten the pace of a quality IT merger.
- Seamless IT Integration for Mergers and Acquisitions
- The Impact of Culture on Mergers and Acquisitions
STEP 1: Create Assessment
Take an IT inventory in order to identify assets, legacy applications that require upgrade and redundancies to plan for phase out. The first article made a great that this assessment should be bi-directional in nature, meaning that you should be open to the idea that the organization you are merging or acquiring may be using best practice.
Organization A and Organization B have unique ITSM tools and processes.
STEP 2: Create a Single Point Of Contact (SPOC)
The easiest and quickest way to integrate IT processes, including all the unique supporting tools across both organizations, is to establish a Single Point of Contact (SPOC) through which all IT information will flow. This enables Organization AB to begin sharing information immediately even though they are still using unique service tools and processes. The added benefit of this that with a SPOC, your newly merged organization will can automatically connect to your external partners and end users to begin sharing valuable IT assets that would have been otherwise underutilized during a lengthy IT transformation project. The SPOC enables the newly merged organization to share common processes while tweaks and upgrades are being done in the background.
Organization AB still have unique ITSM tools and processes but now share information through a SPOC.
STEP 3: Phase in New IT Systems
After you’ve established your single point on contact, you can now begin to export the changes on your wish list according to your assessment. At this point employees should understand the common processes and this should seem like a natural upgrade to fine-tune the machine.
IT integration for Mergers and Acquisitions doesn’t have to be arduous process so long as all IT Staff and End Users know where and how to communicate. After all, navigating with a compass in the sea of IT makes sense for a successful merger.
