Mergers and acquisitions can unlock significant synergies to reduce costs and streamline operations. Realizing these benefits requires meticulous planning and execution. How you manage the migration and consolidation of data, merging or replacing IT infrastructure, and making crucial decisions about your technology environment will determine success.
Done effectively, M&A technology integration will optimize workflow and create synergies. It can streamline operations while significantly reducing costs across the new enterprise.
This article will discuss how evaluating your current IT infrastructure and developing a robust IT integration strategy can produce significant benefits.
Understanding M&A IT Integration
A post from Ernst & Young Parthenon discusses how the synergies available in most mergers are strongly related to IT and IT spending. So, getting it right is paramount.
It takes a structured approach to M&A technology integration to realize the benefits. The process requires evaluating your current infrastructure and developing a solid IT integration strategy.
Evaluating Your Current IT Infrastructure
Start with a detailed assessment of the existing IT infrastructure and assets for both organizations, including:
- Network architecture
- Data center and cloud resources
- Applications and software
- Vendor licensing
- Endpoints
- User devices and equipment
You will also need to evaluate IT staff skill sets and responsibilities to determine how blending groups will work.
Developing an IT Integration Strategy
The infrastructure inventory will help guide your integration team as they develop a blueprint for managing IT M&A integration. There are plenty of high-level decisions that must be made — many will have a long-term impact. So, it’s important to delineate responsibilities and authority for decision-making.
The IT integration strategy will have to determine:
- Which system or platform will be used after the consolidation
- What infrastructure or architecture will be deployed
- What investments are needed to manage the IT consolidation
- What workflows need to change
- How will IT teams be integrated
Azure Virtual Desktop for Mergers & Acquisitions
With AVD, organizations can consolidate their IT environments, ensuring seamless access to applications and a smooth transition for all employees involved.
The Benefits of Consolidated IT Environments
Mergers and acquisitions require bringing together resources from companies that may be using different technologies, hardware and software, and cloud environments. Migrating to a consolidated IT environment provides several key benefits.
Streamlined IT Operations and Reduced Complexity
Consolidation eliminates redundancies and standardizes processes. Retiring duplicative systems produces a unified tech stack, streamlining operations.
Post-merger, it’s a good time to take a fresh look at everything you do. You’ll be going through a period of change anyway, so it may be the best time to consider whether there is a better architecture and infrastructure to move forward. Most legacy systems have been built and added to over time and may not be the most efficient use of resources, so a different infrastructure altogether may be a better long-term solution than either of the current entity systems.
Planning the optimal IT infrastructure to support current and future needs can significantly reduce complexity and streamline operations. With IT consolidation, you can also create a foundation that makes it easier to scale to meet changing business operations.
Enhanced Data Security, Governance, and Compliance
Consolidated IT environments will also have centralized security policies and tools. This reduces potential entry points for threat actors by ensuring uniform access controls are employed across all systems.
Protecting data and sensitive information must be prioritized in any post-merger process. It’s too easy to let data security lapse when consolidating systems due to existing tech sprawl. When you consider that the average enterprise is running as many as 135,000 endpoint devices and may not have visibility into all of them, consolidation only compounds the challenge.
However, standardizing processes and reducing complexity through IT consolidation can identify security gaps and mitigate them, providing enhanced security while maintaining data governance policies and regulatory compliance.
Improved IT Resource Utilization and Cost Savings
Improved IT resource utilization can reduce complexity while also eliminating costs. There can be significant savings from eliminating multiple duplicated resources to reduce IT overhead, including less hardware and software to license and maintain and reduced vendor costs.
Better resource utilization can also improve system performance, resulting in increased productivity and efficiency.
Many organizations find savings from migrating and modernizing systems, such as moving from on-premises data centers to a cloud solution, leveraging tools such as Microsoft’s modern workplace solutions or Azure Virtual Desktop to provide a secure remote desktop experience. Moving to cloud services reduces the reliance on legacy hardware while also enabling today’s remote and hybrid workforces.
Ensure a Successful M&A IT Integration for IT Consolidation
In any M&A deal, a successful IT integration is crucial to streamlining workflow. During an M&A technology integration and IT consolidation, you need expert guidance for a successful transition to reduce the complexity and risk. Yorktel specializes in providing communication and collaboration solutions for enterprises, offering a wide range of services and technologies.
Yorktel is a Microsoft-certified partner and creates custom solutions for M&A IT integration. Contact Yorktel today to discuss your IT M&A integration.