M&A Information Technology Best Practices

Chapter 10

Cloud Considerations for M&A IT Architecture

Mike Brown

Organizations in the midst of mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity will go through a rapid transformation, and post-merger synergies can be gained by consolidating and streamlining IT capabilities. Organizations that are evaluating how to address IT in a post-M&A environment should consider how cloud solutions can affect their architecture. This evaluation may include both assessing current cloud solutions that are in place and determining how cloud solutions can contribute to the target future state.

Used appropriately, cloud solutions can provide solutions that are more scalable and agile, and that enable innovation. They can also reduce the skills required internally and the time that internal resources need to spend on operational and administrative tasks. In addition, cloud computing can allow organizations going through post-M&A integration to redeploy IT resources toward value-added activities such as enabling business innovation.

Licensed applications that are installed and maintained in an enterprise's dedicated infrastructure may have a higher total cost of ownership than cloud-based applications or infrastructure used “as a service,” and may be more difficult and costly to adapt to changing business needs.

Understanding Cloud Solutions

For purposes of this discussion, cloud solutions are identified by the following:

• Vendor (external) clouds, either public clouds or virtual private clouds. Public cloud ...