M&A Information Technology Best Practices

Chapter 21

Planning for Business Process Changes Impacting Information Technology

Blair Kin

The impact on people working in organizations that merge is a well-documented topic and often a clear indicator for the success or failure of the future combined organization. In this chapter, we do not focus on the affected employee group as a whole, but specifically on how information technology (IT) changes impact people throughout the organization and the importance of planning each step of the technical integration of the two organizations while keeping in mind the resource skill sets needed to implement the change successfully.

Personnel changes at all levels have an impact on the IT landscape. Systems need to be converted and converged into future-state business processes that will support the organization's ongoing needs. Leadership changes at the top will create new priorities and business requirements that will need to be addressed by the IT systems. Changes in the organization's IT support, shared service centers, or operations will also impact how these changes are implemented and adopted. The success of these changes can have a lasting impact on the new organization's ability to achieve the predefined benefits of the merger.

Pre-Day 1 Planning

The leadership team faces a number of critical early decisions that will set the future direction of the combined organization's IT systems. It may seem obvious, but one of the first major decisions is determining who the leadership team ...