Reviewing IT in Due Diligence: Are you buying an IT asset or liability?

CHAPTER 3: SYSTEMS REVIEWS

Overview

We now understand what IT due diligence is and why it is important. Here we discuss how we actually plan and undertake these reviews. Our initial focus is on reviewing systems. Systems are defined as the IT infrastructure, hardware, middleware and software required to support the key business processes. We should remember that IT is an enabler; it is not a business process in its own right but facilitates such processes. Consequently it is very rare that IT due diligence is carried out independently of financial due diligence, so we should plan to work as an integrated team. It is likely that the business being acquired or sold has already worked with the financial due diligence team to identify the key business ...