Audience Maps in a merger or acquisition environment

[claudia_mandelli]

Understanding the structure of the organization, which departments or groups are going to be impacted by an IT implementation, may be a very simple step in consolidated organizations. When the organization is in a more fluid state, for example after a merger or an acquisition, this step can be very challenging.

Any suggestions or best practices?

[Former Member · Accepted solution]

Hi Claudia,

Hope the resource below would be of some help for the topic:

<a href="http://www.ndsweb.com/solutions/solutions_mai_best_practices.shtml">Mergers & Acquisition Integration - Best Practices & Key Characteristics</a>

Best regards,

Tarun

[Former Member]

Very Interesting question. Situation can be very challenging but it offers a lot of opportunities to improve not only from business point of view but also from IT point of view.

From IT point of view, I will like to kee it simple. So I will just pick up the value chain of the organization and map all the applications for both organizations and then rationalize in terms of what to keep as standard and what to retire and what to merge.

For example: Simple value chain for manufacturing company

Supplier > Manufacturere-->Distributors--

---

>Customers.

Now, find out all the application which are getting used at various points. This will give a clear overlap and offering good opportunity to optimize and bring savings to the organization. This exercise will create a whole portfolio of projects with varying degree of benefits. Some will be software related and some will be process related( Like centralization of finance processes under shared service model).

[Former Member]

The best way to start is Business-IT alignment.

Here we define the business drivers that trigger the IT implementation.

The business driver can be a new process,change in the existing process.This triggers a change in the business working and the orgn.Structure.

Business Re Engineering ( BPR )helps to weed out redundant,obsolete process.The dependant depts that are identifiable with this are the ones that need significant overhaul.

A good "Organization structure" renders the reporting structure very transparent.This read with the BPR tells us the change in the resource, its pattern etc.

A good change management system tells what will change,how and when this change will take place and fundamentally why this change at all! This helps avoiding surprises while implementing IT.

An excercise on the conflict management, culture and its impact helps us with an understanding of the orgnl.artifact.

The above should be understood and adequately addressed to before the IT implementation.

Hope this helps.

Regards.

Ramesh

[Former Member]

Timeline and size is the critical factor for post M&A IT implementation.

If the implementation is say a year from the M&A then for a medium sized Organization the implementation shouldnt be much different. As per the 100 day plan departments would have been integrated. Though OCM would have a major role in reducing friction.

In an ideal scenario the OCM team engaged in the M&A should handle implementation as well; as they would be in a better position to relate and point out key stakeholders apart from having the buy in of all those involved.

If the above scenario doesnt materialize as is the case today then i would suggest starting with listing each department which would have got impacted as a result of the implementation in both the companies.

Then draw the departments which have been merged, scrapped or downsized. Also list down those departments which may be working independently and then assess if the implementation will have any impact on them.

Regards,

Roshik