A successful IT integration strategy is reliant upon an experienced team specializing in complex user migration
By Owen Grohman, Director of Services
Facing the complexity of managing a user migration as a result of a corporate acquisition or healthcare merger can be overwhelming for even the most experienced technology team. IT professionals get new responsibilities piled on all year – and then the news breaks corporate acquired a company and guess who gets to integrate its users and technology?
The challenge: Not only does this new project pile on top of 200 open trouble tickets and 43 pending projects, it’s extremely high visibility for your entire team. If a user in one of NewCo’s offices doesn’t have email for half a day, the CEO will probably hear about it.
That’s why these projects have to happen FAST.
It’s that need for speed that has led to our clients reaching out to us at an increasing rate to help manage these complex IT transitions. In some cases, we stepped in after they (initially) tried to navigate the process themselves, but struggled, or in some cases, failed to integrate the new infrastructure effectively, resulting in a negative impact on early merger economics.
Regardless of where your organization may be in the M&A process, I’d like to spell out how Worldwide Supply can help mitigate the task you’re facing and partner with you to assure a fluid and successful network integration.
IT Merger and Acquisition Goals
Worldwide Supply’s experienced technology integration teams are on standby to deploy immediately to any global location/s to assess, implement and troubleshoot every facet of the user migration.
Additionally, Worldwide Supply is uniquely positioned to support the time-sensitivity of these projects, as the leading secondary market supplier of networking equipment. We stock thousands of the items needed to upgrade or augment acquired networks, ensuring that hardware lead time does not delay integration.
From our experience, the affected IT department has four important objectives during the M&A process:
- Minimize technology disruption to all stakeholders: customers, employees, vendors.
- Plan and implement efficient synergies between the two companies, regardless of variable IT processes.
- Remain active throughout the IT changeover to troubleshoot and refine the system during a full business operations cycle.
- Ensure a continuum of high quality integrated network maintenance and repair services.
Worldwide Supply’s outstanding team of Project Managers, Network Engineers and Field Technicians ensures these objectives are met.
IT Merger Scope of Work Example
I’ve outlined the framework of a recent M&A project Worldwide Supply implemented for one of our multi-site, global healthcare customers. When all was said and done, the client offered this review:
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“Awesome job Worldwide Supply…thanks for jumping through hoops on short notice.”
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Our implementation strategy:
- Backup Assessment & Environment Assessment
Perform a complete review of the company’s existing server backup solution including:
- What data is currently being backed-up?
- Type of backup (full, incremental; backup to disk vs. tape, off-site storage; including frequency)
- Identify any data / servers excluded from the backups
- Ensure all databases are properly dumped and backed up
- Confirm data can be restored
- Identify limitations with the system / process today
- Troubleshoot any potential gaps / issues that could cause loss Migration
- SITE VPN setup; Firewall Install; site re-IP
- Migrate to Palo Alto Firewalls and Migrate Servers into the (acquirer) domain. Provide additional troubleshooting service post-migration
- Configuration of Desktop/Laptop devices:
- Reconfigure pre-installed Outlook clients to point to Office 365
- Reposition existing mail data as an additional mailbox in Outlook client
- Migrate users & computers to (acquirer) Active Directory
- Install/Verify Microsoft System Center Configuration Manager Client
- Install/Verify Anti-Virus software
- Install/Test VPN client software for relevant users
Obviously, every M&A IT migration is unique and we customize a protocol to meet the user goals of every client. We would be happy to discuss other industry-specific, IT best practice merger and acquisition protocols we have managed.
No Margin for Error in IT Company Mergers
Merger and acquisition IT requires a substantial breadth of expertise, speed and accuracy all supported by a consistent communication system to all affected, internally and externally.
The M&A team at Worldwide Supply optimizes outcomes by leveraging:
- Our deep and broad engineering and technical expertise
- Outstanding global technology relationships
- Team availability for immediate site deployment
- Direct access to cost-effective secondary new and refurbished hardware
Feel free to reach out to us to talk about your merger situation and we’ll be happy to explain how we can help.
Call The Worldwide Supply team at (973) 250-4960 or email us at services@worldwidesupply.net to discuss your upcoming IT integration needs.