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Organisation Mergers & Demergers

Organisational mergers or demergers are very complex.  We have the expertise and experience to make it a success.

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Bringing organisations together or breaking them apart

In today’s world, a common requirement for organisations and businesses is to do more with less, to become more efficient or to be more diverse, and a typical way to achieve this is through a merger. Conversely, a large business or organisation may sell or divest part of its operation, to increase profitability, increase efficiency or focus on core activities.

Whatever the reasons that organisations merge or demerge, there are typically a number of impacts on the IT services.

In the case of a merger, the IT-specific considerations include:

  • Consolidating systems, applications, data and identities from two organisations
  • Streamlining resources to reduce complexity and take advantage of economies of scale
  • Managing data and insights from both organisations
  • Assessing end-user impact and minimising disruption
  • Maintaining the requisite security protections during and after the merger
  • Communicating the changes in systems, processes and procedures
  • Maintaining business operations during the process
Business people agreeing a merger

In a demerger situation, the considerations could include:

  • Designing of a new target platform and operating model for the divested business
  • Managing physical infrastructure separation
  • Separating applications or building new application instances
  • Identifying, extracting or migrating data
  • Maintaining data and system integrity
  • Governance, access and security implications
  • Assessing end-user impact and minimising disruption
  • Communicating any changes in systems, processes and procedures
  • Maintaining business operations

Completing mergers or demergers successfully is essential to ensure continued organisation operations but the process is not simple. It requires a high degree of skill, strategic planning, proactive management and careful execution to ensure a successful outcome.

People holding jigsaw pieces depicting a company restructure

What’s involved in these projects?

Whether the project is a merger or demerger, the core process is essentially the same:

  • Identifying the scope of the project
  • Analysing the affected systems, applications, data, devices and identities
  • Mapping the current and target states for all included elements
  • Designing the target environment to meet the needs of the demerger or merger operating models
  • Designing the technical processes, tools and methods
  • Planning the approach to reduce, as far as possible, business and user impacts
  • Considering and managing licencing implications
  • Managing communications across the organisation(s)
  • Executing the technical project phases
  • Testing to validate and ensure the integrity of the systems, applications and data
  • Completing a user adoption or training programme to fully engage users (when necessary)
  • Managing the entire delivery from beginning to end
People planning an IT merger or demerger

Of course, while this appears relatively straightforward at a high level, the reality is that a merger or demerger is extremely complex, requiring a high degree of skill, strategic planning, proactive management and careful execution to ensure a successful outcome.

It is crucial, for example, to maintain organisation operations during the intermediate state as the project continues. It is also critical to maintain the integrity of data, application and user security.

By following a well-tested, meticulous approach, coupled with our extensive skills, deep experience and skilled project managers, we can ensure that the process is as seamless and effective as possible, with minimal user and organisation disruption.

Over the past 30+ years, we have helped many organisations and businesses merge or demerge their IT systems and services. During this time, our consultancy team has developed the skills, experience and methods that ensure our merger and demerger projects are completed successfully and with the minimum possible disruption to the organisations.

Contact us to discuss your merger or demerger project and find out how we can help you make it a success.

Interested in how we can help you?

If you have a project requirement or simply want to find out more about us and how we might be able to help you, fill in your details and one of our team will come back to you.

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Key merger and demerger scenarios

Users & Groups Applications Data Devices
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Maintaining identity integrity

At the very core of a merger or demerger are the user and group identities and, for most organisations, this means dealing with Active Directory and Azure Active Directory, and specifically migrating users from one directory to another.

Since these identities are linked to everything a user does , their migration must be managed carefully otherwise access to data may be lost, or there may be security implications.

We use the Quest On-Demand Migration platform to manage the migration activities since this provides key functionality and features to provide the most reliable and effective way to complete this critical activity.

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The right method for each application

When considering the applications in the project scope, every one will have different considerations and potentially require different methods.

As an example, a migration of user mailboxes between two Microsoft Exchange platforms (whether on-premises or Online) will require the Quest On-Demand Migration platform .

If the data is in SharePoint or Teams, this might need to be extracted and merged into another SharePoint platform, which can also be processed using the Quest platform, or can be supplemented by using a third-party tool such as Sharegate or even custom scripts.

Modern, software-as a service applications, which are linked to user and group identities, will need to be considered during mapping activities. In all cases, changes are necessary to ensure access and functionality is maintained.

Conversely, a migration of a third-party application may require a more manual approach of data extraction and import. There may also be a requirement to manipulate the data during the process and this may require custom scripts to be developed.

As part of the analysis stage of the project, we look at each of the in-scope applications, determine the options available to complete the required activity and plan the approach accordingly.

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Managing data migrations

If you have data stored in SharePoint Online, Teams, Planner, or on file servers this will need to be extracted and migrated to the target platform.

In many cases, the security of this data may be critical, so the process has to account for and manage this aspect. We always try to use a standard process and tools to meet with the needs of data migration which may include considering hybrid, cloud, or on-premises data workloads.

In all cases, the migration of data is dealt with in the most efficient, secure and effective way, retaining the existing security artifacts to ensure access to existing data is preserved.

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Keeping users connected

In most cases, unless brand new devices are deployed, there may be a requirement to manage the migration or transfer of devices as part of the project. These could be desktops and laptops or mobile devices and each will use different methods.

Modern working also plays into the migration of these workloads, as typically, it cannot be assumed that a device is office-located anymore and, instead any device needs to be considered internet- connected (be that at home or somewhere else).

This provides a challenge and needs to be considered alongside VPNs, passwordless logon methods and retention of user device personas. Again, because we have experience and knowledge of these areas, we have selected an appropriate tool and have developed robust processes.

Automation is used in all cases to ensure consistency. In some cases, modern device management practices and solutions, such as Windows Autopilot, will also be used as part of a wider automation process to link users and devices.

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