Intro

In the last decade, organizations are transforming themselves more rapidly and in greater numbers than ever. Main reasons are:

  • (Re)Focusing on new product and/or customer portfolio;

  • Re-evaluation of capital investment needed in certain product/market combinations;

  • Focusing on core business processes and markets.

As a result, the number of mergers, acquisitions and disentanglements is significantly growing.

Examples of this are the split between Philips Health-Tech and Lighting, Ahold merging with Delhaize, the merger between NXP and Freescale Semiconductor followed by the disentanglement of NXP’s RF Power and standard products portfolio to external investors.

The effects of such a transformation is felt throughout the whole organization. Departments as Legal, Fiscal, Finance, Sales, Supply Chain and HR are impacted and involved in the transformation process.

IT impact

Any organizational change also implies you will have to make changes to the IT application landscape and the IT organization. Changes in the organizational set-up as a result of changing legal structures, leading to changing financial and logistical flows, its associated master data and integration is part of it. Discussions on IT support organizational structures and partners is the last part of this endeavor.

Application Landscape:
Is your application stack capable of swiftly integrating/separating organizational structures, product portfolios and/or business processes. Can your landscape embrace change?

Organizational setup: The transformation team needs to consist of people from IT and Business, representing both the as-is as well as the to-be organization, who will guide the project towards the end state, this team must have specific knowledge on:

  • Legal/Fiscal guidelines and boundaries to be respected.

  • Current application setup, infrastructure and basic guidelines related to the future business setup of the company.

  • Migration process and tools to support the change within the IT application stack. Tools like SAP-SLO, EPI-USE Labs DSM and others.

  • A specific skill-set is needed to drive such a complex project forward: next to the obvious and extensive application knowledge, they must be stress resisted and able to think outside-the-box. Does this skill-set exists within your organization?

This knowledge is vital in ensuring that any changes made in your transactional systems will result in a smooth transition with minimal business impact.

IT Support Organization:
Is your IT organization fit to support such a program with its fixed deadline, huge pressure/visibility and rapidly changing environment and priorities? And can they manage it on top of the daily operational IT support responsibilities? Outsourcing partners and applicable service level agreements usually do not take such project requirements into consideration. Clear communication towards IT partners is critical for such a project.

McCoy & Partners

At McCoy & Partners we have an experienced team of consultants in the area of Merger, acquisitions and disentanglements. We understand the Fiscal/Legal, financial and logistical process implications as well as the product portfolio adaptations. With our landscape transformation and migration knowledge and tools we have proven to add value in simplifying the migration process (both from the mother as the child) and have hands-on experience in supporting the companies in this endeavor.

Want to know more? Please contact us at https://mccoy-partners.com/#contact