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Write about CIO during mergers and acquisitions.
With the merging of Zanzibar with Maxonparts Solutions, the companies need to improve their ability to assess and to integrate successfully. The role of information technology cannot be ignored in the merger integration. The companies need to balance the resources into three groups, and each group should work further on eliminating risks and for benefitting the whole organization.
Must ensure that the usual operations are going on swiftly even during the integration process.
Both IT departments must be combined so as to reduce the cost and to recognize other synergies. The cost reduction pegged for the integration of the companies’ IT department would be helpful for other departments. At the same time, the merging entities like the software, hardware, systems, staffs, etc. must also be combined.
IT support should be provided for integration of business and establishing a stable architecture for a long-term basis and for providing support to other functions like HR, finance, operations.
For ensuring that the IT department understands the functional and operational requirements of the entire organization, a point of contact has to be assigned to both business team members. The comprehensive list of objectives given to both the business lines should be generated where priorities must be given to risks, IT resources available to both businesses and the potential savings. The most immediate priorities of IT that should be integrated must be:
Financial reporting systems in order to reduce the risk of missing significant reporting deadlines.
Field use systems
Corporate architecture from both the companies, which required workers of both of the IT departments along with their complementary skill sets.
All the IT resources from both sides have to be understood. Zanzibar and Maxonparts Solutions can retain their older systems. A comprehensive understanding of both the IT resources has to be done for fitting the entities together. A proper plan for rationalizing the resources and to eliminate the redundancies in both the department. Things to be analyzed include:
Hardware, software, and network systems
Enterprise platforms
Corporate programs for specific lines of business, products, services, and vendor platforms.
The hardware of both companies can be retained as they can be used extensively in both the corporate platforms without much issues. As the companies contain HP; Windows XP, Windows 7 and Dell hardware systems. The companies should not have any problems while working on these systems. Hence, the cost can be saved in this department and can be used in some other department. The outsourcing mode for the payroll can be switched to ADP as it is better than Paychex and hence would be better in handling the payrolls and financial calculations and measurements carefully. The technology team from both the companies would be benefitted and their corporate function of finance would be rationalized without many problems. Customer retention must be, and the acquisition along with the expansion of the market should be considered thoroughly.
The phased operation must be used in the organization as it works in various phases or stages. It involves implementing new systems in the modules or stages. This can also be defined as the combination of direct cutover as well as the parallel approach and is somewhat similar to the pilot operation. Therefore, the entire system should be provided only to a few users, and instead, a part of the system is given to all the users. This way the risk of errors as well as the failures is quite limited to the implemented module. Further, the phased approach would be less expensive as compared to a full parallel or full direct over the operation. This way the security and privacy issues would be safe with the organization. Whereas the direct cutover is a slightly costly strategy and further includes the high danger of information misfortune. With the direct cutover strategy, the organization can't return to the old framework as a reinforcement alternative. Direct cutover includes more dangers of aggregate framework disappointment, and if there is a framework disappointment in wellbeing focus then it will be hard to store data of workers, and this will bring about uncalled for the capacity of information.
Further, the merger of the companies should have distributed computing. The use of a distributed system will solve an enormous solitary enormous problem by breaking it down into various other several tasks. Wherein, each assignment will be computed in the separate computers of the distributed system. A distributed system would be consisting of more than one self -directed system that would communicate through the whole network. All the computers, by making use of their local memory, would be connected to a network where they can communicate with each other to attain a mutual objective. On the other hand, when the different users of a computer, will encounter different requirements then the distributed systems would be able to tackle the coordination of the shared resources by assisting them to interconnect with other nodes for achieving their separate tasks.
While to any normal user, this distributed computing systems would appear as a solitary system where internally distributed systems are interconnected to the various nodes for performing the selected computing tasks. The reasons for switching over to distributed systems is:
1) Distributed registering frameworks give a superior value/execution proportion when contrasted with an incorporated PC because include microchips are more monetary than centralized servers.
2) Distributed Computing Systems have more computational force than brought together (centralized computer) processing frameworks. Circulated Computing Systems give incremental development with the goal that associations can include programming and calculation power in augmentations as and when business needs
Given that IT assets are liable to be extended slender amid merger mix, innovation pioneers must take a methodical way to deal with the guarantee that these assets get conveyed in the best way. When IT is circled into the procedure of integration arranging at an early stage, it can work in conjunction with business groups to choose how best to organize ventures
These needs ought to be considered
Business sway, including administrative consistency, hazard administration, and conceivable legitimization of administrations or product offerings
Ease of execution, including specialized unpredictability, asset requests (both faculty and equipment), and the extent to which certain activities are related with others
Expected business advantage, including potential cost reserve funds and development in income and/or piece of the overall industry.
Once the organization has recognized joining needs for both the IT division and the new corporate structure, they can make an interpretation of this rundown into a guide, including sub-ventures, nitty gritty courses of events, and alternate courses of action. The guide will probably reveal covers over the organized activities and keyholes in the IT abilities expected to do them. A strong guide ought to incorporate an arrangement to address those uneven characters. Moreover, it ought to incorporate key conditions and achievement variables for every stride. A nitty gritty usage arrangement requires beating a few difficulties. To begin with, IT divisions must adjust numerous sorts of activities and activities from the three essential targets talked about before: proceeding with the same old thing operations to keep up solidness amid coordination; justifying IT applications, foundation, and staffing assets of the consolidated element; and supporting business extends that oblige changes in accordance with IT stages. Second, these divisions must distinguish and address sequencing issues. A few activities might have related interdependencies that command a particular request of execution. The usage guide ought to be redesigned to incorporate these booking
At long last, once applications and design were effectively joined, the IT office itself could be incorporated, which included staff justifications. This procedure brought about a postponement in accomplishing a few collaborations in the IT division. However, it caught far more noteworthy early cooperative energies for the association all in all. At last, the organization recognized noteworthy extra chances to defend assets, caught the best practices and ability from both associations, and executed the new operational capacities it looked for. Maybe most essential, it additionally surpassed its objective for general cost decreases