Question 1

How does due diligence matter to IT professionals during the mergers and acquisitions process?

Accepted Answer

It assists in detecting any unknown technological risks before integration takes place by due diligence. Risks may include legacy system risks, security risks, duplication of software, non-compliance risks, and migration risks, which may lead to increased costs or an extended process. It also assists in good planning and ensures that there is no downtime in the process, thus resulting in a secure, compliant, and efficient technology integration after a merger.

Question 2

What best practices should IT professionals follow during the process of due diligence in M&A?

Accepted Answer

IT professionals should carry out due diligence at an early stage in the acquisition process, involve other departments such as security, compliance, and infrastructure in due diligence, and conduct thorough IT assets inventory. IT professionals should ensure standardization of identities, review user permissions, eliminate duplications, validate disaster recovery and backup, and pilot testing before production migration. Good communication between IT and business professionals will help make good decisions in the process.

Question 3

What are some of the potential pitfalls or challenges in the M&A process for IT leaders?

Accepted Answer

Some of the most common challenges are: lack of IT documentation, legacy systems, identity, duplication of SaaS applications, bad quality of data, security policy compatibility, compliance, and underestimating the difficulty of migration. There can be issues with third-party integrations and even inactive users and extra permissions, which make the company more vulnerable to security and operational risks.

Question 4

What are the key steps that IT leaders should take after doing due diligence in M&A?

Accepted Answer

After the completion of the due diligence process, it is essential to prioritize the risks identified, develop an integration strategy, set the schedule for the migrations, allocate resources, and inform all the parties of the migration process. Doing pilot migrations, testing the security and monitoring of the migration process, and its results are also vital steps.

Question 5

Which are the important things to look into for the IT infrastructure due diligence process in a merger?

Accepted Answer

The important things to be looked into are servers, cloud infrastructure, Microsoft 365/Google Workspace, network, storage, identity, backup and disaster recovery, endpoint management, collaboration, databases, and critical applications.

Question 6

What are the important IT risks that need to be analyzed by IT departments during M&A due diligence?

Accepted Answer

The important risks to be analyzed by the IT department during M&A are cybersecurity risks, compliance risks, identity management issues, outdated infrastructure, unsupported applications, duplicate software, poor data quality, inadequate backup policy, vendor licensing problems, and migration readiness.

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