IT due diligence in mergers, acquisitions and investment opportunities

Whether you are investing in a new business, or looking to merge organisations, there is a natural wish to rationalise resources to optimise performance across all sectors of the enterprise. While for many core functions this can be fairly straightforward, evaluating IT systems, networks and functions is a complex and challenging task.

Even if the merging businesses have the skill set and competency required to make accurate value judgements, naturally vested interests can conflict with objective appraisal. Yet where continuity of both businesses is paramount, these are not decisions to be taken lightly. Most critically, IT issues must not be allowed to become the single point of failure conflicting with merger value realisation.

That is why many businesses are outsourcing their IT due diligence to ramsac, and why ramsac is building an extensive track record in the analysis, comparison and rationalisation of differing IT functions and IT personnel.

In any merger or investment situation, it is vital to assess how quickly, efficiently and cost effectively two businesses can merge or indeed whether any interested party has sufficient detail to make an informed decision on an investment. ramsac uses its wealth of IT audit expertise to deliver a comprehensive and confidential report providing detailed information on all of these major factors to enable a decision to be made.

Understanding exactly the legacy situation on both sides of the equation, and interpreting what best to keep and best to lose, is a ramsac speciality:

• IT systems audits for both businesses to determine likely fit
• IT hardware and software audits
• Licensing audits
• Audit of IT staffing, skills and roles
• Current IT strategy analysis
• Planning for best fit IT value realisation
• Audit of ongoing costs, commitments and third party obligations

Taken together this adds up to sound independent professional counsel and due diligence, enabling business leaders to best realise the synergies available from the M&A process. We can also advise on change management strategies and IT HR strategies for the newly aligned enterprise.