Tips to Achieve Technology Synergies Post-Restructure

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Evaluating technology strategies post-restructure is a daunting task. Whether you’re integrating a new acquisition or carving out a business segment, the decisions you make in the planning phase are critical to your execution’s success. Bridgepoint Consulting has seen firsthand that a few essential practices result in an optimized ability to sustain ongoing business while executing a post-restructure technology strategy to support future growth.

Keys to Success

1. Managing Your Scope

Consider the benefits of adopting a phased approach to technology integration. Define the short term “must have’s” that will sustain business momentum and long-term objectives to optimize operations. For example, you may have a long-term goal to sunset a new acquisition’s current systems, but you recognize their homegrown billing system is not consistent with the core business. In the interest of business continuity, a phased approach to integrating some processes (e.g., procure-to-pay and record-to-report) will allow ample time to design a cohesive billing process.

2. Optimize Your Architecture

Assess technology redundancies, evaluate available products, and develop a technology architecture that is the best fit for your business. In a carve-out, we frequently see that some core business systems are minimally leveraged by the carve-out business unit or vice versa. The need for specific third-party tools to support processes such as budgeting or vendor payments can be replaced with simplified native functionality of an ERP for one or both business units. Don’t assume requirements remain constant in a post-restructure environment.

3. Design to Scale

If a core strategy of yours is to grow by acquisitions, then developing a repeatable playbook for onboarding and integrating new entities will significantly reduce your risk of failure. Consider possible changes in existing processes and how that impacts technology configuration. The company may not immediately offer bundled products between the core business and a new acquisition. Still, if this is a potential future goal, you may need to account for this in the initial design.

4. Bring the Right People

It’s imperative to ensure that you have the appropriate members involved. Once you’ve identified your management team and employees who will be executing the day-to-day processes, set expectations for them to be active participants in workshops, including employees of the core business and those on the exiting or entering side. Configuration decisions and process changes can have significant cross-functional impacts or downstream effects. Bring the right people to the table and empower them to contribute to decision making. The result will be a cohesive end product and increased adaption to change.

Summary

The success of post-restructure technology strategies hinges on management’s effort during evaluation and planning. Be realistic about your priorities and timeline and develop a roadmap that results in an optimal system architecture that enables continued business operations with scalability.

If you’re struggling to achieve technology synergies after your post-restructure, we can help. For the last 20+ years, Bridgepoint Consulting has helped executives and management teams reduce their business and operational risks, bridge resource gaps, and improve overall performance. Find out what’s possible today and schedule a free consultation now.