Two notoriously long-winded processes – closing a merger and acquisition deal and migrating a technology stack. When signing on the dotted line for the former, the latter can follow close behind on the to-do list as the reviewing of operations gets underway. With every business running on a distinct technology ecosystem, M&A deals are predisposed to needing technology integration if they want the freshly unified teams and operations to function cohesively.
But, technology upgrades are intricate enough, and that’s when you’re working with just your own team. Throw in the extra complications of amalgamating resources with another business in a merger and acquisition scenario, and enterprises can quickly see communication, costs and time spiral in these projects.
For data transformation and migration consultancy, SNP, it’s a common story. With no two digital infrastructures the same, data quality issues, work duplication and inaccurate reporting are regular occurrences when M&A software integrations don’t complete successfully and it affects teams on every level.
SNP’s data management and transformation platform, CrystalBridge®, is well-known for coming to the rescue for these complex M&A enterprise technology integrations and migrations.
Running data profiling of master and transactional data, and generating an interactive graphical view of company locations, organizational structure, hierarchies and organizational unit usage, CrystalBridge Analysis helps businesses see what they are working with, helping to automate and guide processes with system validation, insights into business data objects and data volume, and recommendations for improvements.
One such M&A was Mondelēz International’s acquisition of Greek snacking company Chipita, as part of its strategy to expand its portfolio and geographical reach in central and eastern Europe.
Mondelēz was keen to get a prospective view of Chipita’s SAP ECC system and get ahead on the merger’s next steps, but with the deal yet to be completed and still under anti-trust authority review, Chipita needed to prepare this without giving away any sensitive information to abide by masking requirements.
SAP data was extracted from Chipita’s source system into a clone system and using CrystalBridge Analysis, an initial system scan was carried out by SNP.
SNP analyzed the data in place in terms of size, usage and structure to understand the extent of custom development in place and identify the processes, modules, and application components in use, before masking the necessary standard and bespoke sets of sensitive data in the cloned system with SNP Test Data Organizer (TDO).
The whole process took two and a half months to complete and gave valuable insights to the buyer, Mondelēz, while helping Chipita protect its competitive position. Both companies could then make informed decisions quickly, ahead of the deal being concluded.
It’s true: M&As and technology migrations are long-winded. But, using technology such as SNP’s CrystalBridge® can help to shorten the lead time on both and help businesses get ahead of the game.
