The Data Challenge with post-merger integrations

Most people know that post-merger integrations are challenging undertakings where a lot can go wrong. People, processes, and systems need to be aligned and integrated to realize synergies and the strategic rationale goals set out in the acquisition business case.

Comparable Transparent Data Challenge:

Very often synergies that look attractive in a spreadsheet, require a lot of detailed work to achieve. Questions need to be answered such as:

How to facilitate and enable cross-selling of each other’s portfolios?
Will there be one order desk or two?
Will invoicing and distribution be combined so that customers get one shipment and one invoice?
How and when is it achievable?

The quicker companies can enable integrated processes, the better they can achieve the synergies and goals set out in the acquisition business case.

Enabling integrated processes and ways of working requires dialog, data, and decisions. Dialog and decisions are easier to facilitate when the right data in is available in a transparent and comparable format.

Data Migration Challenges

The next challenge with enabling integrated processes lies with migrating back-end systems. Doing this between companies can mean moving from one software platform to another, or migrating between two companies on the same software platform (i.e. SAP). Both are challenging as data models and structures will always differ.

Master and transactional data need to be mapped, translated, and cleansed. This is traditionally an expensive, slow, error prone, labor-intensive manual exercise that leverages Excel. The process is often not reusable and can quickly become an Achilles heel affecting the timeline and quality of the migration, directly impacting the speed with which synergies can be realized.

How Zenit addresses these challenges:

Zenit can help you realize integrated processes quicker, with higher data quality at a lower cost than traditional methods. Zenit supports data backed process design decisions by quickly making data transparent and comparable between both companies. (parent company & acquired company) The data work done during the design & decision stage is also reused in the system migration stage for mapping, translating, and cleansing both master and transactional data.

Zenit’s AI enabled solutions like smart deduplication and data enhancement, can free up critical resources to focus on data quality & testing instead of time-consuming detailed spreadsheet work. Integrated processes can be achieved quicker, enabling earlier achievement of synergies and business goals.

The work done during the integration migration is reusable for future system migrations and integrations as it serves as a basis for a company wide data-model.

Interested to know more, please contact Zenit to explore the possibilities of how we can help you get quicker value out of your post-merger data integration.

Data