The Client

Our client is a leading Fintech corporation  who has experienced significant growth since 2007 due to a programme of rapid acquisition and innovation. During the to the acquisition programme, the businesses were interconnected but not fully integrated with the corporate systems. Beyond were requested to help deliver a post-merger integration for an acquisition that had flagged some security and compliance concerns.

Scenario

The acquisition was connected to the corporation but was still operating its own legacy IT environment including Active Directory and  their own software applications. The directive was to fully complete the integration including all services, data, domains and end users into the corporate infrastructure whilst abiding by security and confidentiality standards. Post-merger activities generally suffer from a lack of budget and End of Life platforms and services that have not been touched for years.

The Approach

To ensure a successful outcome careful assessment and categorisation of target infrastructure and services was essential. Infrastructure information was gathered using our discovery and management process which was then used to build the programme of change. Buy-in from technical and business stakeholders was achieved by meting and communicating overall business benefits. Security of the data was a potential deal-breaker so the joint team took steps to ensure that any data in transit was encrypted accompanied by security-vetted consultants.

Project Details

• Project Manage the process end-to-end including reporting to stakeholders.
• Communication Plans to facilitate a smooth transition.
• Discover and categorise services
• Working with developers and service SMEs to orchestrate service changes
• Created service-oriented programme of change
• Migrate significant volume of data within security constraints.
• Migrate all user and decommission the redundant Active Directory domain
• Produce project and solution design documentation.

Business Benefits

• Allowed the acquired company employees to feel part of the corporation
• Compliance to corporate and industry standards
• Monitoring and Control over the estate became much more effective.
• Better overall IT Governance.
• Realisation of cost savings through decommission and enhanced ways of working
• Reduced the administrative overheads of maintaining multiple Active Directories.
• Reduced the risk of Malware attacks due to maintenance issues.
• Data security enhanced moving data from legacy file servers to Enterprise SANs.
• More reliable data backup and retention.

Outcome

On completing this post-merger integration, the technological benefits were obvious, however for the employees it finally meant they could collaborate and innovate with their colleagues in a way that was previously impossible.

Testimonial

Knowledgeable and happy to share and handover information.

Service Desk Manager, Financial Services