The Client

Our client is a Large Cap PE-owned software business who provide software solutions in finance, accounts and human capital management(“HCM”). Multiple acquisitions have fuelled growth to a valuation of over £1bn.  

Scenario

Due to the multiple acquisitions – both the team and technology have experienced significant change. The business grew at such a rapid pace that the IT infrastructure, IT security and stability were becoming more challenging. The acquisitions were significantly smaller than the parent company technology, and the processes used were often underdeveloped. Joining these acquisitions to the central organisation became a significant concern. Beyond were asked to help integrate eight acquisitions into the main business.

Our Approach

Technical due-diligence and discovery across all businesses to help understand the challenge, enabling a technology baseline and identify critical risks and issues before the consolidation commenced.  

Health Checks on the parent company and acquisition systems were performed before running workshops then allowed all parties to prepare and plan for the project.  

Beyond deployed its Post-Merger Integration team that have specialist knowledge with regards to complex company-wide consolidation projects, spanning multiple technologies.

Project Description

• Project Management
• Design of new target state and delivery of documents including HLD/LLD
• Working with software developers to ensure products operate in the corporate environment
• Creation of Post-Merger Integration Framework.
• Technology and software discovery.
• Pilot testing
•  Migration of Development Environments.
•  Rebuild / Re-deployment of EUC machines
• Migration of legacy mail infrastructure to Microsoft Office 365
• Decommissioning of legacy infrastructure
• Handover support to incumbent teams.
• A mixture of traditional infrastructure and cloud (Azure)
• Bespoke scheduling portal for project clarity and communication.

Business Benefits

• Enabled single communication platform
• Enabled business-wide rebranding.
• Consolidated an extensive infrastructure into a single, manageable core.
• Reduction in Opex spend via licence consolidation
• Reduced security risk
• Knowledge transfer to allow the client to operate subsequent integrations autonomously

Outcome

Now the eight acquisitions have been integrated the client is able to fully secure the estate and remain compliant with there various regulatory principles – including ISO 27001. The reduction in a multitude of ad-hoc administrative work enables the wider IT team to focus on business enablement projects and working together asa more cohesive team. The client now has a platform that they can use to integrate future acquisitions with the confidence that they can scale at pace.

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