Executives today spend a lot of
time thinking about the big chal-
lenges their businesses face, like
global competition, complex reg-
ulations and how they are going
to expand into new markets. But
there are many business con-
cerns that they are often una-
ware of—and it is putting their
companies at risk.
Most companies have a range
of information management is-
sues that, when ignored, can
not only cause them to miss
out on new business opportu-
nities but could be putting
them at legal, regulatory and
criminal risk. Which ones are
you ignoring?
stored, identify key elements of
the information and how they are
going to access and integrate it
once the process is complete.
That requires a deep dive audit
of all information sources, includ-
ing customer, HR, finance, legal
and operations data.
Once you categorize all of the
structured and unstructured data
in storage, you can create an in-
tegration roadmap to maximize
its value, and address compli-
ance risks pertaining to the infor-
mation. In the most successful
M&As, business owners build the
information roadmap well before
the deal is struck, so they can
streamline the cost and time to
complete the transition .
1. The M&A ticking time bomb
During a merger and acquisition,
it is standard to detail the physi-
cal and IP assets that you are
acquiring but you need to apply
this same practice to information
assets that are being acquired in
physical and digital forms.
2. A line-item approach to
change
Too often when businesses want
to make process changes to im-
prove efficiency, they focus on
the steps rather than the big pic-
ture—rather than the customer
experience. These changes may
deliver incremental improvement
but often at the expense of last-
ing fundamental value.
These assessment tasks often
get ignored in the chaos of a
merger or acquisition, and can
add substantial financial and op-
erational risk to the go forward
entity. To generate the most val-
ue from a M&A—and to avoid
risk exposure—companies need
to understand what information
the organizations hold, where it’s
Before making small changes,
consider bringing stakeholders
from across the organization to-
gether to brainstorm broader so-
lutions that will drive customer
engagement, brand awareness
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