IT left out in cold

According to research sponsored by Informatica and conducted by Bloor Research and the NCC -- Mergers and acquisitions and their IT impact -- only 21 per cent of companies surveyed feel that consideration of IT issues had been given appropriate weight in the decision to perform a merger or acquisition.

More than 50 per cent of companies were not able to provide any integration within three months of acquisitions so it was impossible to provide consolidated financial reporting. Yet, the City expects to see benefits of an M&A within 100 days of completion.

More than 33 per cent of companies did not expect to complete integration for more than two years or could not say when they would complete such integration.

Poor documentation of systems, a lack of metadata, diverse and uncontrolled data sources and poor data quality were also reported as significant problems by more than 50 per cent of companies. Poor planning of the IT integration process was cited as a significant problem by 54 per cent of respondents.

Bloor says it is clear from the comments made by survey respondents -- just under 60 CIOs and senior decision makers -- that IT does not feel it is properly consulted either before or during the M&A process in most cases.

Second, the business does not understand the problems that can arise from poor documentation, lack of metadata and other issues that ought to be addressed prior to or in the early stages of integration.

Consequently, says Bloor, it is too easy for the business to underestimate the work to be done and the costs and time involved. Many businesses simply don't have an understanding of IT and understandably, will make assumptions about how easy it is to integrate systems from separate organizations. Moreover, says Bloor, this is 'one of those things you don't know you don't know' and it may never occur to business people they should consult with IT over the complexities of integration and timescales.