Ergo Microsoft 365 Solution for Mergers and Acquisitions: 2 Weeks Discovery

Ergo has developed a repeatable methodology for assisting Financial Services companies with Microsoft 365 and on-premises workloads during Mergers & Acquisitions (M&A). Our solution is aimed at safeguarding assets and IP while maintaining and enhancing organisational productivity throughout the transitional period of the M&A process by leveraging the Microsoft 365 suite. This is achieved by integrating the productivity solutions of the merging entities and implementing a communications strategy that fosters successful adoption and change management and a smooth transition to the target Microsoft 365 environment.​

The success of mergers and acquisitions relies heavily on ensuring undisrupted productivity amongst the consolidated workforce, without any compromise on the employee experience. It is essential to provide seamless and secure access to data during this transition. Bringing the consolidated workforce along the journey is crucial.

Our process Ergo’s methodology is all about merging and consolidating as quickly as possible through a repeatable four-stage process. Companies that use a repeatable model for frequent M&A activity will consistently deliver higher shareholder returns than less adept competitors, according to Bain & Company. The best acquirers move quickly when integrating to a single set of systems.

Discover​ We identify key technology workloads with the technical teams and business stakeholders in both the parent and acquired organizations, to identify the most efficient migration design. We map the source systems to the parent organization’s Microsoft 365 platform. This design focuses on ensuring minimal impact to business users while maintaining productivity for key business areas. A typical discovery consists of several workshops with technical teams and business stakeholders over approximately two weeks. The output of the discovery phase is a summary of findings and a statement of work for the following stages.

Plan The discovery activities, naturally identify the most efficient migration path. We then plan the migration based on business requirements to optimize efficiency for both the parent and acquired organizations. Timeline impacting constraints (such as financial year end) are considered in this plan to give a predictable and reliable timeline to the business. Microsoft 365 allows both the collaboration and migration plan to be achieved in reasonable timeframes and Ergos expertise here helps to remove roadblocks from this process.​

Deliver The environment is prepared for migration, ensuring that when users migrate, they maintain access to required resources. A communication strategy is developed to ensure that everyone impacted by migration activities, is fully equipped with the right information to avoid frustration. We use best in class tools to achieve technical migration to Microsoft 365 with a high level of fidelity, reducing user disruption.

Integrate Post migration, the aim of most organizations is to ensure that migrated users do not feel any different to existing users of the parent. It is important that the closure of any migration project includes a robust review of BAU processes. Decommissioning of the source environments also requires careful planning to ensure regulatory requirements are met. Ergo assists in the planning of this close-out to ensure satisfaction from all stakeholder.