Navigating Change During an M&A

A merger, acquisition or divestiture is a major change. And change is hard. If your company is going through a transition, do you know whether your enterprise applications are going to or coming from Google Workspace? Without the proper change management procedures—or, in some cases, support—a major transition can disrupt regular business operations.

A merger or acquisition brings with it uncertainty. That uncertainty can affect business continuity, including access to data, and lead to the use of siloed applications and shadow IT. It can also disrupt business operations, from HR to finance to marketing, especially if organizations are tasked with merging disparate IT systems, processes and people.

“Even small tactical changes, like new expense policies or cafeteria options, can rattle employees,” according to McKinsey & Company. And failure to address these disruptions “can lead to poor business performance, a loss of critical talent, and the leakage of synergies.” Ten years of McKinsey’s survey data shows that almost half of mergers failed to meet expectations due to cultural differences and different operating models.

So how can you manage change and create an IT integration plan during a major transition such as a merger or acquisition? The good news is that you don’t have to do it alone. Whether you’re onboarding new users or integrating disparate collaboration platforms, Pythian’s M&A&D offering can help you manage the changes required during a merger or divestiture for collaboration platforms and get everyone working on the same page, faster and with less disruption.

How one company accelerated onboarding during two acquisitions

Pythian had been working with Thoughtworks, a technology consultancy with more than 8,000 employees in 17 countries, as its premier Google Cloud Partner, Managed Service Provider and Specialization Partner.

At the start of the pandemic, Thoughtworks’ usage of Google tools—which it had been using for more than a decade—grew to more than 9,000 end-user licenses for the entire Google Workspace product set, including Docs, Sheets, Groups, Chat and Sites. Then, in 2021, the consultancy acquired two European businesses.

Pythian helped Thoughtworks onboard 250 new employees into Google Workspace—all in a matter of weeks. Pythian support included accelerated and streamlined onboarding to ensure long-term success, as well as tailored help to guide the company through managing change using PROSCI- and Google-certified change management solutions. Read the full case study here.

The IT technology help you need for any M&A&D

For organizations going through a merger, acquisition or divestiture, Pythian’s M&A&D offering provides a one-stop shop for collaboration services. Services include performing technical due diligence, IT integration planning, data migration, co-existence management, change management and communication, as well as project management.

We strive to become your trusted technical advisor during and after a merger – focusing on the employee experience, technical leadership, and how to best achieve your timelines. We can help any organization using Google Workspace, even if they’re not an existing Pythian customer.

To enable success, we have developed a four-phased approach:

• Investigation: We identify which collaboration platforms are in use and work with you to define the ideal target and interim states.
• Planning: We design the technical approach for achieving your interim and target states, including the impact to employees and change management processes required.
• Transition to interim state: We work to transition impacted end-users to the interim state and manage day-to-day activities.
• Execute to target state: We do the heavy lifting to transition impacted end-users to the target state.

We can work with you on a one-time IT integration engagement – scoped to a single transaction – or as part of a managed ongoing engagement, scoped to a set of hours on a monthly basis.

Why trust Pythian with an IT integration during an M&A?

We have an award-winning team with more than 12 years’ of experience migrating organizations to Google Workspace. Our tailored help can guide you through managing your change, performing technical due diligence, planning IT integration strategy, ensuring adoption and leveraging Google Workplace capabilities.

Learn more about Pythian’s M&A support.