Our Clients
 














 
 
Planning a Business Merger, Expansion or Consolidations Project Planning for the Migration of Technology in Business Mergers

 

Business Mergers & Consolidations
Competition in the today's business marketplace often demands that organizations merge with each other to remain competitive and increase revenue and profits and market share.  Others may be looking to consolidate their operations to achieve economies of scale and standardization of processes. To reach the stated goals, the combined organization must usually convert its information systems, relocate its operations, or both. We are here to help you with the technology integration for both telephone and network communications services.

 

 Successful mergers are a combination of four critical components: culture, business practices, technology and time. Bringing these elements together requires careful planning and coordination. The longer it takes the more costly it will be, and the potential for failure will be greatly increased.

 
Mergers, Acquisitions and Joint Ventures
Paradise Communications consultants are experienced in evaluating a company's technology, people, software aspects, carried out within the framework of existing and next-generation products, to support merger, joint venture, acquisition or venture capital (VC) investment decisions. Our technology expertise includes all areas of telecommunications, PBX and Voice Mail Systems, Call Centers, Data Networks, along with audio and Video teleconferencing, telephony, VoIP, and similar systems.

 

M&A risk management:
Mergers and acquisitions have only a one-in-eight success rate based on most standard metrics. Once the bankers and lawyers have departed, the various CEOs, CFOs and other executives are faced with the need to rapidly transition to a single organizational structure while trying to attain results which justify the costs, please the shareholders and keep customers loyal. Often, because of pressures of time, this is done with little sensitivity to the differing real strengths, assets and liabilities which exist between the organizations, potentially resulting in a failed merger.

 

Mergers most often fail because of poor communications and delays in transitioning to a new organization structure. This gives analysts, stakeholders and customers the opportunity to feed the rumor mill, with its consequent negative impact. In addition, an unrealistic transition plan will result in a stalled process where nothing is accomplished, especially those things affecting long-term viability.

 

High-tech mergers can also fail because of a poor fit of technologies, mismanagement of human factors, forced workforce relocation, disparate salaries and benefits, and cavalier HR decisions as more basic examples.

 

Attempts to amalgamate corporate cultures is another area fraught with problems as part of a merger or acquisition. The dominant M&A company must consider the staff and processes of the other company. The strengths of each organization, especially those cited in the merger justification, should be nurtured and the weaknesses weeded out. Similarly, there are often aspects of one organization not understood by the other, which may be simply ignored in the merger process, potentially reducing the shareholder value.

 

System Conversions and Cutovers
Over time, information systems become inefficient or obsolete, sometimes it is due to a business merger, they can no longer support the business strategy. Thus, systems conversions are a required part of the growth process.  This may require planning a migration procedure, or completely replacing an existing system to provide the business services for your firm.  Planning for a major cutover is a critical step necessary to move to current technology or your platform of choice. Such projects are tremendous undertakings: not only must the data be moved to a system that has different data organization, format, and semantics, but the entire business operations foundation must rapidly adapt to the new system and its impact on business processes. We can help ensure that the process goes as smoothly as possible by providing overall management for the conversion project.

 

Our service will help you with the following:
  • Assess which strategy, conversion or migration will best fit the organization's needs and optimize the cost/benefit equation
  • Based on the selected strategy, define the overall conversion project goals and deliverables
  • Prepare the project plan and deliverables specifications
  • Define resource requirements and negotiate with functional managers for resources
  • Assemble the project team

 

Operations Relocation
As part of a business consolidation, or for other business reasons, you may need to move a substantial operational component (claims processing, enrollment, premium billing, etc.) from one location to another. The new location may be across the country, or down the street. Nevertheless, any such move involves substantial difficulty that can best be addressed through effective project management. We have substantial experience in managing the relocation of such operations, and can help you:

  • Define the goals and objectives for the relocation project

  • Create the appropriate scope statements, deliverables specifications, and the project plan

  • Identify resources and negotiate with functional managers to provide those resources

  • Contract with outside entities to provide resources not available within the company

  • Assemble the project schedule and budget

  • Manage the project to successful completion, including working with information technology, human resources, training, and business operations groups to ensure that all tasks are completed according to specification

  • Prepare and deliver the project close report that summarizes the project results and identifies lessons learned for future projects

 

Project Management
The scope and complexity of today's systems and organizations demands a rigorous approach for implementing change. Our approach, based upon our experience on working on a number of projects and follows the Project Management Institute's PMBOK, ensuring that your project is carefully planned, managed, and closed so that you achieve the desired results.

 

Part of  successful project management is good planning and tracking of the progress according to plan. We use several instruments in helping to plan and track your projects:

  • Project strategy analysis

  • Project charter and general scope statements

  • Project team contact database

  • Issue log

  • Risk management analysis matrix

  • Work Breakdown Structure - may be part of the organization of the project schedule

  • Project schedule with tasks, dates, resource requirements and assignments

  • use Gantt, network, and tabular representations depending on audience and needs

  • Project budget - with cost-benefit analysis, resource costs, etc.

  • Project status log - may be linked to schedule, time-logging software, or both

  • Time logging - where appropriate and acceptable within the organization's culture

  • Project status reports  - for executive management; include schedule and cost status analysis

  • Project communications plan

  • Project procurement plan

  • Change control plan

 

Not all of these items will be used in every project, but we do use those items that are necessary in helping to deliver the project according to specifications without incurring unreasonable risk.
Even more important in project management is being able to motivate and lead the project team to success, which requires effective leadership, management, and people skills. Our experience in healthcare operations management helps us:
  • Understand the business and environmental issues facing all healthcare organizations and make appropriate allowances in project planning and team management
  • Quickly grasp the organizational culture and structure to effectively negotiate with key management staff and motivate project contributors
  • Diagnose task performance problems to discover the true problem and deal directly with the issue or escalate it to the appropriate level of management when necessary
 
Home | About Us | Solution | Software Products | Project Management | Services | Clientele | Alliances Partners | Careers | Contact Us  
© Copyright 2009 SNA Infotech