An IT organization comes of age
KPMG helped a growing medical device manufacturer quickly integrate IT operations after a merger.
Client
A medical device manufacturer
Sector
Life sciences
Project
Postmerger IT integration
Client challenge
When this medical device manufacturer purchased parts of its competitor, IT leadership wanted a roadmap to quickly integrate the two organizations without disruption, then support a combined entity with three times the premerger revenues. The assignment would be challenging; the purchase excluded corporate IT knowledge and assets in the acquired businesses. The IT team knew it needed to grow to fulfill its new mandate but was keen to preserve its lean culture. With just weeks to work before the merger became effective, the company needed a rapid response team already experienced in IT integration, with a ready perspective from comparable life sciences clients.
KPMG responded rapidly to this client's needs with a multi-disciplinary team and deep experience in both IT postmerger integration and IT operating model design.
Approach
KPMG drew upon deep experience in IT postmerger integration and IT operating model design to assemble a multidisciplinary team. KPMG service offerings included Shared Services and Outsourcing Advisory (contracting), People and Change, CIO Advisory, and Strategy. The team was configured to act decisively on our client’s behalf during the first 100 days after legal day one and quickly helped them develop a target IT operating model and integration program:
1
using industry benchmarks for companies of comparable size, drew upon timetables and templates to plan, budget, hire, and train an expanded IT team that could centrally and locally support a projected total workforce of 9,000 employees
2
worked with our client to establish an independent IT project management office
3
set up a schedule and process for network and voice migration, hardware rollout, mobility provisioning, and communications for more than 30 independent sites
4
implemented leading help desk practices with ServiceNow implementation to improve experience, scalability, and support audit/regulatory compliance.
Benefits to client
Collaborating with KPMG, our client’s IT organization has successfully scaled to meet the needs of a substantially larger postmerger enterprise, with a parallel strengthening in leading-edge practices, partnership with the company’s core businesses, and strategic outlook.
1
IT has transitioned from more than 30 independent legacy sites to centrally managed service contracts, network services, hardware and software assets, and application services.
2
IT has transitioned from more than 30 independent legacy sites to centrally managed service contracts, network services, hardware and software assets, and application services.
3
IT has installed a centralized project management office, with enterprise-wide visibility of all ongoing and future project needs.
4
The project delivered valuable insight into all IT contracts, which will be leveraged for future negotiations.
KPMG insights
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We understand the stakes
Mergers and postmerger integration are high-stakes, high-contingency-risk affairs. The window to deliver on the strategic promise of mergers is finite, and securing stakeholder trust is critical during the early stages. -
We take the long view
While the ability to realize hard-metric efficiencies or synergies from postmerger integration is important, we pay strong attention to human dimensions of postmerger integration: staffing, training, and organizational design. Experience has shown us that these softer metrics are more important indicators of the sustained, long-term health of the IT enterprise.
Meet our team
Barry Brunsman
Principal, CIO Advisory, KPMG US
Barry Brunsman
Principal, CIO Advisory, KPMG US