What’s the key to success when it comes to acquisitions? Data integration.
There can be a number of reasons that organizations pursue acquisitions. For some, it’s all about synergy or diversification, for others it could be increased supply-chain power or purely growth.
Whatever the reason or direction of the acquisition (horizontal, vertical or concentric), the most important action to tackle first is to convert the acquired company’s data into your current application so you can gain a single, consolidated view of both organization’s operations. A delay in integrating this data—or a consequential lack of data quality—can lead to poor operational decisions that are made on the basis of fragmented or incomplete information. If the two organizations continue to operate independently of one another, it could derail the acquisition integration entirely.
So how do you convert acquisition data into Workday? We’ll show you.
If an acquisition is announced after an organization has moved from a traditional ERP application to Workday, there are usually key personnel from the acquiring company that bring knowledge from the initial deployment and use of the application to the table. As a result, there shouldn’t be as much reliance on a Workday deployment firm to learn the system or understand how it functions. But that’s not to say that they can do it alone.
An experienced Workday partner with a rich portfolio of merger and acquisition assessment, deployment and operational experience can be a great resource to provide consultation on best practices, key decision points and possible risks. You can leverage the relative strengths of everyone involved—the acquiring company’s knowledge of their Workday application and the acquisition’s familiarity with their own data and business processes—at the same time, bridging any conceptual gaps in understanding between the two organizations. Without it, there is potential risk to the conversion.