From the heavy lift required by Legal and Finance, to the inevitable complications involved with integrating corporate cultures, mergers and acquisitions are notoriously difficult.
IT is tasked with a laundry list of post-merger assignments, too. What applications in the technology stack do we keep, and how do we integrate duplicate systems? How do we keep an accurate list of which employees are staying and which are going? How do we avoid technological disruptions to end users and customers? What are the roles for everyone on the newly integrated IT staff?
BetterCloud is no panacea for the agglomeration of work required by IT for a successful merger, but there are ways the platform can help.
1.) View all of the SaaS data in your new environment in one place
First and foremost, gaining a bird’s eye view of the users, groups, files, channels, settings, and other data across SaaS applications is an important step in understanding the breadth of what exists in your new environment before you make changes.
2.) Manage multiple instances of SaaS applications
Once you have visibility, BetterCloud can manage multiple instances of SaaS applications. This gives IT teams the flexibility to control each of the merging company’s tech stacks until they eventually deprecate one side.
3.) Apply uniform policies and automated workflows across instances
Each company is likely coming to the table with different processes and security philosophies (think, for example, about the file sharing policies for an established tech company vs. the emerging startup they might be acquiring). With BetterCloud, you can apply uniform policies and automated workflows across the newly merged company.
One area where this is helpful is user orchestration. M&A activities are a common juncture for rapid lifecycle changes—onboarding, offboarding, and everything in between. Workflows in BetterCloud allow you to deliver the right access and information to new employees and automate the typically laborious process of fully offboarding exiting employees. These workflows can also be used to manage contractors and consultants who need varying levels of access for a limited amount of time.
4.) Create granular admin roles for your new IT team and get the full picture with audit logs
Finally, what does the new IT staff look like? There are two features in BetterCloud that can help you navigate this transition: granular admin roles and audit logs.
BetterCloud’s role-based privileges can help you reduce the number of people who need super admin access during this transition by customizing the level of access for each admin based on their job responsibilities, and nothing more.
Audit logs allow you to track all actions and automations that admins are running in BetterCloud, and thus across applications. In a crucial moment of transition, you can remain compliant with GDPR and keep a historical record of admin activity.
