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IT planning for deals

A merger, a carve-out or a new entity comes with a legal date, and the IT has to be ready on that day. The planning starts long before, at your table.

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The deal sets the date. The IT has to be ready on it.

When two firms join, when a team leaves to form its own, when a project company is set up or wound down, the lawyers set a date and the IT has to work on it: who signs in where, whose mailbox goes with whom, which files move and which must not, what the new entity needs from day one. Decided late, these questions turn the first week after the date into an outage. IT planning for deals brings them to your table early, as decision papers: what the deal needs from the IT, the options and their costs, our recommendation, and a plan with owners and dates working back from the legal date. Build carries it out; here it’s decided.

What we plan

Working back from the legal date.

Every deal is different; the questions are the same. Each is answered on a decision paper before anything is touched.

  • What exists, on both sides

    Tenants, accounts, licences, devices, contracts and where the data lives, written down for each entity involved. For a merger, both sides; for a carve-out, what leaves and what stays.

  • What the day needs

    Who has to sign in on the morning after, with which mail address, to which files and which software. The list is short and the date isn’t negotiable, so it’s decided first.

  • What goes with whom

    Which mailboxes, files and systems move, which are separated and which stay behind, decided with the people who answer for confidentiality. Where a mandate or a client contract rules on where data may go, the paper names it, and the legal assessment stays with you.

  • The options and what they cost

    One tenant or two, migrate or rebuild, keep a system or retire it with the deal: the realistic ways forward, each with its cost and its risk, and our recommendation.

  • The order and the night

    What has to happen before the date, what on the night, what can follow in the weeks after. Nothing is touched before there’s a way back, and the plan says where it is.

  • Owners and dates

    Each step with the person who owns it, on your side and ours, and its date working back from the legal one. The plan is reviewed in your steering meeting until the day.

On record

On the decision paper.

  • What exists on each side: tenants, accounts, licences, devices, contracts, data
  • What has to be ready on the legal date, and for whom
  • The options considered, their costs and risks, and the decision
  • The plan: each step with its owner and date, working back from the date
  • The contracts that move, end or need notice because of the deal

The IT page in your deal file, and the brief a Build project starts from.

What usually goes wrong without it.

  • IT hears about the deal last

    The lawyers have the date, the accountants have the numbers, and IT is told the week before. The first days after the date are then spent finding out what exists.

  • Data that shouldn’t have moved

    In a merger or a carve-out, files cross a line they weren’t allowed to cross because nobody decided which line it was. Deciding it afterwards is harder than deciding it before.

  • The contract that didn’t end

    The old entity’s licences, lines and support contracts keep running after the date because nobody listed them. Each one is a renewal that nobody chose.

Also under Steer

Questions we get

How early should IT planning start?

As soon as the deal is likely. The questions that take time are the ones about data and contracts, and they need the people who answer for confidentiality in the room. The earlier the planning, the less the legal date decides for you.

Do you also carry out the migration?

Yes, as a Build project: tenant-to-tenant migrations, new entities set up from scratch, data separated cleanly, by the legal date, with a way back tested before the switch. The planning here is where that project gets its brief.

What about confidentiality in a merger between two firms?

The plan says which files, mailboxes and systems move, which are separated and which stay behind, and it’s decided with the people who answer for confidentiality on each side. Where a mandate, a client contract or your regulator rules on it, the paper names it, and the legal assessment stays with you.

We set up project companies regularly. Is that a deal too?

Yes, a small one with the same questions: what the new entity needs from day one, which tenant it lives in, what it shares with the firm and what it doesn’t, and what happens when it’s wound down. Planned once, it becomes a routine with a checklist.

Start

A merger, a carve-out or a new entity ahead?

In a first call we go through the date, what has to be ready on it, and which decisions should reach your table first.

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