PHASES
Interlink uses six successive phases to integrate, standardize, and deploy your cloud computing-based IT operations. Each M&A phase works to ensure that the newly formed entity can leverage the cloud to drive value and be ready to take on any new acquisitions.
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Phase One: Understanding Your Goals
The first phase begins with understanding the goals and vision of the acquired company and ends with the building of a high-level integration plan.
Interlink assesses:
- The level of IT operations in place at the parent company
- The scalability of IT operations at the parent company
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Phase Two: The Assessment
Phase two is an assessment of the parent and acquired entities' IT environments.
This phase includes:
- Categorizing IT assets that create value
- Identifying which software licenses can transfer
- Assessing the level of IT human capital and resources available
- Indexing and analyzing the risk of any homegrown systems
*This phase can be done before or after the purchase
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Phase Three: Building Your Infrastructure
In the third phase, we build your new IT infrastructure and start the integration of the first few firms.
Phase three emphasizes:
- Speed to productivity
- Building basic, but effective, collaboration platforms
- Developing standardization onboarding policies and processes
- Above all else, not fixing what isn't broken
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Phase Four: Standardization
Phase four focuses on building IT standardization at scale.
We create standardization goals and processes for:
- Cloud services, collaboration tools, hardware replacements, networking infrastructure, and software
- Purchasing new IT assets while enforcing standardization
- Leveraging buying power through vendor consolidation
- Prioritizing the acquisition through IT needs
- Training strategies
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Phase Five: Building Your Shared Services Foundation
The fifth phase is dedicated to building shared services, which serve as the foundation of communication, collaboration, and IT operations.
The shared services phase will:
- Develop a shared IT support model
- Centralize the IT purchasing process
- Update and execute the previously developed training plan
- Centralize voice platforms
- Build enhanced collaboration tools
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Phase Six: Optimization of Your New Infrastructure
The final phase optimizes all the infrastructure, processes, and builds to serve the ongoing operations - including future acquisitons - of the parent company.
Phase six concludes with:
- Bringing up each previously acquired site to the proper standardization levels
- Building process and approach templates for future acquisitions
- Documenting the IT service delivery model
- Developing IT chargeback process
Learn how we can help with your M&A integration.
