eThesis - School of Business electronic theses

» hse_ethesis_12847.pdf   size:2 MB (1240492)

Objectives of the Study

This study focuses on the phenomenon of Mergers & Acquisitions and ponders whether alignment between the business strategy and the IT strategy has an impact on IT integration efforts within a case company. The study is facilitated by asking the research question; Does the level of strategic alignment between IT and business strategy have an impact on how IT is integrated in a merger?

Academic background and methodology

The topic of M&A straddles a broad selection of academic disciplines, some of which have received more focus than others. As the role of IT has grown in importance and is becoming ingrained in the way companies do business Previous literature consisted of studies on IT integration in a post-merger context, in addition to theory on IT & business strategy alignment. Based on the review of previous literature a theoretical framework was formulated. This framework was then used to evaluate the process of IS integration in M&A. Empirical data for the study was collected through interviews and also collecting documentation pertaining to the case companies approach to strategy and M&A.

Findings and conclusions

The study found the case company has strong ties between the business strategy and IT strategy with IT in some cases driving the business strategy. IT integration was straight forward from an IT perspective as the company possesses a mature platform and integration team which facilitate the consolidation of the acquired companies IT and processes. The key factors which impacted Integration success in the case company were deemed to be communication and the impact of resource constraints, in addition to the expectations of the synergies and how they are managed.