Doing an M&A Opens a Can of Technology Worms
As the financial crisis persists and companies snap up their peers at discount prices, they might be getting more than they bargained for. That's because apart from the regulatory and financial issues, a merger or acquisition also involves a host of technology challenges.
Just in the financial sector alone, mergers and acquisitions (M&As) have been rife. Wells Fargo (NYSE: WFC) has bought Wachovia (NYSE: WB) annoying rival suitor Citigroup (NYSE: C); JPMorgan Chase (NYSE: JPM) has bought Washington Mutual (NYSE: WM); and Bank of America (NYSE: BAC) has bought Merrill Lynch (NYSE: MER).
Those firms will have their integration work cut out for them. IT challenges arising from M&As include synchronizing financial, legal and human resources (HR) data, as well as merging multiple IT systems, tying together front-end applications and scaling to support compliance regulations.
