Contributing Author: Glen Hampton is the Founder and President of Equilibrium IT Solutions
Glen Hampton has spent his career not only creating the most innovative IT solutions for businesses and organizations, but also launching and managing a number of successful corporations. Glen is a member of the MBBI Board of Directors. Glen can be reached at: (P) 773.639.3680 (EM) GHampton@EQinc.com
Many of our MBBI members are not only in the business of increasing business value for their own respective businesses, but also for others. Determining and optimizing business value is a key driver of success for organizations in the process of a merger or acquisition.
A frequently overlooked consideration in determining value is the efficiency and optimization of Information Technology (IT).
For many non-technology professionals, IT can be mysterious, or perceived as a low level (non-strategic) aspect of the business. Furthermore, IT could be merely regarded as a cost center, and a lower priority in the valuation process.
Information Technology is vital to both helping grow top line business revenue and driving bottom line profitability. Technology streamlines operations and increases staff productivity across the organization, while minimizing risk to the business. IT is an essential tool to maximize EBITDA, and therefore able to increase an M&A multiple.
Maximizing the impact of IT requires expert planning. With the advent of cloud computing, information systems are growing more complex and managing IT infrastructure is harder. IT teams are busy reacting to system issues or user support requests, instead of focusing on the important tasks that build real business value. The amount of time, money and expertise required just to keep pace with new technology trends is getting out of control. As a consultancy, we often use the following questions to start a dialogue as a foundation for a solution. Business assessments should include exploring the current state in order to plan for an optimal future state:
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Is the team spending more time putting out IT-related fires instead of working on important business initiatives?
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Do users experience downtime and loss of productivity?
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Is there data loss or dealing with security breaches and phishing attempts?
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Is IT over budget…again?
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Are lines of business (LOB e.g. ERP, CRM) information systems running optimally?
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Is there a need to get more done in less time?
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Is there a feeling the IT team is not right sized for the organization?
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Does the internal IT team have the time or expertise to make merger, acquisition, or divestiture projects successful?