A merger or acquisition is a major business transformation, requiring organization leaders to integrate new departments and unify two different companies’ technology and systems. Several aspects of this work, including issuing employees updated email addresses, laptops, and access permissions, as well as building new workflows for recently joined teams, fall under the scope of the organization’s IT Service Management (ITSM) strategy.
Additional employees and customers mean IT and operations teams have a greater pool of incident management and service desk management requests to attend to, especially early in the transition when employees may have more questions than usual. After employees settle into the new flow of work, IT and operations teams often have double the amount of technology to oversee compared to before.
While the process of combining two companies—both operationally and culturally—can be daunting, a M&A is also an opportunity for decision-makers to make changes that position teams for a successful future as one organization. ITSM tools, such as Atlassian’s Jira Service Management, are essential to ease the transition.
Jira Service Management (JSM) is a platform that connects internal teams and enables organizations to respond to requests from employees and customers. It’s a tool Contegix has helped multiple organizations onboard and leverage as they experience a M&A, and a solution we’ve depended on ourselves as we’ve acquired and merged with multiple organizations. Several JSM features, including pre-built templates and customization capabilities, enable organizations going through an M&A to deliver ITSM easily, efficiently and collaboratively—all critical elements of a high-functioning business.
Ease of Use Builds Efficiency and Trust
One major hurdle for organizations experiencing a M&A is the onboarding process—it takes time to build out workflows and train employees on new technology and operations. JSM helps reduce learning curves with pre-built, easy-to-understand templates. IT and operations leaders can leverage multiple project templates to stand up workflows quickly and seamlessly for specific teams or use-cases. Each template contains pre-configured request types, workflows, and other relevant features for all types of service management from general requests to HR, customer service, legal, and more.
Because every organization has a unique set of business goals and desired ways of working, teams can easily edit aspects of JSM project templates to respond to their own needs. For instance, by following a few simple instructions, users can change the look and feel of customer notifications they receive in JSM. This aspect is incredibly helpful for teams who are tailoring their approach for an aligned, new direction resulting from a merger or acquisition.
For new employees who are getting used to many changes, a process for submitting service requests is critical right out of the gate, especially for those who may be resistant or overwhelmed by the transition. With JSM templates, leaders put the power of asking for help into employees’ hands faster, which can encourage people to submit a request in the first place.
A Centralized Tool Promotes Team Collaboration
In addition to introducing new tools and work styles, another major challenge for organizations navigating a M&A is ensuring teams are continuing to effectively work together. With so many software solutions available today, each team comes to the table with their own preferences. But if each business continues to stick to only the platforms and workflows they’re familiar with, the organization misses out on an opportunity to build unity and effectively collaborate with one another.
Consolidating all requests onto JSM is one way teams can avoid working in complete silos. This empowers IT and operations leaders to have complete visibility over all the services requests that come through the organization, and also eliminate any confusion or duplication that comes with application sprawl.
Additionally, by working within one system, teams can quickly identify areas that need more attention than others. JSM’s advanced reporting and analytics capabilities make it easy to identify repeat requests and prioritize seamless, collaborative resolutions.
The Advantages of Working with an Atlassian Solutions Partner During an M&A
At Contegix, we have 20 years of experience onboarding organizations of all industries and sizes to work management systems. As an Atlassian Platinum Solutions Partner, we are accredited for our ability to provide exceptional Jira Service Management support.
Because we use JSM for our own internal operations, and we have gone through the process of integrating with other teams multiple times, we understand what organizations currently experiencing organizational change need to make their ITSM a long-lasting success.
Whether you’re looking for guidance during JSM implementation, configurations, or continuous monitoring, our team of Atlassian experts is dedicated to ensuring your platforms grow with your evolving organization.
Learn more about what makes ITSM successful in our eBook, 3 Common Mistakes to Avoid in an ITSM Strategy.
