Anyone who has ever undertaken a merger or acquisition (M&A) will tell you that the process can be painstaking, lengthy and complex. But what if you could accelerate the process? At the same time, what if you could drive faster cross-company access after sign and close, resulting in accelerated time to value and a reduction in integration costs?
When an organisation undertakes an acquisition, the goal is to accelerate growth such as market share, geographic expansion, knowledge transfer and product diversification. So when acquiring an asset, maintaining a high degree of user connectivity and productivity is essential to keep growing the business. An organisation must ensure continuity, not only with its employees, but with the customers it supports.
IT and cyber organisations must help to make sure that users have access to the appropriate applications, systems and tools needed to operate as one company, versus two separate entities. This is a lot harder than it sounds, says Michael Cuneo, managing director of M&A/divestitures and private equity at Zscaler.
“For this to occur, it’s not a one-to-one connection, it’s a one-to-many connection requirement,” he explains. “For this to happen it traditionally has been a costly equation, because it required a lot of technology, talent and controls to integrate these two companies together, over many months, quarters or even up to a year.”
An organisation must ensure continuity, not only with its employees, but with the customers it supports
The problem is exacerbated by private (internal) and public (internet) applications, alongside critical infrastructure that is located on-premise, in the cloud, or co-located, which need to be accessed anywhere and everywhere across the organisation. This introduces time, cost and risk into the equation. It also accounts for the 70% of integrations that never achieve the expectations set out during the deal.
Traditional IT/Cyber post merger integration approaches have fallen behind emerging technologies, SaaS/Cloud, automation, AI/ML and Zero Trust resulting in an inefficient post merger integration process that lacks the speed, agility and risk mitigation required during M&A integrations today. But what if you could change the paradigm, by undertaking a successful post merger integration (PMI) which leverages emerging technologies while requiring no deployment - ie. “zero IT footprint” - and addresses cyber threats in real time? It is not only plausible, but it’s the future of PMI, and is securely accelerating cross-company access for hundreds of organisations that are already taking advantage of zero trust integrations.
Enabling acquisitions in the cloud
So how does it work? From day one of an acquisition or merger, Zscaler’s Zero Trust Exchange connects resources across the organisations with no need to address underlying network complexity. The Zero Trust Exchange is not only able to connect users, applications and systems but additionally identifies and contains any acquired cyber threats which may impact the integration. Secure, policy-based cross-company access - without placing the acquired entity or assets on the buyer’s network - is a foundational approach that eliminates the need to deploy endpoint agents.
“Zscaler’s Zero Trust Exchange can connect users, applications and systems anywhere, at any time. So you’re no longer trying to force the networks of two disparate companies together. We’re actually stitching them together through an electronic switchboard,” says Cuneo.
As a result, Zscaler can very quickly and with almost no technology requirement, connect users together with systems and applications. That means businesses can grow their positive cash flow, manage risk and increase employee productivity from day one.
Businesses can grow their positive cash flow, manage risk and increase employee productivity from day one
“Instead of being forced to spend time and money on attempting to connect networks, telecoms and hardware together, we can take your asset and redirect its traffic into our Zero Trust Exchange with your current technology - and we’ll put the appropriate security controls and policies in place,” says Cuneo.
“We can connect users/applications, located in a branch, campus, data centre or cloud via a virtual tunnel directly into our zero trust cloud and then apply the necessary security controls and policies to protect the integrity of both parties. There is nothing to deploy, no firewalls, no MPLS, no VPNs, no VDI, no new laptops required.”
This allows our organisations to do something they have never been able to do before, which is to enable the business to grow, just hours after sign and close. “What used to take years, some organisations are now doing in just a few hours,” says Cuneo.
“Day one where someone buys a company – that’s when the clock starts ticking. That’s when it can take up to two years to get those two environments connected together to show positive business growth. But now, as soon as they hand over the keys, within a few hours, they’re up and running and connected within the environments in a secure and reliable fashion, with no technology required,” says Cuneo. Put simply, he says: “We do acquisitions in the cloud, and we eliminate the need for having an IT footprint on-premise.”
Benefits of zero IT acquisitions
In terms of benefits, this of course means faster value creation. Where organisations can typically take that two-year period to generate positive cash flow and growth, it can be done almost instantly. It also means they can redeploy valuable funds that would be spent on connecting two environments together, elsewhere such as integrating their applications and systems.
And the ability to mitigate cyber threats can’t be underestimated. After an acquisition is announced, the number of malware attacks can increase by up to 300%. In fact, there is a well-defined playbook whereby malicious actors survey the perimeter of the acquired asset, identify what technology has been deployed – and their ability to gain access to it – and then plant themselves in that target and just wait.
“That asset which was compromised now has full access control over the parent company. The risk is unprecedented,” says Cuneo. But Zero Trust Exchange stops that attack before it can even occur, potentially saving millions of dollars in mediating a ransomware attack, and protecting the company’s brand and reputation. And it’s not just about creating value, but capturing it. For example, there’s no protracted process of migrating employees over to new applications and systems, or rationalising what stays and goes when finding you have two of everything.
“Every merger and acquisition has a synergy savings target – how much cost comes out: facilities, manufacturing, IT legal, headcount. That’s a very elongated process. We just streamlined it so that as soon as the keys to the kingdom are handed to the owner, they can begin onboarding immediately,” says Cuneo. “We’re connecting the users to the applications in a bi-directional fashion, and they’re immediately seeing both value capture and value creation.”
Appetite for M&A is increasing – a KPMG survey found that nearly 70% of private company leaders expect to see an increase in M&A opportunities over the next 18 months. The ability to achieve integration with a zero IT footprint will quickly become the gold standard, resulting in quicker transactions, increased cybersecurity, reduced integration complexity and heightened business agility for future organisations.
For more information please visit www.zscaler.com
