Reducing Acquisition Risk through Better IT Due Diligence
In today’s highly regulated business environment, it’s harder than ever to get a clear and comprehensive view of the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO), and the risk associated with a potential merger or acquisition. A key contributor to this acquisition risk is overlooking IT infrastructure and security issues. This oversight often leads to unanticipated IT investment and possible regulatory or software compliance issues.
Types of IT Due Diligence
Paranet Solutions has been delivering IT assessment services for companies going through a merger or acquisition for almost two decades. The result of that experience and expertise is ParaVerify IT – a comprehensive solution designed to help companies understand the cost and risk involved within the IT organization of a prospective acquisition.
The IT Due Diligence Process
To ensure that every ParaVerify IT engagement maximizes our clients’ investment and yields accurate results, Paranet has developed a proven approach based on our proprietary Compass Methodology™. We take a holistic approach by examining all strata of the IT infrastructure:
- Examination of inventories, diagrams, standards and technical implementations
- Evaluation of all applications and databases including business criticality and supportability
- Assessment of IT service delivery and service support functions
- IT organizational structure and support of critical business processes
Paranet will map the company’s IT strengths, weaknesses and hidden deficiencies to acquisition priorities. The results allow clients to better understand the current state of the target IT organization. They also provide a roadmap for prioritizing possible future IT investment requirements that may affect valuations.
IT Due Diligence Risk Analysis
As a complement to the IT assessment, Paranet also provides a comprehensive evaluation of threats, vulnerabilities and impacts. We utilize a National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) approach to risk analysis by understanding the following:
- What are the critical information assets (data)?
- Where do these assets reside (systems)?
- How are they protected?
By assigning value to data, Paranet is able to quantify risk. Additionally, we will create a Compliance Dashboard which captures the compliance status of the IT organization for applicable regulatory requirements such as SOX, HIPPA, SAS-70 and more.
Learn More
If you would like additional information or have specific questions regarding how we can employ our philosophy to help you build your business, click here to schedule a consultation or call us at 214.623.5150.
