Diving into the technical world a little bit, when migrating or integrating systems into something new ecosystem, there are a couple of patterns we apply:

  • “Lift and Shift”
  • Hard Cutover
  • Strangulation

With the Lift and Shift approach, we take a component (think of the acquired company’s apps and databases) and “shift” it into the acquired company’s ecosystem. This approach entails minimal changes and has the fastest bring-up time, but comes with duplication of resources. Think double the resources required by the IT teams and costs to maintain it. If you are hoping to realize cost savings, this is the least likely way to address this.

The Hard Cutover approach is where we ensure all data and tooling have been duplicated/migrated onto the new system, and then at a certain date, we cutover to it. This is the most disruptive of the approaches and poses the highest risk. There are short term costs to account for the migration into the new system, but once the cutover is complete, then you will realize more of the potential cost savings.

Lastly, we have the Strangulation approach. In this case, we stand up some additional infrastructure to act as a shim between the old and new systems, and let both run concurrently while providing a transition path between the old and new world. This doesn’t require as much up-front cost as the Lift and Shift approach nor is it as risky as the Hard Cutover. However, it does come with its own set of risks and costs from a longer term maintenance perspective until the old system has been transitioned over, and the shims removed.

Which approach is right for you?

Well… it depends.

Primarily, what are the goals for the acquisition: short and long term? Then, how does that align with the IT goals? Lastly, what is the complexity of the systems being acquired?

Cheers!