After the Merger/Acquisition...What Do We Do With All Those GISs?
Joseph L. Hobbs
Vice President Strategic Consulting Services
Geographic Information Technology, Inc.
101 Inverness Drive East, Suite 130
Englewood, Colorado 80112
Abstract
Merger and acquisition (M&A) activity in the utility market space is creating new challenges for
geo-spatial systems managers and their new combined organizations. Making adjustments to
meet these challenges threatens the status quo, and often evokes an emotional response and stiff
resistance. So much so, that a rational approach is needed to sort out the challenges of having
multiple, often conflicting geo-spatial technologies in the new organization. We will outline a
tested methodology used to identify viable go-forward alternatives, gather key decision support
information, and develop a business case structure to objectively select the best enterprise geospatial
alternative. This approach takes most of the emotion out of the decision process and
builds wide support in the enterprise for the selected alternative.
Introduction
When in the muddle of multiple systems, how does the new enterprise achieve the effectiveness
and efficiency promised in the heat of the merger? Too often, it appears, operations management
systems such as Geographic Information (GIS), Outage Management (OMS), Work Management
(WMS), and Mobile Data/Field Force Management (MD/FFM) are overlooked in merger
planning. These systems are often viewed as department level, limited scope systems, that
perform specific operational support activities used by a relatively few employees.
In fact these systems, when deployed appropriately, have the potential to significantly impact the
effective operation of the merged utilities across the entire enterprise. Now, the challenge is to
identify what combination of existing or available systems will provide the best return to the
merged enterprise.
In this paper we are going to concentrate on GIS solutions. This approach however, will work
equally well when analyzing any of the operations management systems present within the
merged utility.
The Problem
As a result of a merger or acquisition, two or more geo-spatial systems are deployed across
segments of the new enterprise. Each system has a set of advocates familiar with its functions
and with biases toward extending its implementation into the new larger enterprise.
Additionally, the systems may be in dissimilar stages of implementation, providing differing
functionality.
Further, the level of integration between one geo-spatial system and its related enterprise systems
may be greater than that of the other(s). Significant capital investments have been made in each
system, and one or more of the systems may have significant depreciation write-down remaining.
Finally, significant investments have been made in employee training and interface development
to link the geo-spatial system to other operational and corporate systems.
Simply stated, the problem encompasses complex and costly components, personal preferences
and embedded processes, significant enterprise financial and tax consequences, and major
change management or operational readiness issues.
