Program Management Services for Post-Merger Integration

The client acquired a business segment from another multinational company. The acquired business included multiple product categories in numerous geographies across the globe. This acquisition necessitated co-ordination across 20+ countries and multiple work streams without impacting the supply to end customers.

The mandate was to support business integration across 20 countries –Australia, New Zealand, and ‘Emerging Asia’, a group of 18 countries which includes Singapore, Thailand, Hong Kong, and India. Nexdigm also helped identify and implement the Service & Repair functionality in the entire APAC region.

Nexdigm provided support across all phases of the project – from initiation to handover.

Initiation

Nexdigm helped in several key aspects:

• Finalization of the scope of work
• Identification of key work streams and on-boarding of the respective owners
• Setting-up regular meeting cadence and escalation matrix

Besides these, we also conducted business analyses and provided advisory on business models.

Planning

We identified integration activities and outlined their interdependencies, duration, and resource requirements. Additionally, we prepared multiple supporting documents, viz. the project plan, function-wise schedules, milestones, and a communication plan.

Monitoring & Control

Nexdigm diligently monitored the progress against planned milestones and highlighted exceptional deviations.

We gave advance notice of approaching milestones and helped coordinate the information flow between various functions and regions.

Our monitoring framework included a weekly cadence with various stakeholders for status updates and escalations, if any.

Go-Live

The team prepared and monitored the transition plan. This comprised of cut-over activities like transfer of fixed-assets, employee transfer, communication to business partners, signing of Country Transfer Agreements, and payment as per the transition agreement.

Post Go-live Support

After the go-live, we closely monitored the health of the integrated business for a period of 60 days. During this period, we provided dashboard-based daily reporting to Cardinal Health’s integration management team.

Handover

We concluded the assignment by providing a comprehensive handover to the function teams.

Some of the factors that contributed to the complexity of this project were:

• Simultaneously carrying out the integration in 20+ countries in APAC
• Navigating through complex and varied regulatory requirements
• Involvement of multiple stakeholders e.g. distributors and external service providers

Nexdigm completed the integration on time, while balancing the overall costs and risks. We also focused our efforts on the stabilization of the consolidated business which enabled the client to leverage synergies of scale and value.

The business transition was completed on the planned date across all countries, within the estimated budget. The Nexdigm team achieved this without any disruption to Cardinal’s business.