Before ev3 cuts any kind of deal or sits down to negotiate with potential merger partners, integration is on the table. In fact, it's a critical issue ev3 looks at in determining if an acquisition candidate is the right fit.
When considering a merger, ev3 routinely does an exercise to integrate the candidate's key business information-things like customer lists and historical sales information-into its own data warehouse. The idea is to get a picture of how the two would fair as a combined company.
"It's one of the first things we're asked to do," says Bob Straub, director of business systems at ev3. "It's a powerful tool to look at the new, to-be entity and see if it can meet the expectations of the team evaluating the potential merger or business deal."
Eventually, if a deal is inked, Straub's group then moves forward with the formal integration plan, bringing the new company over to ev3's standard IT platforms within two months. The data warehouse integration exercise helps even when ev3 gets to that point, Straub says. "Right out of the gate, it appears like seamlessly integrated data," he says. "So you're getting value-added information right away" to do things like a gap analysis on order entry and manufacturing, he explains.