Mergers and acquisitions boom

Taking advantage of the mergers and acquisitions boom with successful integration.

Despite the widespread economic uncertainty throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, we’re currently in the midst of a global mergers and acquisitions (M&A) boom.

According to research by Refinitiv, a global provider of financial market and infrastructure data, the total value of pending and completed M&A deals announced in 2021 has already exceeded US$3.6 trillion, surpassing the full-year tally of US$3.59 trillion in 2020. So far this year, 35,128 deals have been announced, a 24% rise from last year.

This is a worldwide phenomenon, with the United States accounting for $2.14 trillion worth of M&A deals this year, while Europe and the Asia-Pacific account for $657 billion and $620 billion, respectively.

In Australia, there’s already been some high-profile M&A announcements this year. Most notably with US-based financial services company Square, acquiring Australia’s buy now, pay later giant Afterpay for $39 billion. This was a new record, and is now the biggest deal in Australian corporate history.

Minimising the M&A integration headache

This flurry of activity in the M&A space presents a huge opportunity for businesses in Asia-Pacific. But M&As are incredibly complex, and organisations find themselves with the difficult task of integrating large amounts of legacy infrastructure.

M&As bring obvious challenges that arise whenever different entities come together – operational habits are already entrenched in each business, and preferred methods for accomplishing work are firmly in place. Furthermore, entire digital systems can, and in fact, usually do, differ.

Separating, migrating and integrating processes and data from one organisation to another is extremely complicated, and while M&As often come with a promise of growth and financial stability, a smooth integration is critical to M&A success.

In order for the businesses to work together and for their services to continue to meet the needs of internal and external stakeholders, a plan needs to be in place for a seamless transition long before any M&A actually takes place.

Then, once a deal is agreed, integrating newly merged companies effectively and quickly, should be of the utmost importance to keep critical functions operating.

When big entities merge, it usually involves integrating dozens or even hundreds of systems and without a seamless integration process, M&As can go horribly wrong. Furthermore, if an organisation relies on manual processes and manual data management, the success of a M&A is at risk.

Using low-code to drive automation, businesses can eradicate the frustrating manual processing and disjoined systems that often come with M&As. Instead, the speed of low-code means M&As are completed much faster, so the return on investments is experienced much sooner.

Using low-code for M&A projects, businesses can bring everyone and everything together on one single platform. With this one single source of truth for the entire business, the M&A team is able to work toward ensuring the success of the project and building a template for future M&As that saves even more time, money and frustration.

It means that M&As can be managed with ease and data is available to those who need it, when they need it, on any device.

M&A success: Cigna NZ’s single system of engagement

Cigna NZ, a leading insurance provider, has been utilising low-code technology to successfully navigate its way through the complexity of several M&As.

In 2018, Cigna NZ acquired ANZ Bank New Zealand’s insurance arm OnePath. The sale included a 20-year strategic alliance for Cigna to provide insurance solutions for ANZ customers. As a result of the transaction, the two companies merged to become New Zealand’s third largest life insurance player.

Speaking at the recent Appian APJ event, Brandon Beukes, Business Solutions Lead at Cigna NZ explained how having a solid foundation on the Appian Low-Code Platform reduced complexity during the M&A process.

“We were tasked with integrating a whole plethora of additional systems including multiple admin systems, CRMs and underwriting engines – it was a very complex situation for us to navigate,” explained Brandon.

Despite the complexity, Cigna NZ managed to integrate the OnePath workflow processes, task management and customer documentation processes into its existing low-code platform in less than 12 months.  

“We were able to leverage our existing framework and move all the new users and processes into our existing workflow,” said Brandon.

One of the key benefits of low-code technology for Cigna NZ is the simplicity. “One of the things that really helped us out was the ability to phase things in gradually. When we first bring processes onto the single platform, we go for a skeleton and then we build it out. Appian allows us to go in with the basics and get things running, then we can make changes to enhance and develop very quickly, without having to trawl through lines of code,” said Brandon. 

According to Brandon, Cigna NZ uses the Appian platform to create one single system of engagement across multiple departments and organisations. “Everything is consistent and intuitive and users across the business can move across teams. None of our users have to understand the back-end as the Appian UI is displayed in the exact same way across the business.” 

The low-code approach to M&A

According to Deloitte’s 2021 global outlook survey of insurance executives, 26% of Asia- Pacific respondents plan to pursue M&A as a way to support financial stability over the next six to 12 months. But all too often, organisations struggle to figure out the most efficient systems or IT strategy to support M&A transactions.

As enterprises grow through M&A, it can be challenging to streamline processes and ensure uniformity across workflows. Systems with mission-critical data often aren’t well integrated, making it difficult and inefficient for users to navigate their workflows.

By using an enterprise low-code platform, organisations can remove the barriers of M&As quickly to successfully integrate new and old business processes and data on to one single source of truth.

To watch the Appian APJ virtual event discussion with Cigna NZ in full, visit: https://appian.com/content/events/apj/en.html

By: Luke Thomas, Regional Vice President APAC at Appian