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Merging IT departments

Our 2 corp's are merging. What are the most important steps we need to take to ensure a smooth integration of the 2 networks. We both run WIN2K with MS Exchange 5.5 and Veritas B/U Exec 8.5 Enterprise.

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Beluga

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svindler

First thing is, make sure that the IT people in the two organisations are able to talk to each other. If they don't mix, the networks won't, either! I know this from experience, where four companies merged, each with their own IT department. A lot of people had to leave (by their own choice) before the dust settled.

Involve some key users in all major decisions and have them participate in information meetings where you inform all users of major changes. You should try to identify users who has a lot of personal (not only by position in the companies) influence and respect in each company.

Establish a common intranet website where the changes will be told in good time. If possible, setup discussion group where users from both companies can exchange their expressions about the changes and the merger in general.

When you build up the common system, make sure that users from both companies get more than they might loose in functionality. Ie, if company A has enjoyed unlimited access to the internet and the company B has had a more restricted policy and you want to impose the restricted policy in the new company, users in company A might get upset. This could be helped by providing them with upgrades, new machines, higher bandwidth or whatever your budget allows. Users from both companies should have a more or less common platform (ie, not 300MHz Pentiums in one company and 1GHz Pentiums in the other) or there will be murmuring.

Also remember to look on your basic network infrastructure.
Are you using private tcp/ip addresses and do they clash? Same thing goes if you are using ipx or any other protocol?

Please be aware that my advice is influenced by the fact that I am from Denmark, where employees expectation on influence generally are higher than in most parts of the world.

Beluga

calberacer,

Any luck?

Les Moore

calberacer,
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