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IT on M&A Day 1 has one mandate: employees on both sides of the transaction need to be able to work together without disruption to their existing workflows. That requires IT to enable collaboration, communication, and data access at close.
Collaboration is a foundational Day 1 capability. Every employee should be able to chat and call across the new combined organization. Shared Outlook calendaring and address book access should follow, giving both organizations visibility into each other's schedules. Acquiree users should also get access to the Acquirer's intranet, providing immediate connection to the acquirer's information resources, FAQs, leadership content, and HR materials.
Help desk operations should run business-as-usual on Day 1 — both companies maintaining their existing systems and processes in the near term, with a virtual combined IT war room staffed by both help desks to handle escalations. Integration-related incidents should be routed directly to the IMO.
Data sharing — specifically synchronizing customer and entity data from the acquiree into the acquirer's repositories — should be in active design, with field mapping in progress, data compliance approved by legal, and security review underway.
The IT Day 1 plan creates the connective tissue. Full platform integration follows.