FMC BioPolymer (an AdapChain customer) was acquiring the Alginates business unit from International Specialty Products Inc (ISP). As typically is the case in these situations it was necessary to limit the amount of information being exchanged between the parties. The acquiring party wanted to integrate the acquisition target into its own SAP-centric IT infrastructure immediately after the close of the transaction in order to maximize return on the investment, and minimize business interruption and the potential for customer defection. The acquisition target on the other side needed to limit information and data sharing prior to the close of the transaction in order to protect itself in case the transaction fell through.

This obvious conflict of interest posed major challenges from an IT integration perspective. How could the acquiring business prepare for rapid integration (no more than 5 days after the close of the transaction) without having access to the acquisition targets data prior to the close of the transaction?

The answer is that AdapChain, as a third party and under confidentiality with both sides in the transaction, prepared the acquisitions targets data so that it could be loaded cleanly into the acquiring party’s ERP system (SAP), thereby allowing the acquiring business to conduct business through in its own ERP system within ONE WEEK of the close of the transaction.

The key enabler was AdapChain’s consulting expertice and the use of the Rules Based AdapLink application (RBA). Through AdapChain’s consulting resources, the Rules Based data methodology, and the AdapLink toolset, it was possible to perform data cleansing, data de-duplication and data transformation of the acquisition target’s data, so that it was ready for loading within a few days after the transaction closed.

Conversations between AdapChain and the acquiring party’s IT organization were focused on defining data rules for broad categories of data rather than for individual records. Those types of discussions were conducted without violation of the acquisition target’s need for secrecy yet still allowed for a successful go-live.

After the successful go-live AdapChain’s customer decided to extend the use of the Rules based data-methodology enabled by the Rules Based AdapLink to include additional business objects.