1. An approach to Oracle E-Business Suite (EBS)
integration for acquisitions

2. An approach to Oracle EBS integration for acquisitions
Introduction
A high level approach towards financial and HR systems integration of Oracle E-Business Suite of applications for small
to medium businesses (<2000 people or < $500 million in revenues) is presented here.
Activities before Acquisition Date
Since legally you cannot obtain any financial or HR system information of the company being acquired before the
acquisition date, care is to be taken as to what can be asked and what cannot be. However the acquiring company’s
finance, HR and IT departments can complete a couple of tasks as below on their side and be prepared for the challenges
ahead.
1. A visual of the current systems and processes in the company. A visual representation of the current system
landscape comes very handy in understanding the impact of acquisition at different times like Day 1, Day 30 etc.
2. An inventory list of all applications, reports, interfaces, enhancements etc. Post acquisition, some of them may be
redundant. This list is going to be of real help when the actual integration efforts start.
3. A questionnaire to be asked for each of the major areas to the company being acquired at the right time. The
questionnaire can start off with basic questions like the application being used for each purpose, the current
version, the functionality that is turned on, list of enhancements, alerts, triggers, reports and interfaces etc.
4. Start preparing for HR conversions which would typically be the first thing to happen. If the acquiring company
has done it in the past, it helps to review the scripts, test them with dummy data and make them ready to do the
HR data load when once the acquisition is announced. There would not be much time from the date of
announcement to the day when executive team would like combined organization charts, headcount reporting,
open requisition reporting etc. So, this step would be of immense help.
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3. An approach to Oracle EBS integration for acquisitions
5. A decision of which system (either the acquired or the target company) would be used as the system of record
going forward. Some applications outside of Oracle EBS can still continue in their respective places, but generally
there will be only one Oracle EBS and it is important to decide which of the two instances would be used going
forward.
6. A brief overview of the systems and processes at the target company through meetings so that the questionnaire
can be tailored accordingly.
7. The organization structure of the target company. This would help to understand the headcount distribution to
support these applications, their locations, availability in case of any questions etc.
Activities after acquisition is announced
When once the acquisition is announced publicly, all the information can be gathered to strategize the work efforts for
integration. It also helps to come up with a high level timeline chart to show what major tasks would happen when. A
progressive elaboration of the detailed task list based on this strategic plan can then be easily achieved.
HR data conversions
Mostly, the HR conversions would be the first to be completed as soon as possible. It is very important to generate
combined headcount reports and organization charts. A sense of belonging of the new team members will also develop
because of this. Since HR data will not be available until the acquisition is finalized, the HR integration can be planned
and the scripts developed before the announcement, but the actual HR conversion can happen maybe a week after the
Day 1.
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4. An approach to Oracle EBS integration for acquisitions
Payroll and Benefits integration
The next logical step towards integration is to decide on the payroll and benefits providers for the combine d company
and integrate these systems.
Financial integration
When once HR, payroll and benefits conversions are done, teams can focus on deciding when to do Procure -to-Pay (P2P),
Record-to-Report (R2R) and Order-to-Cash (O2C) streams. It might be prudent to not touch revenue generation systems
until the integration model developed by the combined companies is working and the team is happy about it. So, it is
advisable to complete P2P and R2R in the next 90 days, followed by O2C within 180 days from Day 1 or beyond.
Licensing Needs
Apart from systems and process integration, the teams should also realize that the licensing needs of the combined
company would change. Oracle would license their e-business suite in different ways for different customers. The
licensing costs would typically change with the change in the headcount of the organization. So, care is to be taken that
the combined company is in compliance with the licensing needs.
Similarly, any third party tool that is integrated with Oracle E-Business and any developmental tools that the teams
would use should also be considered for the licensing compliance as part of the integration efforts.
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5. An approach to Oracle EBS integration for acquisitions
Acquisition Timeline
A sample timeline of the integration is given below. Please consider that this is just a guideline to plan as every company
is different with its own priorities and risks.
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