A Study On Risks Of Information System Integration In Mergers And Acquisitions Of Companies-From Perspective Of IT Governance

In mergers and acquisitions (M&A), companies nowadays are faced with risks from finance, law and culture as in traditional M&A, as well as risks from information system integration. With the prevalence of informatization strategy in companies, information system integration becomes one of the most important issues in the M&A process. Therefore, a study on the risks of information system integration in M&A process is of practical significance.Through synthesis of and deduction from the related theoretical achievements by other learners, the author made some improvement to the COBIT model and designed a risk control model for information system integration in mergers and acquisitions of companies, which involved risk identity, risk analysis, risk control and other aspects. Then, this model was combined with the specific procedure of mergers and acquisitions of companies to elaborate potential risks in the process and analyze the relevancy among all the risks. The risks were categorized into five groups; and from the perspective of IT management, decision-making right for each group of risks was allocated, while control methods for each group of risks were brought forward. Finally, a case study was made, in which the author analyzed the causes of the failure in the integration and its influence and offered specific control methods.The risk control model designed in this thesis could offer some guidance in actual practice, and the ideas that risks are of relevance with each other and that decision-making right for risk control should be clearly assigned could be used in risk control in other fields. What's more, based on IT management and IT risk theories, the present study broadened the range of future study in management of integration in the process of mergers and acquisitions of companies.