Despite continuing economic and political turbulence, Europe’s M&A market is accelerating again. Deal volumes are rising sharply, and confidence is returning. Yet for CIOs, this wave of activity brings as many challenges as it does opportunities.

When two organisations come together, their technology estates rarely align. Different infrastructures, applications and cloud maturity levels create complexity fast.

I’ve seen many M&A integrations falter because IT discovery and alignment weren’t prioritised early enough. Mismanaged integration can stall growth before the ink on the deal is even dry.

Tata Communications is no stranger to these M&A scenarios. We have a track record of helping businesses navigate overlapping infrastructures, competing governance models and conflicting security standards.

Through our Digital Fabric, we help enterprises orchestrate change across network, cloud, customer interactions, and IoT environments. It follows a methodology: breaking integration into phases, establishing quick wins around security, identity and compliance, then moving onto longer-term application and service consolidation. This approach ensures business continuity while simplifying and unifying technology landscapes.

For me, the key to success is visibility. In most cases, the acquiring business inherits a black box – a mix of systems, vendors, and security policies that must be understood before anything can be unified. 

Once visibility is established, the focus shifts to creating a blueprint for a single, integrated architecture and a structured approach to migrate networks, applications, and data.

I’ve seen this approach deliver real results. For example, we recently helped a global logistics company integrate a newly acquired business spanning more than 100 sites across 13 countries – automating the migration of over 2,000 devices with zero disruption and 80% higher efficiency.

Ultimately, the CIOs who succeed in M&A are those who treat integration as a strategic opportunity, not just a technical task. 

With the right digital foundation – secure, unified, and intelligently managed – technology becomes the engine that powers growth, synergy, and value creation long after the deal closes.

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