Summary of Chapter 9, Section 5; Interorganization Information Integration

With the increasing volitility of the worldwide corporate atmosphere where mergers and acquisitions occur at a moments notice, there is no wonder the integration of multiple organizational information systems has become a pertinent issue in todays business world.
There are difficulties in connecting informtion systems of different organizations and transferring data in IOSs and global information systems.
Integrating the Information Systems of Merging Companies:

The ability to integrate an acquired company's IT systems can determine whether a merger/acquisition is a "hit or miss." For the successful integration of multiple (2 or more) organizations the following issues must be prerequisitely addressed:
1. The establishment of an IT leadership team to direct the integration

2. For customer-facing applications, select the option with the lowest business integration risks.

3. Customer-facing applications must have priority over back-office applications

4. Generous retention packages for top-talent IT personnel to ensure they don't leave.

5. The maintenance of high moral amongst IT personnel

6. Increase the company's normal level of project risk to achieve aggressive business integration goals.

7. The use of rich communication media to read emotions and recognize successes because a merger is an emotional event

Business Process Management (The act of surveying and improving current business processes) plays a key role in the facilitation of the integration of an organizations information. This is ALWAYS the first step in conducting a large-scale integration.In the implementation of IT technology integration, most notably mentioned in the chapter were: Data integration and Application Integration.