Legacy Automation and Tech Debt in M&A Integrations – Case Study
Discover how a financial conglomerate uncovered hidden costs and risks from legacy business apps and redundant automation bots after M&A consolidation and how a Reverse Change Management approach helped restore visibility, governance, and control.
Case Study: Managing Legacy Technology and Redundant Automation in Post-M&A Integration
Background
When a global financial conglomerate merged multiple subsidiaries, each organisation brought along its own applications, automation scripts, and developer culture. The integration program focused on platform standardisation, device unification, and a Zero Trust security model through Microsoft 365 tenancy migration.
This delivered clear wins — improved security posture, reduced licensing costs, and streamlined collaboration — yet beneath the surface, legacy business apps and redundant automation bots continued to operate in isolated silos.
The Hidden Challenge: Digital Ghosts
Despite strong governance frameworks and centralised IT systems, the M&A uncovered persistent “digital ghosts” — local databases, Power Automate flows, macros, and departmental tools managed by one or two employees outside official oversight.
Unregistered in the Configuration Management Database (CMDB)
Missing from the application rationalisation catalogue
Poorly documented or entirely unsupported
Though operational in the background, they created unseen financial leakage, security exposure, and compliance risk.
Impact
CategoryDescriptionOutcomeFinancialContinued cost of legacy infrastructure and duplicate automationErosion of projected post-M&A savingsSecurityOrphaned scripts and unpatched systemsIncreased threat surface despite Zero TrustComplianceLack of ownership and audit trailBreach of internal control requirementsOperationalRedundant automations and key-person dependenciesHidden risk and inefficiency
Intervention: Reverse Change Management (RCM)
To regain visibility, the integration team introduced Reverse Change Management (RCM) — a structured process to reverse-engineer undocumented systems and map hidden automations.
RCM Steps
Engage business SMEs to identify shadow systems.
Reverse-engineer undocumented apps and automation logic.
Catalogue all residual assets into CMDB or ServiceNow.
Assess business value, technical risk, and ownership.
Decide on decommission, migration, or redevelopment.
Result: RCM improved transparency and reduced key-person risk but also revealed the cultural and procedural gaps that allowed ungoverned automation to persist.
Lessons Learned
Standardisation ≠ Rationalisation: Even with unified platforms, legacy logic can persist beneath the surface.
You can’t secure what you don’t know exists: Zero Trust must extend to low-code and RPA environments.
Governance needs visibility: Automation discovery must be continuous, not one-time.
Digital Decommissioning is a discipline: Like data lifecycle management, applications need defined end-of-life plans.
Strategic Recommendations
Embed Digital Decommissioning in M&A integration playbooks.
Build an Automation Governance Centre of Excellence (CoE) to monitor citizen development.
Establish continuous discovery through analytics, telemetry, and dependency mapping.
Apply ownership accountability for every business app and automation bot.
Quantify digital waste via financial valuation frameworks to reveal true post-merger ROI.
Outcome
The organisation restored visibility into previously unmanaged automation, enabling informed decommissioning and reinvestment decisions. With RCM embedded in future M&A playbooks, it reduced both operational risk and hidden IT spend — paving the way for more resilient, standardised, and cost-effective digital ecosystems.
Key Takeaway
Even the most well-executed platform consolidation can hide residual automation debt. Sustainable M&A integration success depends on continuous discovery, transparent governance, and the strategic discipline of Digital Decommissioning.
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