Project snapshot
Our client was considering the acquisition of a cloud services provider to extend their service offering and requested full due diligence of the target company’s assets. They chose Intellias among other vendors of technical due diligence services because of the high quality of our business-significant private equity consultancy.
Our team of cloud experts examined and evaluated key components of the target company’s private and public cloud solutions and presented their findings in a detailed report.
Our client is a leading national provider of telecommunication services that is committed to ensuring the highest quality of a broad range of services for both B2B and B2C customers. With the aim of enhancing its line of products and solutions with public cloud services, the company was evaluating available acquisition options.
Business challenge
In order to make an evidence-based investment decision, our client planned an all-encompassing evaluation of the target business — an independent provider of public and private cloud services. To get a complete picture of the target company’s technology stack, infrastructure, and operations, the client requested technical due diligence.
The due diligence process was expected to establish how mature and advanced the cloud services provider was and whether any additional investments would be required in the event of its inclusion in our client’s asset portfolio.
Execution
To ensure proper and thorough evaluation of all aspects of the target company’s operations, Intellias put together a team of certified cloud experts: a manager, technology lead, cloud and automation expert, and process maturity expert. As the process involved examining the target company’s data centers, the due diligence team also included certified data center engineers and VMware SMEs.
During the due diligence process, Intellias experts conducted five deep-dive interviews with stakeholders of the target business and requested relevant documentation. To evaluate the company’s physical infrastructure, our representatives visited five data centers and examined the state and functionality of hardware. They also performed a high-level review of Tier III compliance. At the same time, the due diligence team paid attention to the software frameworks implemented at the data centers to evaluate their ability to provide Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS). They examined and assessed multiple aspects of the architecture solution for providing cloud services:
- Organizational efficiency
- Availability
- Performance
- Access system
- Monitoring
- Scalability
- Licensing
- SLA compliance
- Issue resolution speed
Business outcome
Based on the evaluation of the target company’s infrastructure, our engineers prepared and delivered a detailed report containing all their findings. The report highlighted identified issues according to the RAG (Red, Amber, Green) model:
- Red – potential showstoppers
- Amber – issues that may have an impact on negotiations
- Green – findings included for information
In this due diligence, we drew the client’s attention to some red flags, such as a high-risk business model that may affect business continuity. At the same time, our report mentioned areas where improvements may be in order: for example, certain gaps in operational processes and missing certifications.
Our client was satisfied with the overall due diligence process conducted by Intellias experts, the level of detail in the report, and the findings that allowed the client to accelerate the process by at least six months compared to an in-house technical analysis, make a better-informed investment decision, and substantially reduce the cost of acquiring the target company. For Intellias, this project was a valuable opportunity to assist our long-term client by providing proven expertise and consultancy excellence.