In our experience, technical due diligence is the single biggest differentiator of deals done well—or poorly. What’s more, technical due-diligence failures can usually be avoided. Almost always, the disappointed acquirer insufficiently vets the technology and discovers too late that it fails to work as advertised. Or the technology does work, but only in constrained environments, and won’t scale. In other cases, crucial parts of the IP turn out not to be owned by the seller.
Via Farid Mheir
WHY IT MATTERS: organizations spend considerable time and effort for financial due diligence but relatively little on technology due diligence. Often this is due to lack of knowledge at the executive or even at the CIO level - especially when acquiring a new tech or in a new field. In the past, I've come to develop an approach where I perform a 360 degree technology audit that not only dives into the capabilities of the solution (the software code) but also on other essential elements of success (software engineering best practice and processes, design and requirements, etc.).