Lawyer Monthly - September 2024

An Exclusive Interview with: Shivkumar Gopalan​ Shiker Consulting (St. Neots, UK)​ www.shikerconsulting.com supported by Satya, who has completed 100+ M&A transactions, including 70+ IT/ Tech DDs. We collaborated closely, to provide the insights needed for Everfield to evaluate Trade Interchange from a tech perspective. Why was the advice provided from your team imperative for Everfield and what would have been the consequences had they neglected this area? It is critical that Everfield is fully aware of the tech landscape of the organisations they acquire. Without completing Tech DD, Everfield likely may not proceed with further stages of due diligence, or even to acquire an organisation. In that scenario, advice from Shiker becomes one of the key factors towards progressing the deal to the next stage. Also, we make Everfield aware of the key areas they need to work on post the acquisition, so that the Operations team start the pre-work earlier, thereby advancing the portfolio improvement lifecycle. Would you tell us about the impact of this acquisition, how do you believe this will benefit both parties involved? Everfield’s strategy is to acquire growing B2B software firms and provide them with the right support to continue their success and to taking their achievements to the next level. We believe that Trade Interchange has a great partner in Everfield who will support their growth and help to expand into new markets. Trade interchange adds a modern and mature SaaS product to Everfield’s portfolio of Supplier Management software, thereby strengthening the range of services that Everfield’s SaaS products can provide. Shiker’s expertise in evaluating SaaS organisations and software offerings is quite broad, which contributed to the smooth and swift completion of this transaction. Can you expand on the level of support you provided Everfield throughout this acquisition and tell us about the area of advice you were there to offer? Shiker Consulting is a technology partner to Everfield, supporting them on Tech Due Diligence and providing Technology advisory during acquisition processes. We have been working with Everfield since 2022, and have been part of most of their acquisitions, supporting them particularly on SaaS acquisitions. What roles were necessary in your team and who was collaborating on this acquisition from Shiker Consulting? Shiker is a boutique Tech Consulting firm with experienced consulting practitioners. Our team is led by Shiv, who has been a CIO for a £2bn SaaS global company previously. Tech DD team is led by Robert, who has previously led the Cloud Practise for global SaaS company. Tech DD is TRANSACTION INTERVIEW 49

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