Overview
Following Informa's acquisition of UBM — one of the largest events and media mergers in the sector — the combined organisation faced the significant challenge of integrating two distinct technology estates into a coherent, scalable operating model. This engagement spanned nearly two years and covered the full breadth of transformation activity: from feasibility and gap analysis through to marketing technology rollout, legacy decommissioning, data migration, and Salesforce landscape rationalisation across the merged business.
The Challenge
The acquisition of UBM brought with it a complex legacy technology environment operating across multiple international markets, each with varying degrees of process maturity and system dependency. Key challenges included:
- Operating model misalignment: The existing operating model across both organisations was not fit for purpose at scale. A structured feasibility study was required to assess what a viable MVP operating model could look like before any implementation decisions could be made.
- Fragmented marketing technology: UBM markets were running on a legacy MarTech stack that was costly to maintain, inconsistent in capability, and incompatible with Informa's strategic direction. A phased rollout of a new stack was needed across geographically dispersed markets with varying readiness levels.
- Data consolidation complexity: Multiple source systems needed to be decommissioned and their data migrated into a modern, unified data infrastructure — including Amazon Redshift as the central warehouse, Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition (OBIEE) for enterprise reporting, Eloqua for marketing automation, and Tableau for analytics and visualisation.
- Fragmented customer data: The absence of a unified customer view across the combined business limited the organisation's ability to understand and act on customer relationships at scale. A 365 Customer View analysis was required to define what a complete customer record should look like and how it could be achieved across systems.
- Salesforce sprawl: Post-acquisition, the organisation inherited multiple Salesforce instances with overlapping functionality, inconsistent data models, and duplicated configurations. Rationalising this landscape was essential to reducing cost, complexity, and operational risk.
The Solution
The engagement was structured to address both the strategic and operational dimensions of the transformation. Work began with a rigorous feasibility and gap analysis phase to establish a shared understanding of the current state and a clearly defined direction of travel, before moving into delivery across the technology workstreams.
Throughout the engagement, requirements lifecycle management provided the connective tissue — ensuring that business needs were captured, prioritised, traced through to technical solutions, and validated at each stage of implementation.
Implementation
Feasibility Study & Gap Analysis
Conducted a detailed feasibility study assessing the viability of transitioning from the current operating model to a defined MVP state. The gap analysis identified process, technology, data, and capability shortfalls across markets, providing a prioritised roadmap for remediation and a clear basis for investment decisions.
Requirements Lifecycle Management
Managed the end-to-end requirements lifecycle across all workstreams — from initial elicitation and documentation through to change control and traceability. This ensured that business requirements remained the anchor for all technical and process decisions throughout a multi-workstream, multi-market programme.
New MarTech Stack Rollout
Led business analysis activity in support of rolling out a new marketing technology stack across international markets. This involved market readiness assessments, stakeholder engagement to understand local process variations, and requirements definition to ensure the new stack was configured to meet both global standards and market-specific needs.
Legacy Stack Decommissioning & Data Migration
Supported the decommissioning of the legacy technology stack and the migration of data into a new, integrated data infrastructure:
- Amazon Redshift: Defined requirements for the migration of data from legacy sources into the centralised cloud data warehouse, ensuring data integrity and structural alignment across source systems.
- Oracle BIEE: Supported the transition of enterprise reporting into Oracle Business Intelligence Enterprise Edition, translating legacy reporting requirements into a consistent, governed framework.
- Eloqua: Requirements definition and migration support for the consolidation of marketing automation activity onto Eloqua, enabling centralised campaign management and lead tracking.
- Tableau: Supported delivery of Tableau as the self-service analytics and visualisation layer, enabling business users across markets to access consistent, accurate data without dependence on technical teams.
365 Customer View Analysis
Conducted analysis to define and scope a unified 365-degree customer view across the combined Informa/UBM business. This included mapping data sources, identifying gaps in customer data coverage, and defining the requirements for a consolidated customer record that would support sales, marketing, and events teams with a single, reliable view of each customer relationship.
Salesforce Landscape Rationalisation
Following the acquisition, the organisation held multiple Salesforce instances with inconsistent configurations, overlapping data, and duplicated processes. Contributed to the analysis and rationalisation of this landscape — assessing instance scope, identifying consolidation opportunities, and defining requirements for a streamlined target-state architecture that reduced cost and operational complexity.
Outcomes
- Clear transformation roadmap: The feasibility study and gap analysis provided executive stakeholders with a structured, evidence-based roadmap for the technology transformation, enabling informed prioritisation and investment decisions across a complex programme.
- Modernised data infrastructure: Successful migration from legacy systems to a unified stack — Amazon Redshift, Oracle BIEE, Eloqua, and Tableau — replaced fragmented, costly infrastructure with a scalable, integrated data environment capable of supporting the combined organisation's needs.
- Improved marketing capability: The new MarTech stack rollout delivered consistent marketing automation and analytics capabilities across international markets, replacing an inconsistent legacy environment and enabling more effective campaign execution and measurement.
- Foundation for a unified customer view: The 365 Customer View analysis produced a clear requirements framework and data gap assessment, laying the groundwork for a single customer record that would improve sales and marketing alignment across the merged business.
- Reduced Salesforce complexity: The post-acquisition Salesforce rationalisation initiative identified consolidation opportunities across instances, reducing licence and maintenance overhead while setting the direction for a simpler, more governable CRM architecture.
- Requirements traceability across workstreams: Structured requirements lifecycle management ensured consistent delivery quality across a multi-workstream programme, reducing the risk of scope creep, misalignment, and rework that commonly affect post-acquisition transformation programmes of this scale.