When you’re preparing your business for sale, you’ll spend months focusing on financials, customer contracts, and operational performance. But there’s one area buyers scrutinise more closely than many owners realise: your IT and data environment.
Poor IT practices, weak compliance, or hidden risks can all trigger red flags during due diligence — and those red flags can directly impact your valuation, or even derail a deal altogether.
Here are five of the most common IT issues that reduce business value, and how to avoid them.
1. Legacy Systems That Can’t Scale
Buyers want a business that’s ready for growth. If you’re still relying on outdated, unsupported, or heavily customised systems, they’ll see higher costs and risks ahead. Legacy technology often means expensive upgrades, staff retraining, and security gaps — all of which can reduce your asking price.
How North Signal helps: We conduct IT audits to assess system resilience and create clear roadmaps for modernisation, including cloud migration and automation strategies.
2. Gaps in Cybersecurity and Compliance
Cybersecurity is one of the fastest ways to scare off a buyer. Weak access controls, missing policies, or a history of breaches will raise immediate concerns. Likewise, failure to comply with standards like ISO 27001, GDPR, or PCI DSS can result in fines and lost contracts.
How North Signal helps: As a Manchester-based consultancy, we deliver practical ISO 27001 and GDPR compliance support and provide Fractional CISO services to reduce risks and strengthen resilience before due diligence begins.
3. Unclear Ownership of Applications and Data
During an acquisition, buyers need to know exactly what they’re buying. If your organisation can’t demonstrate clear ownership of licences, data, or third-party systems, it creates uncertainty — and uncertainty reduces value.
How North Signal helps: We perform audits of applications, vendors, and data flows, giving you documented evidence of ownership and risk-free handover to a buyer.
4. Lack of IT Governance and Strategy
IT that operates in silos or on an ad hoc basis signals poor governance. Buyers see this as a future cost and a management challenge. Without clear IT strategy and board-level reporting, it’s difficult to prove your business is scalable.
How North Signal helps: Our Fractional CIO and CTO services in Manchester bring board-level IT governance and leadership into your business, ensuring technology strategy is tightly aligned with commercial goals.
5. No Evidence of Business Continuity or Incident Response
Buyers expect to see plans for resilience — how your business would recover from downtime, data loss, or a cyber attack. If you don’t have disaster recovery or incident response measures documented, it signals risk and increases the chance of renegotiation.
How North Signal helps: We design and implement business continuity frameworks and test them in practice, so you can demonstrate operational resilience with confidence.
Preparing for Sale: Turning IT Into an Asset
Buyers don’t just want a business that’s profitable today — they want one that’s resilient, compliant, and ready for growth tomorrow. By addressing IT red flags early, you can protect or even increase your valuation.
At North Signal, we specialise in preparing Manchester businesses for sale by auditing IT, compliance, and security, and by providing practical recommendations and leadership support.
Contact us today to find out how our IT due diligence and fractional leadership services can help you get the best outcome when it’s time to sell.
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