Reference Carve-out
Separation from a group, five countries, seven plants.
Once the deal is signed, the clock starts ticking. Supplier contracts, ERP, infrastructure, devices, the Microsoft tenant and data all had to become independent at the same time and against a deadline.
Fact sheet
Manufacturer with 500 to 1,000 employees, separated from a group, five countries, seven plants.
- TSA duration, contracted for 12 months, exited after 4 months
- 12 to 4 months
- Cost of a replaced US production software, with more functionality and data held in the EU
- −68 %
- in five countries separated at the same time, including contracts, ERP, infrastructure, devices and tenant
- 7 plants
Source: Ascentra Solutions, carve-out of a manufacturing company
Starting point
Once a carve-out is signed, the clock starts ticking. The seller keeps providing IT, systems and some of the contracts for a fixed period. When it ends, the separated company has to stand on its own at every single point: supplier contracts, ERP, infrastructure, devices, Microsoft tenant, data, right down to the sales strategy.
The difficulty was less any single task than doing everything at once, against a deadline:
- Tight timeline. A compressed schedule between signing, closing and TSA exit, with critical workstreams running in parallel, such as several ERP roll-outs.
- Spin-off after many years inside the group. Processes, systems, organisational structures and support functions had been merged with the parent company for years.
- International complexity. Seven plants in five countries on several continents, requiring aligned governance and early local ability to act.
Approach
- For every supplier contract and every system, the first question: does it transfer, or does it have to be rebuilt?
- Where contracts could transfer, we renegotiated terms instead of letting them expire and re-tendering.
- For everything else, we selected replacements together with the employees who would later work with them.
- We extracted data from the group systems, distributed it and made it available again across all sites.
- ERP was rolled out at two sites, further software at three sites.
- Infrastructure, devices, Microsoft tenant and sales strategy were rebuilt.
Our team took full responsibility for defined workstreams, with the same hands-on mindset as the investor and independent of specifications. Execution was tightly structured, and every task was tracked systematically.
Outcome
The separated company was running on its own systems much earlier than planned. The TSA was shortened from a contracted 12 months to 4, and at this scale every TSA month saved is worth a mid six-figure amount. By renegotiating and replacing suppliers, service providers and software, costs fell by up to 68 percent in individual cases. A US production software was replaced despite resistance from the plants, with data now held in the EU and better functionality than before.
We continue to support the company in several optimisation projects beyond the TSA exit.
What I value about working with Ascentra Solutions is that they take responsibility rather than simply execute. That allows me and my team to focus on our core topics.
For us, Ascentra Solutions is not a typical IT service provider. They think further ahead and look at processes and people as well as IT, so that the solutions last.
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