12-month carve-out

Delivered across 12 legal entities

200+ employees

Trained across Microsoft Power BI, data science and agile methodologies

~€500m turnover business

Successfully separated and operationally independent

Define

When a private equity firm acquired a global FMCG company’s tea and infusions business, the newly formed entity needed to separate cleanly from its parent organisation under Transition Service Agreement (TSA) exit terms — within 12 months.

The scale of the challenge was significant. The carve-out spanned 12 legal entities and required the business to sever its operational dependency on the parent company and establish a fully independent operating model within the agreed timeframe. Workstreams ran concurrently across finance, data, project management, programme management office (PMO) and change management, with no room for slippage on timelines.

Definia was appointed as Transformation Partner to lead the programme, providing both the strategic oversight and hands-on delivery capability needed to make it work.

Design

Definia’s approach centred on deploying the right capability at the right time across each workstream.

Key elements included:

  • Embedding a Definia Associate with finance subject matter expertise to lead the migration from SAP ECC6.0 to S/4HANA 2022 — a technically complex transition requiring deep system knowledge and close collaboration with the finance team.
  • Managing project planning and control through Microsoft Project, with risk and issue tracking running in parallel through Jira and HP ALM, giving the programme leadership real-time visibility and a clear audit trail throughout.
  • Designing and delivering a training programme to bring the wider finance team with them, covering interface changes, sub-ledger consolidation and the updated data model between the legacy and new SAP environments.

Deliver

Definia’s Associate led the European finance team through the full SAP S/4HANA implementation, from project planning and resource management through to the review of functional specifications, tax legal and statutory requirements, master data validation and post go-live support.

Two further workstreams ran in parallel:

  • FP&A (financial planning and analysis): Establishing and operationalising the function for Europe, covering strategic business planning, monthly forecasting, performance reviews, cash flow forecasting and daily sales flash reporting
  • Capability building: A programme of monthly webcasts training 200+ employees across Microsoft Power BI, data science principles, Microsoft 365 automation and agile methodologies, to ensure the business had the internal capability to sustain its new ways of working long after the programme closed.
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