Restructuring and Merger Integration
Restructures and mergers are inherently complex and risky. They are carried out under conflicting pressures:
* To deliver cost savings/synergies as soon as possible
* To minimise risks to day to day operations
* To maintain motivation and performance of people
* To follow the directives of top management and stick within regulatory constraints
* To build a new winning organisation quickly.
We have deep experience and specialist expertise in helping a number of the world’s premier Financial Markets firms successfully carry out restructuring and merger integration.
Our expertise ranges from the narrow – such as managing client novations across legal entity, rationalising market data costs or migrating a trading platform, to the broader PMO, programme management and integration migration and planning.
Often we are seen as unbiased experts, not from either heritage organisation but acceptable to both and thus able to build consensus to a way forward.
We also provide expert coaching and mentoring to support senior line management managing the integration.
If you face difficulties in any of these areas we may be able to provide the missing piece that helps you win. If you are interested in discussing how we can help, please contact us.
Case Study 1
A tier one global Financial Services Group, having undergone a series of mergers and acquisitions, was faced with an IT infrastructure organisation of 14,000 staff in 50 worldwide locations, comprised of 3 heritage organisations and a major outsourcing vendor. The IT management team were charged to implement a new operating model which was intended to reduce cost and improve service delivery. When the programme did not progress with the necessary speed and direction, we were invited to assist.
We quickly established with key stakeholders around the Group the ‘big rules’ that would provide the framework for a new global operating model, then scoped and drove multiple project workstreams, implemented a global PMO, and worked to ITIL principles to define and implement the new operating model. All our proposals for governance and process management were accepted. We delivered the program within the desired six month timeframe whilst maintaining the quality of day-to-day operations. Savings to the client were in the order of 2,000 FTE.
Case Study 2
A European bank had undertaken multiple acquisitions and undergone rapid growth. As a consequence, the global markets division had a large portfolio of legacy applications and senior business management had significant concerns over stability and cost.
We carried out a rapid current state assessment and future state definition. From this we developed a roadmap for transformation addressing cost, capacity, service delivery and stability. We achieved senior management buy-in to the roadmap with a strong business case and directly managed a number of the key projects through implementation. We were able to demonstrate immediate benefits and ultimately yield cost savings to the client of several million euros.
Case Study 3
A tier one European bank had made a large acquisition and the operations function was tasked with delivering synergies as soon as possible by moving all clients to a single entity without causing increased operational or regulatory risk. This was a step change for the newly merged operations teams, facing a challenge of complexity, coordination and tracking at a scale exceeding the experience of their management team.
We were engaged to manage the novation and client transfer process. We worked with the operations teams to prioritise clients, ensure that risks were effectively managed and actively involve key stakeholders. We established the standardised and targeted management information that helped keep the multiple moving parts of novation and client transfer synchronised. The rapid and structured undertaking of these activities meant that the organisation could very quickly realise on-going cost savings whilst continuing to provide high quality operational service to all their clients.
