Strategic Solutions & Services, LLC

You’re the head of a division that’s part of a large, successful financial services company.  You are notified that your parent company has sold your division to another firm and you now have to transform into a stand-alone business and do it quickly…. 

The Business Situation

Our client had been a printing and fulfillment division of a large financial services firm that was unexpectedly divested from its corporate parent and sold to another company.  Under the agreement, our client was required to provide the same services they always had to their former parent company, but now were expected to do so as a free standing business. 

The Challenge

The client needed to create the infrastructure to support a stand-alone business for everything from accounting to human resources to sales and marketing. They had to create this new infrastructure without compromising the ongoing services they were expected to provide their former parent company, who they now depended on as their number one client. 

The Strategy

We were asked to help the client upgrade and reconfigure their SAP application to support a stand-alone business.  

First, we worked with the client to put together a team that would address all the issues that had come with the divesture. Then we helped the team successfully document and resolve each issue.  One of the issues involved system integration with their former parent company.  As their biggest and most demanding client, they needed to build interfaces so interaction between the two businesses would remain seamless. 

Team building was integral to all of our work with this client.  Due to the abrupt nature of the change and the dramatic impact it had on all the employees who’d been part of the divesture, motivating the team, making sure they felt appreciated, responding to their issues and removing roadblocks were critical to our success. 



The Outcome

 By the end of the project, the client had successfully reconfigured and upgraded their ERP (SAP) application to enable their transition to a stand-alone business.  We also built into the project additional team training to ensure there’d be an effective support group to sustain the new environment long-term. 

The Importance of Business Values or Success Result of Business Values

This project’s success is a good example of how important it is to understand and manage the ‘human element,’ the emotions people bring to their jobs.  It’s one of our greatest strengths because of our commitment to business values such as establishing trust, providing straight talk, and demonstrating respect for everyone on the team.  For our client, our approach made it possible for everyone to work for a common goal and resulted in a dramatic improvement in their relationship to their former parent company and current biggest client.