Case Study: Global M&A Programme
Jeff Owen
Cambridge Management Consulting delivers the TSA programme for a $216m divestment 6 months early & under budget.
Utilising our significant experience and proven M&A framework we successfully managed the global divestiture for a multinational financial services company.
The goal of the programme was the transition of two financial derivatives trading platform businesses. The client approached Cambridge Management Consulting to advise them on the optimal way to deliver a business-critical transition and TSA.
The initial engagement was to review and implement a TSA programme and support the client with consulting services to deliver an optimised TSA. We quickly became a trusted partner, and our engagement was extended to leading the delivery of the transition programme.
Our experience in managing and delivering successful TSA transitions resulted in our TSA Manager, Program Manager, Project Managers, Solution Architects and PMO remaining on the TSA from start to finish, ensuring consistency and continuity.
The Challenge
- Client lacked in-house M&A experience and the appropriate resources.
- TSA contract lacked detail which threatened transition timeline and budget.
- Complex global HR transition requirements (US, UK, EU & India).
- FS Global compliance where different regions have different regulatory compliance standards.
- Licensing consent complexity: transition period required the acquiror to contract for ~100 licenses while the client continued to provide an interim service.
- Financial market instability during transition period resulted in staffing challenges impacting the HR workstream.
- We were challenged by the client to optimise the timeline to exit the TSA earlier than the contracted 18-month duration.
Solutions
- Cambridge MC resolved issues with the TSA contract and aligned all parties through a detailed ‘blueprint’ and contract amendment. Typically, we would be engaged early to develop the TSA alongside the client.
- Cambridge MC are experienced with cross-border M&A and the legal implications from TUPE and other workforce legal requirements.
- Our Contract Management team are skilled at assessing and resolving contractual issues and preventing loss of service and unforeseen costs.
- Our HR capability can step in to help with staffing issues and take the pressure off in-house HR teams.
- Our commitment to delivering cost-effective consultancy services means that we delivered the TSA 6 months early and under budget.
Approach
- We ran 16 global projects (with 4 sub-programmes)
- We provided our client with direct access to a team of highly experienced on-demand professionals who remained on the programme for the duration, providing consistency and continuity
- Our PMOaaS hybrid programme approach used both Agile and Waterfall iterative methods in a Managing Successful Programmes (MSP) framework. This approach enabled the programme to gather momentum—planning as knowledge was understood—rather than trying to plan everything up-front
- Full blueprint (MSP artefact) production defined the scope of Roles & Responsibilities, dependencies and the project portfolio definition
- Using our collaborative approach to client relationship management, we brought all the parties together under a jointly agreed definition of what success looks like—this set the vision for the entire project
Outcome & Results
- Highly successful transition which satisfied both parties.
- 18-month programme was delivered within 12 months and under budget.
- All contractual obligations were met.
About Cambridge Management Consulting
Cambridge Management Consulting (Cambridge MC) is an international consulting firm that helps companies of all sizes have a better impact on the world. Founded in Cambridge, UK, initially to help the start-up community, Cambridge MC has grown to over 150 consultants working on projects in 20 countries.
Our capabilities focus on supporting the private and public sector with their people, process and digital technology challenges.
For more information visit
www.cambridgemc.com or get in touch below.
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We were approached by a global networking systems, services, and software company that specialises in optical and routing solutions. Their technology helps carriers, enterprises, and governments build more efficient and scalable networks, particularly for high-bandwidth applications like 5G, cloud computing, and AI-driven networking. Africa is a key strategic market for this client. They are also playing an active role in advancing outlined 5G technology on the continent, emphasising a focus on routing and switching aggregation components, network slicing, and monetisation. The Opportunity The client engaged Cambridge MC to provide external insight and support to augment and accelerate the progress of their Go-to-Market plans for Africa. We proposed our in-house rapid Strategy Stress Test that delivers key insights across areas of your strategy using a 1–5 health-scoring matrix. The client's aim is to grow market share in the region with a precisely focussed strategy that targets their market with key propositions and solutions. We were engaged to review this strategy and their plans for the region, identifying critical opportunities and gaps with a quick turnaround. Approach We used our Rapid Strategy Stress Test methodology which provides: Target geographies, opportunities, and partners for resource effectiveness and success maximisation Assessment of client's Go-to-Market Strategy including identification and testing of key assumptions Identification of new opportunities and any gaps in the strategy Recommendations on how best to capitalise on the market and accelerate their route to success This included carrying out target addressable and client-addressable market sizing by country for the Optical, Data Centre Interconnect, Routing and Switching portfolios; competitor market share analysis; analysis of current and planned data centre build in the target countries; future trend analysis, including Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal and Environmental trends by country. We put their GtM strategy and plans through our Stress Test framework, scoring capabilities against best-in-class – across 11 parameters such as Market Potential, Adaptability to Local Needs, Pricing and Marketing & Demand Generation. Recommendations were made against each of the 11 areas relating to opportunities to accelerate their GtM strategy. In order to support effective targeting of resources into key countries, we developed a country prioritisation framework across 15 parameters, such as GDP growth, energy supply, stability of regulatory environment, and ease of doing business. This quantitative assessment was supplemented with the real world experience of our Africa experts.
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