“It wasn’t a big programme, but it could have gone wrong. There was no cutover plan, and teams offshore had no idea this divestiture was a priority. Pivot came in late and got it over the line,” said Pivot’s Project manager.
The sale of an Italian production site to an Italian Food Giant looked straightforward on paper. In reality, it was the kind of “small” project that can create outsized risk.
For the client, a global spirits leader, this was about more than a single plant. Under pressure from slowing volumes, margin squeeze and rising debt, the company needed to lighten its load. The strategy was to shed capital-intensive assets while keeping its brands and customers. This project was an early test of that strategy.
The transaction closed. 350 people moved to the new owner. Payroll ran. Vendors were paid. Data was protected.
Behind that smooth outcome was a late-stage intervention from Pivot that turned a fragile one-off project into a repeatable blueprint for future divestitures.
By mid-2025, the global spirits leader completed the commercial deal for the production site. The plant would transfer to the Italian Food Giant; the brands and core systems would stay with the spirits company.
On the IT and SAP side, things were less tidy. Activities lived in scattered spreadsheets and emails. There was no central log to track risks, actions, issues and decisions.
The off-shore Centre of Excellence (COE) – the team that handled business-as-usual SAP incidents – hadn’t been brought on the journey. For them, this project was “just another ticket” said Pivot’s Project Manager.
SAP access was locked down, with no usable sandbox and no generic test roles. Simple end-to-end tests required many access requests. A late change of bank account for the buyer blew up assumptions about how payments would work.
Yet, on the business side, expectations were clear and unforgiving. Employees transitioning to the Italian Food Giant needed to be “productive and paid” from day one.
The buyer’s team needed to run payments themselves, not depend on the seller’s finance function. The buyer had to be able to operate within SAP without seeing wider group data. Especially sensitive financial and profitability information.
The global spirits leader expected the project to work without disturbing higher-profile programmes such as a major S/4HANA migration.
By mid-July 2025, go-live was weeks away. The commercial commitments were fixed. The IT and SAP structure wasn’t. That is when Pivot was asked to step in.
Pivot was engaged as a late-stage rescue partner to stabilise the project, manage cutover, and make sure day one worked in the real world. Not just in a slide deck.
The first move was simple but powerful: put everything in one place. Over a single weekend, Pivot’s lead consultant built a single consolidated cutover plan. She pulled tasks out of scattered spreadsheets and emails.
Pivot’s Project Manager created a central log for issues and incidents. That way, everyone – client IT, COE and the buyer – could see the same list, the same priorities and the same owners. She introduced a light but disciplined daily rhythm. 8:30am calls, clear actions, clear follow-up.
On a headline transformation programme this is standard hygiene. On a “small” divestiture, it hadn’t happened. Once it did, the tone changed. The team could see what mattered and when.
The second major intervention was people and communication. Pivot worked as one team with the client’s central IT and finance leads. Pivot worked with the off-shore COE handling authorisations, developments and incident management. Pivot liased with the Italian food giant’s staff responsible for banking, payments and back-office operations.
That meant constant Teams chats and instant calls rather than a ticket-and-wait model. It required open, honest conversations when things weren’t working. It included frank feedback on where COE capacity wasn’t aligned to the project’s timelines. Pivot offered help even when work “wasn’t Pivot’s job” if it removed a bottleneck for the client.
One lesson stood out. COE could not be a black box in a divestiture. Pivot’s recommendation – now adopted as a standard – was to embed a named COE lead into the project. Even at 10%–20% allocation, they could brief the wider COE using a standard “what this project means for you” deck.
The third pillar was getting SAP to support the business change without creating future technical debt. Within the constraints of a controlled ECC landscape, Pivot designed access so the Italian Giant’s staff could do their jobs without seeing group-wide data. Pivot replaced ad-hoc table access with fit-for-purpose reports.
Pivot navigated restrictive roles in QA to enable realistic end-to-end testing. Pivot requested what was essential to keep the programme moving.
Pivot’s project manager avoided invasive changes that would conflict with the client’s S/4HANA migration track. Pivot focused instead on master data and configuration changes that respected the existing roadmap.
When the buyer changed bank late in the day, Pivot worked with both sides to ensure the buyer could execute payments from day one. Even if that meant accepting manual payments in the banking software.
Throughout, the mantra was familiar: Standard SAP first, minimal bespoke work, and clear, tested behaviour before go-live.
The results? Safe Day One. And a reusable divestiture engine. On go-live weekend, the test was simple: did everyone get paid, and did the system stay standing? They did. It did.
Employees who moved to the Italian food giant had working access and processes on day one. The buyer’s team could pay vendors and staff from their own bank, in their own systems. Sensitive data remained protected. The buyer could see and change only what it needed to.
Issues did arise – as they always do. But with a central log and small, tight-knit team, they were visible, owned and resolved.
The most meaningful outcome wasn’t technical at all.
Through straight-talking, open collaboration and a willingness to “get it done”, Pivot built trust with the client’s IT leaders. Senior managers saw a small onshore team step into a messy situation late and walk it over the line without drama.
A new CEO at the global spirits company, with a mandate to simplify the portfolio and reduce leverage, makes more divestitures likely. When the next disposal comes, the client already knows who can make the SAP and IT side work.
The final deliverable wasn’t just a working plant on a new owner’s books. It was a playbook. It was a governance model that set out roles, approvals and escalation paths. It provided a standard RAID and cutover template ready to plug into the next project. It offered clear recommendation to embed COE and non-SAP application owners early, not treat them as downstream ticket factories. It gave a view on SAP client and access strategy for carve-outs, including sandbox needs and generic test roles. It created an approach to process mapping and role clarity, reusing existing assets from bigger programmes rather than starting from scratch.
In other words, a one-off project became a repeatable divestiture engine.
For senior IT and transformation leaders under pressure to simplify, sell or spin off parts of the business, three lessons stand out:
1. Small divestitures are never small
A single plant sale can carry payroll, compliance and reputational risk. Treat it with the same governance discipline as a flagship programme.
2. Centre Of Excellence and off-shore teams must be inside the tent
If your COE finds out about a divestiture via tickets, you’re behind. Bring them into the project, not the queue.
3. Standard SAP, structured cutover, straight-talking partners
You don’t need clever custom code. You need a partner who will impose structure fast, work in standard SAP, and tell you what you need to hear.
For this global spirits company, this was the first step in lightening the load. With Pivot’s help, it may not be the last.
Names and certain details have been anonymized to protect confidentiality.
