Carving Out Two New Businesses From an Ongoing Fire & Security Group

Background

The two business units — guarding and patrols — were part of a major national fire and security business operating in Australia. Both units were divested from that business, creating two entirely new, independent commercial entities — while the original fire and security business itself continued to operate as an ongoing, unaffected concern. They had previously operated on a single, shared corporate IT environment within the parent business, with over 6,000 security personnel working across metropolitan and regional sites nationally.

At the time, the Australian business was itself owned by a large American conglomerate, forming part of that parent's global security division. The divestment carved both new entities out of the Australian parent business, which meant the transition program had to be managed across three distinct parties at once — the continuing Australian parent, and the two new standalone entities — each with its own priorities, systems, and timelines to align.

The sale agreement set a fixed deadline: both entities had to be capable of operating with zero ongoing reliance on the former parent company's systems, people, or infrastructure — from ERP and scheduling through to payroll, banking, and telecommunications.

Leadership

Ron Le Mesurier was engaged as Interim CIO, reporting to the Transitional MD, to lead the technology and business transition for both entities.

Ron built and led a team of 30+ specialists and held program leadership, technical architecture, and financial and risk management responsibility across the full separation. This included:

• Program Leadership: Directing two parallel transition programs — one per entity — each requiring its own systems, vendors, and stakeholder management.
• Stakeholder Engagement: Coordinating across three parties — the outgoing global parent and the two new local entities — each with different owners, deadlines, and priorities, with the transition team accountable to all three.
• Strategic Planning: Playing a key role in the business strategic planning process and delivering a 5-year strategic plan and IT roadmap for each entity.
• Vendor & Support Establishment: Establishing new standalone vendor contracts and relationships, and building 24/7 outsourced helpdesk support for both businesses.

The Challenge

• Shared Systems: Both businesses ran on a single corporate Pronto ERP instance and guard/patrol scheduling platform, with no separation of data, reporting, or process between them.
• Two-Step Migration Path: Systems separation had to happen in two stages — first divesting both entities onto their own standalone Pronto instances, with each business then running its own later workstream to migrate to a different long-term ERP platform. This staged approach was chosen specifically to hit the divestment deadline: standing both entities up on a like-for-like Pronto instance was far faster than a direct migration to new platforms, letting the divestment complete on the fixed timeline while each business took on its longer-term ERP choice separately, on its own schedule.
• Outsourced Back Office: Payroll, accounts payable, and accounts receivable were run centrally by the former parent — neither entity had its own in-house function.
• No Independent Banking: Cash receipts and customer payments ran through the parent's systems, with no standalone e-commerce or banking relationship in place for either entity.
• Shared Brand & Infrastructure: Websites, data and voice communications, and support structures all needed to be built independently, twice over, from a standing start.

This was not a systems migration in isolation. It required standing up two complete, independent businesses — people, process, and technology — on a fixed timeline, without a single hour of disruption to security personnel or the client sites they were protecting.

Approach

The separation was delivered as two coordinated but distinct transition programs, each covering the full breadth of standalone operations:

• Entity A (Guarding business): Migrated onto a fresh, standalone Pronto ERP instance; migrated the in-house guard scheduling system; partnered with the CFO to establish e-commerce payments and cash receipts with a tier-1 banking partner; brought Payroll, AP, and AR in-house after they had previously been outsourced; worked with Marketing on a full rebrand and new website; and established infrastructure, data and voice communications, support teams, vendor contracts, and a 5-year IT strategy.
• Entity B (Patrols business): Migrated onto its own standalone Pronto ERP instance and patrols scheduling system; partnered with the MD to establish payments, cash receipts, and in-house Payroll/AP/AR; managed rebranding and a new website; and built out the same infrastructure, support, vendor, and strategic foundations as the Entity A workstream.
• Post-Divestment ERP Migrations: Once both entities were stood up on their own Pronto instances, each business separately initiated its own workstream to migrate off Pronto onto a different ERP platform of its choosing. These follow-on migrations sat outside the scope of the divestment program and were run independently by each entity.
• Vendor & Contract Establishment: Engaged Legal on new standalone vendor contracts, including an offshore software development partner, a hardware supplier, and a telecommunications carrier, for both entities.
• Resilience: Developed the Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery plan for the combined program, including establishment of a new DR data centre.

Project Lifecycle

• 01 — Discovery & Strategic Plan: Business strategic planning with the executive team, producing a 5-year strategic plan and IT roadmap aligned to each new owner's objectives.
• 02 — Team & Governance Stand-Up: Built the 30+ person transition team and established program leadership, technical architecture, and financial and risk management structures across both entities.
• 03 — Separation Design: Mapped current-state systems, scheduling, payroll, and banking dependencies on the shared parent environment, and designed the target standalone state for each entity.
• 04 — ERP & Data Migration: Migrated both entities onto their own standalone Pronto ERP instances and scheduling systems as part of the divestment. Each business's subsequent migration onto a different long-term ERP platform was run later, independently, and sat outside this program.
• 05 — Payroll, Banking & Back Office: Established independent e-commerce payments and cash receipts with a banking partner for each entity, and brought Payroll, AP, and AR in-house.
• 06 — Rebrand, Test & Go-Live: Delivered rebranding and new websites with Marketing, established infrastructure and communications, and cut over both entities to full standalone operation.
• 07 — Ongoing Support: Stood up 24/7 outsourced helpdesk support and the Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery plan, including a new DR data centre, for both businesses going forward.

Results

• On Time, On Budget: Both businesses fully operational as standalone entities from day one, with no disruption to guarding or patrol services for any of the 6,000+ personnel or their client sites.
• 75% Reduction in Printing Costs: From $320,000/yr to $80,000/yr — a saving of $240,000 per year.
• Over 50% Reduction in IT Opex: From $2,500,000/yr to $1,100,000/yr — a saving of $1.4 million per year.
• 500% WAN Capacity Increase: Delivered at no additional cost.
• 50% Reduction in Telecommunications Costs: Across both mobile and fixed-line services.
• Two Standalone Entities: Fully independent Pronto ERP instances, payroll, banking, and support structures established from a single shared starting point, ready for each business to run its own future systems roadmap.

Transferable Approach

This separation reflects a repeatable pattern for standing up standalone entities from a shared corporate environment. Where a divestment deadline is fixed, a staged systems approach — separating onto a like-for-like platform first, then leaving each new business to migrate to its preferred long-term platform on its own schedule — can be the difference between hitting the deadline and missing it, without locking either entity into a rushed, permanent systems decision. A 5-year strategic plan and roadmap, agreed early, gives each new business direction from day one. Running each entity as its own dedicated workstream, with shared program governance across both, keeps parallel programs coordinated without slowing either down. Systems, payroll, and banking need to be treated as a single connected workstream, since a business cannot operate independently until all three exist together. Vendor and support structures should be established fresh rather than inherited, giving each entity full ownership of its own contracts and relationships from the outset. And resilience planning — business continuity, disaster recovery, and a dedicated DR environment — belongs in the program from the start, not as an afterthought once the core systems are live.

"The business divested its guards and patrols operations as two separate standalone commercial entities. Ron's task was to build a team of specialists and to manage the transformation of the corporate IT environment to the divested IT environments — in one case creating that new environment. His persistence and determination were readily apparent. Ron had to engage all stakeholders, many of whom had conflicting deadlines and agendas. Ron has a real 'can do' attitude with high levels of resilience in high pressure situations. Ron was a valued member of the business transformation team and a key contributor to the overall success of the divestment process. I was able to rely on Ron and he was counted upon by all parties involved."

Patrick Bourke — Director, who managed Ron directly during the divestment