Integrating Three Businesses Under One Operating Platform

Background

The organisation was an industrial services business generating approximately $25 million EBITDA. Having grown through acquisition, it comprised three independently operated business units, each with its own ERP systems, business processes, organisational structures, supplier relationships, technology platforms and cost base.

The strategic objective was to integrate these businesses into a single operating model, standardising systems and processes while maintaining business continuity and delivering the expected commercial synergies.

Running concurrently with the integration was the demerger and closure of a separate, unrelated business unit within the group — a non-core, non-profitable operation that did not align with the group's five-year strategic plan, developed in partnership with a top-tier advisory firm. While the details of this workstream remain confidential, it added significant complexity by introducing competing priorities, shared resources and additional governance requirements across the broader transformation program.

Leadership

Ron Le Mesurier joined the organisation as Chief Information Officer to lead the enterprise integration program.

While directly accountable for all technology-related workstreams — including enterprise applications, infrastructure, networks, cybersecurity, telecommunications, data migration, systems integration and end-user technology — Ron and his team also established and led the governance framework that coordinated the broader business transformation.

Each functional area, including Finance, Human Resources, Sales and Operations, retained ownership of its own business deliverables. Ron's role was to provide the executive-level program leadership that aligned these independent workstreams into a single, coordinated transformation. This included:

• Governance & Reporting: Establishing the overall program governance and reporting framework, and providing the Executive Leadership Team with consolidated reporting and a single source of truth for program performance.
• Master Program Plan: Developing and maintaining the integrated master program plan, and coordinating dependencies between business and technology workstreams.
• Cross-Functional Chairing: Chairing cross-functional project governance meetings and executive reporting.
• Risk & Delivery Control: Managing program risks, issues and decision registers, and monitoring milestones, budgets, resource allocation and delivery progress.
• Strategic Alignment: Ensuring technology and business activities remained aligned to achieve the target operating model.

This governance structure enabled each business function to focus on delivering its specialist outcomes while ensuring the overall integration progressed in a coordinated, transparent and controlled manner.

The Challenge

• Duplicated Systems: Each unit ran its own instance of an industry ERP platform, with no shared master data, reporting, or process standards between them.
• Duplicated Back Office: Four separate payrolls, separate accounting configurations, separate customer and supplier records, and separate employment terms sat across businesses that were, commercially, one group.
• Fragmented Commercial Relationships: Existing customer and supplier contracts still needed to move onto a single trading entity.
• Unrationalised Operations: Branch operations overlapped without ever having been rationalised.

The task was not a systems migration in isolation. It required a genuine integration of people, process, and commercial relationships across three businesses, delivered without disrupting the customers and suppliers who kept them running.

Approach

The integration was delivered as a core stream within a wider 18-month IT strategy and transformation program, with executive sponsorship secured up front through a formal business case and an agreed set of success measures.

• Governance: The program was underpinned by a business integration steering committee, chaired by Ron, alongside project initiation documents, test plans, and go-live plans maintained across every workstream. Weekly executive reporting was drawn from the change, communications, risk, issue, stakeholder, and dependency registers that tracked the program end to end.
• Systems and Data: Ron and his team directly led consolidation of the three standalone ERP instances into a single environment, designing and executing the data migration plans, scripts, and cutover procedures required to cleanse and merge customer and supplier master data, integrate fleet configuration, service history, and hire order data, and align asset depreciation and accounting configuration across the group.
• People and Process: Consolidation of the four separate payrolls — reconciling awards, pay types, and accounting configuration — was owned and managed by HR. The workforce transition — new employment contracts, transfer of entitlements, and redundancies arising from the removal of duplicated roles — was similarly owned by HR, including the redeployment of a number of employees from the closing business unit into the three continuing businesses. Core operational processes were re-engineered through structured workshops led by the business units themselves.
• Commercial Continuity: Customer and supplier communications were led by sales, finance, and marketing, with particular attention paid to how existing contracts moved across to the consolidated entity — protecting revenue and supplier relationships through the cutover.

Contracts were transitioned by way of novation, rather than simple assignment. Novation replaces the original contract with a new one between the customer or supplier and the consolidated entity, transferring both the rights and the obligations under the agreement, and requires the informed consent of all parties. This was the appropriate mechanism here, as an assignment alone would have transferred contractual benefits without also transferring obligations — leaving the originating business unit still legally on the hook for performance. Formal novation agreements were issued, tracked, and countersigned by the commercial and legal teams as part of the cutover plan, ensuring a clean legal transfer of every customer and supplier relationship into the merged entity.

Project Lifecycle

• 01 — Discovery & Business Case: Stakeholder workshops with the executive team and business units to document current-state systems, processes, and cost base, and build the formal business case and success measures.
• 02 — Governance Setup: Facilitated and led the establishment of the business integration steering committee, and stood up the plans and registers to govern delivery, with weekly executive reporting.
• 03 — Integration Design: Coordinated with each function lead to map data flows and target-state processes across systems, payroll, fleet, and financial systems, and agree the migration and cutover approach.
• 04 — Data Migration & Systems Build: Directly cleansed and merged master data, built and tested migration scripts, and aligned accounting and asset configuration across the group ahead of cutover.
• 05 — HR, Payroll & Process Integration: Tracked HR and payroll's delivery of award and pay-type reconciliation across four payrolls, new employment contracts, entitlement transfers, redundancies, and redeployment of employees from the closing business unit.
• 06 — Testing, Novation & Go-Live: Led system and user acceptance testing and cutover to the single operating platform, while coordinating novation agreements and staff training delivered by legal and HR.
• 07 — Ongoing Support: Hypercare support as the business stabilised on the new platform, monitoring issues through to resolution and reporting the realised cost and FTE outcomes to the executive committee.

Results

• 12 FTE Positions: Reduced through consolidation of duplicated functions across the three integrated businesses, with a further number of positions affected by the closure of the separate, non-core business unit — taking the overall program reduction beyond the 12 FTE figure.
• $590,000 IT Cost Reduction: Delivered from the ERP and business consolidation.
• One Integrated Platform: Three standalone ERP instances reduced to a single environment.
• Four Payrolls Consolidated: Fully consolidated, including award and pay-type alignment.
• Workforce Transition: New employment contracts issued and entitlements transferred across the workforce, with redundancies managed and a number of employees redeployed from the closing business unit into the continuing businesses.
• Unified Reporting: Fleet, asset, and financial reporting unified across the combined business, improving fleet utilisation and financial asset management through enhanced GL and BI systems.
• Commercial Continuity: Customer and supplier relationships transitioned without service disruption, with novation agreements managed throughout.

Transferable Approach

This integration reflects a repeatable pattern for bringing multiple business units onto one operating platform. Executive sponsorship, backed by a clear business case and KPIs, needs to be in place before work begins, since integration touches every function in the business. Governance should sit with a dedicated steering committee spanning systems, suppliers, and customers rather than IT alone. Data migration deserves treatment as a first-class workstream in its own right — the quality of customer, supplier, fleet, and financial master data ultimately determines whether the combined business can operate as one. Payroll and workforce integration carry the same complexity as systems integration and warrant equivalent rigour, particularly where new contracts, transferred entitlements, redundancies, and redeployment are all in play at once. Commercial continuity needs dedicated legal and relationship attention — using novation, not assignment, to transfer customer and supplier contracts ensures obligations move with the business, not just the benefits. Throughout, measuring and reporting the cost outcome gave the business a clear, quantified return on the integration effort.

"Ron is a very skilled and accomplished professional. His broad knowledge of the commercial and operational business portfolios enable him to play a critical and hands-on role in any transformation project whether it be new system deployment, upgrade or system and process integration…"

Chris Mundey — Managing Director, Friday Capital