Separating a global retail brand from its parent — with zero revenue loss and zero downtime

The situation

The client was a globally recognised retail and consumer brand being divested from a multinational parent organisation as part of a £100m+ separation programme. Two distinct businesses were being spun up into a single new organisation: a manufacturing-led operation and a retail and consumer brand division.

The wider carve-out programme was primarily focused on manufacturing processes and systems. But the retail division operated a fundamentally different business model — heavily dependent on SAP ECC 6, supporting infrastructure, and customer-facing eCommerce platforms, with online sales accounting for approximately 50% of total revenue.

Prior to Omletec's involvement, the retail division's requirements were frequently overlooked within the wider programme. Issues remained unresolved, decision-making was slow, and executive confidence — particularly at CEO level — was low. The risk of business disruption during separation was significant.

What made this hard

How Omletec delivered

Established governance and restored executive confidence

Omletec created a dedicated governance structure for the retail and consumer division, giving it clear ownership and visibility within the wider programme. Accountability was defined, a dedicated escalation route to the new organisation's CIO and senior Accenture project leadership was established, and reporting was restructured to focus on risks, decisions, and business impact.

To address executive concern directly, Omletec introduced monthly update sessions involving the CEO, CIO, and COO. These sessions provided transparency, accelerated decision-making, and restored confidence that the programme was under control.

Sequenced delivery around commercial risk

A critical success factor was ensuring that carve-out activities did not disrupt business-as-usual retail operations. Omletec carefully sequenced delivery to avoid peak trading periods, align testing and cutover with business availability, and balance programme demands with operational pressures.

One key risk identified early was that User Acceptance Testing was scheduled to complete during Black Friday week — the busiest retail period of the year. Recognising that business users would not be available, Omletec proactively front-loaded all UAT activities to the start of the testing phase, eliminating a major delivery and revenue risk before it materialised.

Took ownership of data migration

When critical internal resources responsible for data migration left the business, Omletec assumed end-to-end responsibility for the retail division's data separation. This included planning and executing multiple trial migrations, coordinating data validation across UK and Hong Kong teams, and managing business sign-off within tightly constrained timelines.

Through careful planning and rehearsal, data validation was completed within 24 hours during go-live — ensuring business readiness without extending downtime.

Identified risks the wider programme had missed

Several critical risks were identified and mitigated early due to Omletec's intervention. One notable example: the retail division used Azure-hosted virtual machines to access SAP. These VMs were hosted on the parent company's infrastructure and had been incorrectly marked as "not required" by the wider programme, because the manufacturing organisation did not rely on them.

Omletec identified this oversight, escalated the risk, and ensured the VMs were formally brought into scope — preventing a scenario where the retail business would have been unable to access SAP following separation.

Designed a zero-downtime cutover

The retail division had system dependencies that did not exist within the wider manufacturing carve-out, particularly around eCommerce integrations. Omletec identified and documented these dependencies, directed cutover activities unique to the retail business, and developed a detailed cutover plan aligned across technology, operations, and commercial teams.

To achieve zero downtime for customer-facing platforms, Omletec designed a phased cutover strategy: controlled release of orders post go-live, a low-risk ramp-up approach, and full clearance of the order backlog by go-live +3 days.

The outcome

The carve-out was successfully delivered within the six-month TSA deadline, despite extreme technical and commercial complexity. There was zero revenue loss attributable to the carve-out and zero downtime across eCommerce and B2B sales platforms. Retail operations were fully maintained throughout every peak trading period.

Hypercare was exited in week three — well ahead of plan — demonstrating system stability and operational readiness. Executive confidence was fully restored through clear governance and structured communication.

Without the governance, sequencing, and risk management introduced by Omletec, the retail and consumer division would have been unable to safely separate and go live — placing both revenue and the wider carve-out programme at significant risk.

Why Omletec

This engagement demonstrates what Omletec delivers in high-stakes enterprise change: control where there was confusion, clarity where there was ambiguity, and confidence where there was concern. The technology was complex — but the real challenge was ensuring that a revenue-critical business could separate safely within an aggressive timeline.