BDO Helped Launch a Client’s $250 Million Business Virtually During the Pandemic

A large private equity firm had decided to buy three IBM product lines and roll them into a new $250 million business with a global presence in 22 countries. The new business required several important functions, including IT, HR, legal and finance to be started from scratch through hiring personnel, creating work policies, establishing procedures, etc. The PE firm had scheduled an ambitious launch date but realized they were unable to meet it without outside help. They decided to engage a Big 4 firm to support their expansion, but the team was unable to properly manage the project. BDO was hired to replace the Big 4 firm and take over the work.
 

Our Solution

BDO had been initially engaged to help set up the new business’s finance and accounting function but the PE firm decided to hand over the overall integration and stand up of the new company to BDO. BDO quickly stepped up to meet the challenge by:

• Bringing in the management advisory team to review the integration plan and find missing elements
• Creating a critical path action plan and then immediately adapting that plan for a virtual go-live after pandemic restrictions took place
• Addressing the limited time for systems and processes implementation through plan optimization and surge resources
• Identifying significant international tax structures and operations challenges and implementing a new tax strategy

Results and Benefits

The BDO team showed the PE firm that their original go-live date was unrealistic and high-risk and demonstrated the need for reducing the risk by delaying the launch by 3 months. The firm was able to see many results and benefits including:

• The virtual go-live successfully launched with systems fully enabled and approximately 1,000 global employees brought on board
• The new tax strategy is more efficient
• Successfully onboarding company resources and transitioning operations to company employees