Umicore

Context & objectives

VMZinc, a division of the industrial group Umicore, was sold to the Belgian group Fedrus International. This transaction posed the question of the independence of the division’s IT system vis-à-vis its parent company and the difficulties and/or risks associated with a blurred separation between the companies.

Business Challenge

The assignment entrusted to Netsystem was therefore to ensure that the sale of VMZinc took place in line with the quality demands of the seller and purchaser. More simply, it was a matter of:

• Enabling Umicore to cleanly separate from its VMZinc division in technical terms (HR, payroll, ERP, etc.) and in legal terms.
• Enabling the efficient takeover of a business whose support functions are performed by the Fedrus group.

Solutions & methods

Over a 6-month period, the Netsystem experts attended to facilitating data migration between the “integrated management software” of Umicore and Fedrus at both the operational and human resources level. The second stage consisted of implementing the new infrastructure devoted to the different aspects of the acquired business and deploying it on a global level, providing interconnections between 20 countries. Lastly, the domain name and messaging system at VMZinc were modified in order to adapt to the architecture already in place at Fedrus.

The results

The operation achieved the required results by enabling the sale and subsequent transfer of VMZinc with no loss of business in just 6 months. The initial cost estimate came in on budget and the deadlines of the transition service agreement (TSA) were also met.

Key success factors:

• The transparency of the information exploited by the Netsystem experts
• Optimum collaboration with the seller, Umicore
• Upstream measures by the client enabling the project to commence immediately