Rebuilding the IT and digital foundation of a PE-acquired manufacturer

The situation

A long-established German manufacturer with a strong brand and a loyal customer base was taken over by Czech private equity investors following a distressed situation. The business had real products and real revenue, but limited visibility into its own cost base and a technology estate that had grown up over decades without a plan.

The owners needed three things at once: transparency over what they had bought, a modernised technology base, and a stronger market presence — without destabilising a production operation that had run the same way for a very long time.

My mandate

Forging Ways was brought in to assess and optimise the IT landscape, then report directly to the investors on what should change and in what order. The remit broadened over time into marketing technology and delivery, where the same problems — unclear ownership, fragmented suppliers, no roadmap — were showing up.

What was done

• Mapped the full IT landscape — infrastructure, applications, contracts, budgets, roles and processes — and turned it into a costed, prioritised set of recommendations presented directly to the investors
• Ran vendor selection, testing and implementation for a Product Information Management system, working with the vendor and internal stakeholders through rollout
• Rolled out SharePoint and Teams across the company, anchored on the Marketing and Sales use cases where the need was clearest
• Took over the website rebuild as main point of contact: agency selection, scope definition, internal coordination, content and structure input
• Evaluated the ERP estate against alternative solutions on both implementation and ongoing run cost, after extensive discussions with several vendors
• Acted as the interface between Czech ownership and German operations — including works council discussions — working in Czech, German and English

What made it difficult

The hardest part was not technical. A fast-moving, internationally experienced investor group had acquired a regional manufacturer with deeply established ways of working, and the gap in pace and expectation was significant on both sides.

• Formal change management was largely absent — many employees had limited visibility of what was happening or why
• Initiatives arrived from several directions at once, with different priorities and shifting focus week to week
• With no project management structure around the initiatives, delivery frequently fell to Forging Ways directly rather than to the business
• Competing expectations between the investors and marketing leadership over where the engagement’s time should go

Outcome

• Identified and costed IT savings worth roughly 20% of annual run cost — a portion approved and underway at handover
• The owners had, for the first time, a documented view of what they owned and what it cost
• Core provider landscape consolidated from four primary suppliers to one lead partner, with specialists retained selectively
• PIM selected and implemented; SharePoint and Teams live and in use across Marketing and Sales
• New website delivered, with multiple agencies scoped, selected and managed end to end
• ERP migration deliberately not pursued — the analysis showed production risk outweighed the benefit, avoiding a costly and high-risk programme