Fastmarkets

The Challenge

TSA exits are, by nature, time-bound. In this case, Panoptics was engaged with a clearly defined window to support Fastmarkets’ exit from the TSA, creating a compressed delivery timeline with little margin for slippage. As milestones approached, the tolerance for delay narrowed and dependencies across technology, security, procurement, and operations became increasingly interlinked.

Failure to meet TSA exit deadlines would have had material commercial consequences for Fastmarkets, increasing the pressure to sequence work correctly and prioritise activities that directly enabled day-one independence.

Against this backdrop, the programme involved multiple parallel workstreams, evolving assumptions around scope and responsibility, and strict access and security controls typical of separation programmes. At the same time, Fastmarkets needed to ensure that day-to-day operations – from user access to application availability and support – continued without disruption.

The challenge was not simply to “move systems”, but to establish a practical, supportable operating model that would function from day one after TSA exit.

By the time Panoptics was engaged, the TSA programme was already underway. This meant working within decisions, assumptions and timelines that had been set earlier in the divestment, while still needing to stabilise delivery and ensure that critical TSA milestones could be met.

The Approach

Panoptics took a pragmatic, dependency-led approach focused on service continuity. With the experience to know that there is no single playbook for divestments – the right approach was always going to depend on time, organisational context, and the constraints created by commercial, technical and governance realities. In Fastmarkets case, that meant resisting a purely technical view of the work and instead focusing on what needed to be in place to enable a safe, reliable TSA exit.

Rather than treating the engagement as a purely technical migration, the team prioritised:

• Validation under constraint
  Early activity focused on validating inherited assumptions from the RFP stage, clarifying dependencies, and identifying critical path items that would directly affect TSA exit readiness.
• Managing dependencies across workstreams
  Particular attention was paid to the order in which activities needed to occur, ensuring that foundational elements such as secure access and device readiness were in place before dependent rollout activities began. Where possible, workstreams were delivered in parallel to maintain momentum and meet project timelines.
• Service transition alongside delivery
  Operational readiness was designed in parallel with technical delivery. This included defining ownership, escalation paths, and support responsibilities so that issues could be resolved efficiently from day one.
• Practical governance and coordination
  With multiple workstreams in motion, Panoptics provided ongoing coordination to help align technical delivery with wider programme milestones. This coordination went beyond task management, helping translate TSA requirements into joined-up execution across technical and operational workstreams, ensuring delivery activity remained aligned to TSA milestones rather than progressing in isolation.

As Andy Lang, Technical Lead at Panoptics, explains: “A TSA gives you a deadline and if you miss it, the consequences can be significant. That pressure shapes every decision.”

Delivery and execution

Working closely with Fastmarkets stakeholders, Panoptics played a central role in enabling TSA exit by delivering both the technical foundations and the operational capability required for day one independence.

Rather than operating as a narrow delivery partner, Panoptics acted as an integrated extension of the programme — translating TSA requirements into executable work, sequencing delivery to protect critical path milestones, and ensuring that operational readiness kept pace with technical change.

As is common in late-stage divestments, the scope of Panoptics’ involvement evolved as the programme progressed. Responsibilities expanded in response to emerging dependencies and operational realities, requiring the delivery approach to remain flexible while protecting the critical path to TSA exit.

Key areas of delivery included:

• End user environment separation and rollout
  Panoptics designed and delivered the transition of the end user computing estate into a standalone Fastmarkets environment. This included planning and executing a full device refresh, managing regional deployment challenges, and sequencing rollout activity to align with security, identity and access dependencies that were critical to TSA exit.
• Secure access and identity enablement
  Secure access was a prerequisite for independence. Panoptics supported the implementation and readiness of secure access controls, ensuring that users could authenticate and work safely within the new environment without reliance on parent provided services.
• Service model design and service desk mobilisation
  In parallel with technical delivery, Panoptics established the foundations of the Fastmarkets support model. This included mobilising a service desk, defining how incidents, requests and changes would be handled, and ensuring users had a clear route to support from day one of TSA exit.
• Operational process definition (day one readiness)
  Core operational processes – including joiner, mover and leaver activity, incident and major incident handling, escalation paths, and application ownership – were defined to a minimum viable level during the transition, with pragmatic documentation and ownership models put in place to support day one operation, rather than full long term optimisation. This work was critical in ensuring that the new operating model functioned in practice, not just on paper, and Fastmarkets had the foundations to optimise post-TSA.
• Transition, hypercare and knowledge transfer
  Following TSA exit, Panoptics provided structured hypercare and early life support, alongside documentation and knowledge transfer to support the move from project delivery into business as usual operations.

Crucially, service transition was treated as a first class deliverable rather than a post project afterthought, ensuring that users understood how to access support, and that issues were routed to the right teams with clear ownership from day one.

As Andy Lang, Technical Lead at Panoptics, puts it: “Giving someone a laptop is the easy part. Making sure support works on day one – that’s the real work.”

The Outcome

Fastmarkets successfully exited the TSA and moved to an independent operating model within the required timeframe, with the core technology and service foundations in place to support employees across regions.

Crucially, TSA exit was achieved without a degradation in day-to-day operations. Users were able to access systems, receive support, and continue working as Fastmarkets transitioned away from parent-provided services – a critical requirement given the compressed timeline and commercial constraints.

From an operational perspective, the business gained:

• A functioning day-one support model aligned to the new standalone environment, rather than a continuation of transitional workarounds
• Clearer ownership, routing and escalation for services and applications, reducing reliance on informal knowledge or legacy arrangements
• A pragmatic operating foundation designed to be stable on day one, but capable of being evolved and optimised post-TSA

While the immediate priority was to meet the TSA deadline safely, the work delivered by Panoptics also created a more durable starting point for Fastmarkets’ ongoing IT maturity. Instead of exiting the TSA with unresolved dependencies or fragile interim solutions, the organisation was able to move forward with a defined service model, pragmatic documentation and ownership foundations, and a clearer path into business-as-usual operations.

Given the time-bound nature of the TSA, certain areas were intentionally stabilised to a minimum viable level, with the expectation that further optimisation would follow post-exit. This approach reduced risk during the transition while giving Fastmarkets a clear foundation and roadmap for continued improvement.