Fragmented global IT estate
Rapid international expansion led to regional ownership of IT, resulting in inconsistent standards, processes, and limited global coordination.
Enabling global scale: a unified IT and real estate investment model for Alvarez & Marsal
Customer background
Introducing Alvarez & Marsal
Founded in 1983, Alvarez & Marsal (A&M) is a global professional services consultancy specialising in performance improvement, restructuring, and turnaround management. With more than 40 years of experience, the firm supports organisations navigating complex operational, financial, and strategic challenges.
Today, A&M operates in over 35 countries, employing more than 8,000 professionals across North America, Europe, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. Clients include large corporates, financial institutions, private equity firms, and public sector organisations across a wide range of industries.
What sets Alvarez & Marsal apart is its hands-on, execution-led approach. Rather than advising from the sidelines, A&M teams work directly within client organisations, often taking interim leadership roles, to deliver measurable, sustainable change.
As the company continues to grow at pace, Alvarez & Marsal set out to build a scalable, globally consistent operating model — one that could support rapid international expansion while maintaining tight governance, financial transparency, and operational control.
Challenges
Modernising IT while supporting rapid global growth
In 2015, Alvarez and Marsal began a period of rapid international expansion. As new offices opened across regions, the firm’s IT estate grew quickly, often shaped by local needs and decisions rather than a single global approach.
Over time, this created a number of structural challenges common to fast-growing, international organisations:
- Fragmented IT ownership across regions
- Limited visibility into technology refresh cycles and asset use
- Significant capital tied up in owned IT equipment
- Inconsistent approaches to procurement, budgeting, and cross-charging
To support continued expansion, the firm needed a flexible, cost-efficient alternative to ownership, that would modernise its IT estate while delivering clarity, control, and scalability across borders.
Limited visibility and control
Lack of central oversight made it difficult to track assets, manage refresh cycles, and understand how technology was used across offices.
Capital tied up in owned IT equipment
Significant upfront investment in owned devices reduced financial flexibility and limited the ability to scale efficiently across regions.
The solution
A global asset finance framework built for scale and governance
CHG-MERIDIAN designed and delivered a tailored global IT leasing solution, enabling Alvarez & Marsal to transition from asset ownership to a structured, lifecycle-driven model.
Our tesma platform sits at the heart of the solution, providing full transparency across the IT estate, from procurement and deployment through to refresh and return. This gives A&M clear visibility over assets, costs, and refresh timelines, alongside robust cross-charging and reporting capabilities.
Working closely with Alvarez & Marsal’s IT asset management, finance, and procurement teams, we were able to ensure consistent governance across multiple jurisdictions and enable regular, predictable refresh cycles aligned to business needs.
As the partnership matured, the scope has extended beyond IT. CHG-MERIDIAN also supported real estate investment, funding office fit-outs to help accommodate growth in key locations through a structured financing approach aligned to A&M’s wider investment strategy.
This integrated approach ensures that both technology and workplace environments can scale in line with the A&M’s ambitious growth trajectory.
The results
Greater visibility, predictable budgets, and scalable growth
- Enhanced governance and transparency across its global IT landscape
- Clear, consistent cross-charging mechanisms for regional teams
- Predictable budgeting through structured leasing and refresh cycles
- A scalable framework now deployed across 14 countries, having started in a single market
Despite external complexities that included Brexit and evolving regulatory environments, the model has continued to scale smoothly, supporting approximately 20% year-on-year growth during a customer relationship that has developed and matured over more than a decade.
By extending the framework to include office fit-outs and integrating with existing enterprise systems, we’ve become embedded as a long-term strategic partner, rather than a transactional supplier.
“CHG-MERIDIAN has enabled us to create a consistent, scalable approach to managing technology and workplace assets across our global footprint. Their ability to combine transparency, flexibility, and governance has been instrumental in supporting our continued growth, over the last few years and into the future.”
Alex Parkes, CFO EMEA, Alvarez & Marsal
Why this story matters
This case study highlights how CHG-MERIDIAN supports complex, fast-growing international organisations with flexible asset finance solutions that evolve over time.
Starting with IT in one country, the partnership expanded — despite geopolitical and regulatory challenges — into a pan-European and global framework, covering multiple asset classes from laptops and networks to office fit-outs.
Through deep system integration (including ServiceNow alignment), consistent governance, and close collaboration with HSBC, CHG-MERIDIAN is now viewed by Alvarez & Marsal as a long-term trusted strategic partner, helping to enable growth rather than simply fund assets.
“Alvarez & Marsal is a great example of how asset finance can move beyond funding to become a true enabler of growth. By combining global consistency with local flexibility, we’ve helped create a model that supports scale, transparency, and long-term operational confidence.”
Sam Thomson, Senior Corporate Account Manager, CHG-MERIDIAN UK