Bank Procurement Transformation

St George / Westpac Banks
Procurement transformation

Grosvenor conducted a number of procurement and transformation projects, initially with St George Bank, and subsequently with Westpac Bank following the merger of the two organisations.

In one project, Grosvenor was engaged to act as the role of Head of Procurement, to assist in transforming the function. Grosvenor was required to maintain the business as usual functions of procurement while conducting the review of the department, including the support provided to the rest of the Bank. Savings opportunities were identified and further outsourcing scoped. Positions and roles were restructured, reducing overall resources while achieving significant overall gains in savings and project completion timeframes.

The procurement department was directly responsible for the management of $80m per annum in contracted spend across a number of categories. Annual savings of $3m from continuous improvement and facilitated by strong contract management were acted upon in the first few months. The procurement department also provided commercial advice to other business units for the remaining 80% of recurrent expenditure.

Grosvenor oversaw the downsizing of the department while positively impacting the quality and quantity of procurement projects being delivered to eight discrete business units.  The project and implementation were highly successful, leading to major improvements in the credibility of the procurement function across the Bank. The negative attitudes to both the project, and over time to working within the department, were overcome quickly without impact on the project.

Another measure of the success of the work for St George Bank was that the management of the procurement function within St George Bank were placed in charge of the merged function within the much larger Westpac Bank. This was recognition for the transformation implemented within St George.

Since this time Grosvenor has continued to provide procurement related advisory services, including to the merger with Westpac Bank and subsequently some significant procurement projects for Westpac, which continues to the present day.

At Grosvenor, we pride ourselves on offering clients tailored services to address your specific requirements, rather than taking a ‘one size fits all’ or a generic, ‘cookie cutter’ approach to our work.

This means that you, our clients, can expect us to:

• Continually refine objectives
• Seek clarity and consensus
• Avoid shortcuts and templates
• Adapt, be responsive and flexible
• Apply intellectual rigour at all levels
• Devise effective, practical and practicable measures to achieve outcomes.Contact us for a free discussion.