Procurement Advisory for Corporate

Cost Control & Reduction | Process Improvement | Procurement Systems | Supplier Leadership

Procurement is a critical function for any business stuck in a global recession. The ability to drive cost down and move quickly is vital.

In doing so, effective procurement teams deliver against company objectives. Not procurement objectives.

These teams truly support the rest of the business through a deep understanding of business needs. They work to optimise the cost base and the performance across the whole value chain.

Being able to influence the business on how to use all available procurement levers, not just aggregation and tendering, is critical to drive the next wave of procurement savings and benefits for your business.

We are happy to dive in wherever you need us but no matter what your specific requirements maybe as part of any prospective engagement we offer an initial no charge Situation Analysis.

In this consultation we analyse your current situation benchmarked against best practice and a roadmap of the options and activities that could be undertaken to improve your results.

Case Studies

Resources

Are you or your procurement team facing the following challenges?

New to your position, looking for focus and some quick wins
Frustrated with how procurement works in your business
Tasked with finding another round of cost savings
Seem to be continually putting out fires instead of focusing on the future
Underwhelmed with the performance of some or all of your suppliers
Unsure if you are receiving value, including innovation compared to your competitors
Procurement data is too poor for meaningful spend analysis
Our procurement systems are not fit for purpose for the public sector

We help our clients:

Identify the “First 100 days roadmap” for CPOs and Heads of Procurement
Identify which categories present the most likely cost savings and bang for buck
Align the procurement function so that it delivers business objectives
Find the space to think strategically and add real value to your business
Become highly effective at maximising the value from contracts and driving expected behaviours from suppliers
Fix existing dysfunctional contracts and relationships with suppliers
Implement better practice procurement, contract and performance frameworks
Improve existing procurement systems
Guide teams when selecting and implementing new procurement systems

We do this by:

Using artificial intelligence to categorise spend and use our experience to predict where savings are possible
Embedding our team of industry leading category experts into your project team for rapid upskilling of your procurement capabilities
Diagnosing problems with your contracts, systems, process and capabilities and implementing better practice
Benchmarking your procurement function with the leading 150 organisations in Australasia
Providing end to end change management support for procurement systems

Our Consulting Service

Cost Control and Reduction

When it comes to cost control and reduction there is more than one way to skin the cat. Procurement teams actually have 4 levers at their disposal - Pay Less, Buy Cheaper, Buy Less, Buy Smarter.

Our team will:

Use our artificial intelligence spend analysis tool SPAT to categorise your spend, even if all you have is low quality data
Show you where you can make savings using all 4 spend levers
Provide you with deep category insight to quickly realise cost saving opportunities (including in property, facilities management. professional services and ICT)
Give you on demand access to our resources to supplement your own team.

Process Improvement

Transforming the way procurement is done often receives internal resistance particularly if to date it has been ineffectual or an impediment to getting things done.

Our team will:

Assess the procurement capabilities of people, systems and processes.
Diagnose exactly where the pain is, what is causing it and then implement the changes with you.
Give you the time to focus on the important not only the urgent through improved planning and better category management.
Streamline procurement policies, processes, guidelines and templates.
Coach and tailor training across the whole contract lifecycle.

Savings, lasting impact and credibility generated even after a merger

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.

Procurement Systems

Chances are your function can be significantly improved through better procurement systems. We offer truly independent and system agnostic advice on how you get more of existing systems and how to drive customer adoption of new systems.

Our offer:

Clearly identify why your existing systems do not deliver the benefits and efficiencies they should. Then we help you implement the fixes
Use artificial intelligence to rapidly understand your spend even if the underlying data is poor
Assess your readiness for the implementation of a new procurement system and develop the business case
Support the change management that is required for any successful eProcurement system

Supplier Leadership

More often than not service providers disappoint. Managers end up spending most of their time putting out fires and dealing with poor performance rather than making strategic decisions.

We help you:

Introduce a contract management and supplier relationship management framework to drive the required behaviour from your suppliers.
Determine if your contracts are on track and where they are under-performing and get them up to scratch through our contract health checks.
Fix a dysfunctional contract or relationship.

Museum Victoria embraces digitisation to improve speed and quality of site inspections

Museum Victoria manages a wide range of services for some of Melbourne’s most significant cultural attractions including the Melbourne Museum, Scienceworks and the world heritage listed Royal Exhibition Building. Some of the most visited public locations in the state, the successful management of the cleaning, grounds and waste management services at these sites is of critical importance to our client’s reputation.

Insights & Resources

Dealing with supply risk: becoming a customer of choice

Assuring the supply base and its viability is currently an important procurement goal. So how exactly are organisations dealing with mitigation of supply risk? What can you learn and adopt?

How do organisations go about creating savings post COVID?

Procurement professionals have four spend levers in their toolbox. But which ones were mainly used to combat the impact of the COVID-19 recession? Read on to find that it was the more traditional negotiations that procurement turned to in 2020 and how to generate further savings in 2021.

Why you are not happy with your eProcurement system

Often the answer to why your existing system is not firing from all cylinders can be found in our previous article. It’s likely that your implementation project skipped one of those lessons-learnt and you have consequently ended up in a situation where the uptake of your system is poor, end users complain about the usability, manual workarounds are in place, suppliers are unhappy and most of the benefits from your business case have gone out the window.

What can Finance expect of Procurement?

Well, it’s often been suggested that Finance and Procurement are at loggerheads about what is good for the organisation. Is it savings? Is it risk reduction? Is it ensuring that sustainability a core focus, or even commercial outcomes? All of the above?