Our approach
One methodology, scaled to the engagement. It works for a single sourcing event and for a multi-year transformation, and the third step is the one most consultancies hand back to you.
Why the last step matters most
The standard consultancy engagement ends at the recommendation. You receive a strategy, a business case and a roadmap, and then the people who would implement it return to the operational load that stopped them doing it in the first place.
So the value sits in a document rather than in the budget. The savings were real and the analysis was sound, and neither reaches the ledger, because nobody was ever accountable for the step between the two.
The method
Four stages, in the order we run them.
Diagnose
We map the spend, the process and the supply base, and show you where the value actually sits. No assumptions and no template findings, because the categories that turn out to be worth the effort are regularly not the ones everybody expected.
Design
We build the sourcing strategy, category plans, policy and governance around how your team really works, rather than around an operating model you would have to hire for.
Execute
We run the events, negotiate the contracts and do the work alongside your people. This is the step most consultancies hand back, and it is the step where the savings are either realised or lost.
Optimise
We embed the controls, train your team and keep tuning, so the gains hold after we leave. A saving that erodes within two quarters was never really delivered.
How you can engage us
Focused project
A defined scope with a defined outcome: a spend diagnostic, a single category, one tender. The usual way to start, and the usual way to find out whether we are useful to you.
Programme delivery
Multi-category or function-wide transformation, phased so each phase delivers something usable rather than banking all the value at the end.
Embedded resource
Interim senior capability inside your team, under your governance, where you need capacity and expertise rather than an external programme.
Ongoing support
Continuing access to specialists for renewals, negotiations and category refreshes, sized to your calendar rather than sold as a block of days.
We tailor the engagement rather than forcing you into a template, and we scope it to the outcome you are after rather than to the largest project we could justify. Where the honest answer is that you need less than you asked for, we say so.
Questions we get asked
How do you price an engagement?
Against a defined scope and outcome, not an open-ended day rate. For savings work we agree the baseline and the measurement methodology with your finance team before the work starts, so the number reported at the end is one the CFO recognises.
How is this different from a big-four engagement?
The people who sell the work are the people who deliver it, and we run the execution rather than handing it back. We are also smaller, which means we decline work outside our expertise instead of staffing it from a bench.
What do you need from our team?
A named internal owner with the authority to make decisions, and access to the people who actually run the process. Engagements stall on decision latency far more often than on analysis.
Can you start small?
Yes, and we usually recommend it. A spend diagnostic or the free maturity assessment gives both sides evidence before anyone commits to a programme, and it regularly changes what the programme should be.
What happens when the engagement ends?
The controls are embedded, your team is trained and the dashboards and templates are yours. If we have done it properly you need us less, which is the intended outcome even though it is a strange thing for a consultancy to optimise for.
Where to start
Run the free procurement maturity diagnostic for a scored view of where the gaps are, or talk to a consultant about this specific problem. Both take less time than a meeting about having a meeting.
Talk to a consultant