How an engagement runs
Four stages, in order. We carry the cost of the first one, and it ends with a decision that is yours alone. Nothing after it starts until the baseline is signed.
01
Spend review
We start with twelve months of accounts payable or purchase order data, your contract register, and the agreements for the categories you want looked at. Supplier names can be masked. We map the spend by category, supplier and entity, read the agreements against what is actually being invoiced, and compare what you pay with what the market pays today for the same specification. You get it in writing: where the savings sit, what they are worth, and what it would take to realise them. That normally takes two to four weeks from the point your data is available. We carry the cost of this stage. Then you decide whether to go on, and nothing is committed until you do.
02
Category strategy and baseline sign off
We agree which categories are in scope and what to do with each one: reset the terms with the supplier you already use, pull back together spend that has split, test the market, or leave it alone. Then we set the baseline. It comes from your own paid prices and volumes over an agreed reference period, normally the previous twelve months, adjusted for known changes such as volume shifts, index clauses, scope changes and currency movement. Your finance team signs it in writing. Categories and negotiations already in progress are listed and carved out here, and the engagement letter fixes the measurement period and the fee basis before we approach a single supplier.
03
Market testing and commercial reset
We build the analysis, the position and the commercial case. We work to reset terms with the suppliers you already use before we suggest replacing anyone. No supplier is contacted without your written approval, and you see every message before it goes out. Where the market needs testing, we run a structured comparison on total cost rather than on headline price, so service levels, payment terms, delivery, warranty and the cost of poor quality all sit in the same view. You lead the discussions, you decide and you sign. If a supplier will not talk with an adviser in the room, we brief your team and stay out of it.
04
Implementation and savings tracking
New terms count only once they are signed, in effect and traceable in your invoices or purchase ledger. We work through the rollout with your team and check that what was agreed is what is actually being charged. Each saving is reported against the signed baseline in AED, recognised once, net of recoverable VAT. Your finance team confirms the figure. We invoice quarterly in arrears against savings already in your ledger, and never for longer than twelve months from the date each new agreement takes effect.
Starting from a redacted extract
You do not have to hand over supplier names to get a view of your spend. A redacted extract is enough for the first stage: mask the names and put a consistent code in their place. Unmasking is your call, and it usually happens category by category, once you know which ones are worth taking forward. If you would rather the data did not leave your systems at all, we can work inside them.
What we need from you
- Twelve months of accounts payable or purchase order data.
- Your contract register.
- The current agreements for the categories in scope.
- A named contact per category.
- About two hours a week from that contact while the work runs.
Categories we work in
We work on any category of third party spend. These are the ones that usually carry the most, and where we are asked to look first.
- Construction, fit out and maintenance
- Facilities management and cleaning
- Agency and outsourced labour
- Energy and utilities
- IT and telecoms
- Logistics and freight
- Professional fees
- Insurance
- Food and beverage
- Medical consumables
- MRO and spare parts
- Packaging
- Travel
- Printing and uniforms
If your largest line is not here, it is still in scope. The method does not change with the category.
The levers we use
- Cleaning up specifications, so you buy what you need now rather than what someone specified years ago.
- Consolidating across group entities, where the same category is bought several times over.
- Taking out a distributor or agency margin layer that no longer earns its place.
- Resetting terms that rolled over automatically and were never tested.
- Pulling tail spend together.
- Should cost modelling, on the categories where it repays the effort.
- Index linked pricing, so the price follows a published index instead of a negotiation.
- Payment terms, which are a working capital gain, so we report them outside the fee base.
Timeline
The review takes two to four weeks from the point your data is available. Signing off the baseline usually adds another one to two weeks, most of it your finance team's time. New terms typically follow over the next two to four months, depending on renewal dates and how many suppliers are involved. Savings are recognised only once those terms take effect.
What stays with you
The spend cube, the category strategies and the benchmark files are yours to keep at the end of the engagement, in a format you can use. You are not left needing us to understand your own spend.