Outcomes
Curzon’s independent assessment led to a fundamental reversal of the client’s planned outsourcing strategy — a recommendation accepted by management on the strength of the evidence presented. This freed up a team of internal staff who had been working on the outsourcing project for over a year, redirecting their capacity to higher-value work. Performance improvements delivered in parallel were equally significant: supplier OTIF rose to 85% against a target of 95%, demand aggregation pilots demonstrated price savings of 30–50%, lead times were compressed from 150 to 117 days with a clear roadmap to 50, and transactional costs were reduced by £1,250 per item. The quality of the work led the client to retain Curzon beyond the original engagement to continue supporting their supply chain initiatives.
Background
The supply chain operation was under pressure on multiple fronts. The improvement programme intended to address its performance issues was significantly behind schedule, eroding internal confidence in the organisation’s ability to turn things around itself. The supply base was highly fragmented and siloed, with cost inefficiencies driven by supplier proliferation and a lack of effective controls. Existing tools and capabilities were not being leveraged to their potential, and visibility of forward demand was limited.
Against this backdrop, outsourcing order and inventory management to a third-party provider had emerged as the preferred path — and a considerable amount of internal resource had already been committed to making it happen.
Curzon Approach
Curzon was brought in to make an independent assessment of the project’s status, identify the causes of delay, and develop a plan and benefit case for the recommended way forward. We conducted approximately 20 diagnostic interviews across the full breadth of the organisation — including the client-facing team, purchasing, supply chain and logistics, finance, and a representative from the largest customer site — as well as the potential outsource partner itself. This was complemented by a thorough review of existing documentation and detailed analysis of purchasing and transaction data across 11,000 part numbers and five years of historic demand.
The findings led Curzon to a conclusion that directly challenged the client’s prevailing direction of travel: given the defence context, the nature of the processes, the organisational maturity of the client, and the lack of forward demand visibility, outsourcing was not the right solution. We presented that assessment clearly and on its merits — and management accepted it.
With the outsourcing path set aside, Curzon developed an alternative set of interventions to address the underlying performance issues: improving supplier OTIF through tighter schedule adherence and lead time compression; aggregating demand to unlock contractual price breaks; rationalising the supplier base; and reducing transactional volume and cost through order aggregation and automation.
