Diane Tibbles

Marston Holdings Ltd (MHL), a private equity-backed enterprise with a turnover exceeding £350 million. Primarily operating within the UK, the company caters to diverse sectors, prioritising services related to legal and regulatory obligations enforcement, including but not limited to parking enforcement, fine collection, and management.

MHL embarked on a transformative journey to achieve remarkable growth, with a focus on unlocking substantial savings through a strategic procurement programme. In collaboration with Curzon Consulting, MHL aimed to address challenges such as insufficient spend visibility, dominant incumbent suppliers, and limited procurement influence within the organisation.

Under the leadership of Curzon Consulting and CEO Martin Johnson, the project, named Project Eagle, aimed to drive sales, optimise costs, and enhance productivity. The procurement transformation programme set out to revamp MHL’s procurement organisation while delivering substantial savings.

Curzon’s approach was multi-faceted, leveraging deep data analytics, innovative thinking, and tried-and-tested change management methodologies. The process involved three main workstreams: Spend Opportunity Assessment, Benefits Delivery, and Procurement Organisation Assessment.

The Spend Opportunity Assessment phase involved a rapid analysis of MHL’s spend, identifying significant savings. Despite initial challenges, the team delivered the core assessment in less than five business days. Subsequent phases focused on implementing cost-saving initiatives, including achieving quick wins within the first two months.

The Benefits Delivery phase saw the implementation of various procurement strategies across different expenditure categories, such as strategic sourcing, product harmonisation, and make vs. buy analysis. These initiatives led to significant cost reductions.

Additionally, the Procurement Organisation Assessment aimed to enhance MHL’s procurement capabilities. Recommendations included restructuring the team, enhancing governance, and improving strategy and systems.

Throughout the project, Curzon fostered a collaborative relationship with MHL, employing a unified ‘one team’ approach and acting as trusted advisors. A well-defined governance model ensured efficient communication and problem-solving.

Despite challenges such as supplier resistance and stakeholder reluctance to change, Curzon overcame obstacles through pragmatic approaches, evidence-based reasoning, and stakeholder management expertise. The project delivered measurable results, exceeding savings targets by 28%, with a sizeable in-year cash impact. Qualitative outcomes included improved transparency in spend areas, satisfaction with new products, and enhanced trust in the procurement team.

In conclusion, the partnership between MHL and Curzon Consulting exemplified resilience, innovation, and successful collaboration, resulting in significant cost savings and organisational improvements.

Chetan, Stephane and the Curzon team were contracted to deliver an optimisation programme at Marston Holdings. The Curzon team approached the complex task with energy and professionalism, which was key to the ultimate success of the programme.

The technical knowledge and capability of the Curzon team were clear from the start of the engagement and we had total faith in their capability to deliver the ambitious goals they had been set. Marston would recommend Curzon to anyone who requires the domain knowledge and experience of a capable consulting partner. We look forward to working with them in the future

Martin Johnson, CEO, Marston Holdings Ltd

Responding to the UK Government’s productivity challenge, National Highways (NH), in partnership with Curzon Consulting, is delivering a transformational 30% improvement in productivity and can realise a multimillion pounds in savings by 2030.

Over the past twenty years, the construction sector has struggled to demonstrate meaningful productivity improvements. NH set a challenging target of a 30% productivity improvement and a 5-10% cost reduction over Road Investment Strategy 2 (2020-25) and appointed Curzon as its strategic delivery partner.

Significant progress has been made over the last year (23/24). There has been an average of 30% productivity improvement across monitored assets, and the percentage of hours lost has been significantly reduced. This achievement demonstrates the robustness of the standardised systems and processes that have been developed and deployed.

Core enablement of the productivity improvement lies in the timely capture and reporting of performance via an innovative and interactive App, rolled out initially across the Tier 2/sub-contractor supply chain. This has enabled NH to make faster, informed decisions where there are significant variances to plan, enforcing greater accountability on the supply chain, identifying and specifying standards and best practices, and raising supply chain awareness of what good performance looks like. In turn, this has fostered greater collaboration between NH and its supply chain without requiring contractual amendments. Increased scheme predictability is tangible, with Tier 1s rebase-lining their schemes to include productivity improvements while modular design improvements and standardisation contribute additional value.

Creating and implementing a digital productivity app and dashboard has provided NH with a consistent stream of standardised productivity data and relevant context directly from the point of delivery. This has brought about a positive change in how NH and the supply chain collaborate. For the first time, NH PMs are engaging in conversations based on intelligence gathered from the dashboard. With weekly progress reports, NH can now access productivity data insights to scrutinise and challenge the supply chain, which was impossible before.

NH is using digital intelligence to collaborate with its supply chain, measure the productivity of key assets, and set improved productivity targets. They now have an efficient system for gathering, reviewing, and acting on productivity data. NH has developed a methodology to calculate productivity value and demonstrate efficiencies to the Office of Rail and Road. NH can now utilise the extensive productivity data for strategic procurement, commercial decision-making, and contracting.

The 30% target improvement is being achieved or exceeded on most asset classes, giving NH confidence that improved productivity in Road Investment Strategy 3 (2025-30) will translate into multi-million-pound benefits.

The Curzon team is making significant contributions. National Highways has been striving to set asset-level productivity baselines for over 10 years. The work we are progressing together is transforming how National Highways reviews project performance and is also beginning to inform wider industry Infrastructure Client Group.

David Bray, Programme Director, National Highways