Outcomes
The engagement delivered £8 million in in-year cash savings against an original target of £13.5 million — with an exit run rate of £10 million per annum, providing a sustainable platform for ongoing benefit. A new procurement and supply chain operating model was fully installed and operational by the end of the programme, with all benefits fully traceable within business unit P&Ls — giving the organisation the transparency and accountability it had previously lacked.
Background
Despite the scale of its procurement spend, the business had no single, consolidated picture of what it was buying, from whom, or at what cost relative to the external market. Spend data was fragmented across business units, making it impossible to leverage the collective purchasing power of the organisation or to hold performance to account against any meaningful benchmark.
Previous procurement improvement efforts had already been factored into business unit budgets — meaning the bar for this engagement was set not at delivering savings in principle, but at delivering hard cash in the current financial year. The stretch target was unambiguous, and there was little room for the kind of multi-year programme that procurement transformations typically require.
Curzon Approach
Curzon began by creating a definitive spend cube — consolidating fragmented data into a single, authoritative picture of procurement spend across the business. This was the essential foundation: without it, there was no way to identify where the real opportunities lay or to build a credible case for action.
With a single set of numbers agreed, we conducted both a top-down and bottom-up analysis of spend at the detailed category and supplier level — identifying impactable spend and prioritising opportunities by size, speed, and deliverability. A structured implementation plan was developed and executed, with benefits closely monitored and recorded as they were realised to ensure traceability directly into business unit P&Ls.
In parallel, Curzon redesigned the procurement and supply chain organisation — bringing in the necessary skills and expertise to ensure the new operating model was not only installed but capable of sustaining the gains independently. The focus throughout was on in-year delivery: every workstream was sequenced and resourced to ensure that savings were cash-realisable within the financial year, not deferred to future periods.
