UK’s Leading Management Consultants 2024

29th February 20241 Minutes

We are delighted to have been recognised again as one of the ‘UK’s Leading Management Consultants 2024’ by the Financial Times 

Recommended across 11 categories an increase from 8 in 2023, the annual rating, compiled with data company Statista is based on endorsements by clients and peers. It demonstrates our consistent year-on-year sector and service line growth.

Consulting companies are awarded Bronze (recommended), Silver (frequently recommended) or Gold (very frequently recommended).

Sectoral Expertise

·      Aerospace & Defence – Bronze 
·      Chemicals & Pharmaceuticals – Bronze 
·      Construction & Infrastructure – Silver 
·      Energy, Utilities & Environment – Bronze 
·      Financial Institutions & Services – Bronze 
·      Healthcare & Life sciences – Silver 
·      Public Sector – Bronze 

Consulting Services

·      Digital Transformation – Bronze 
·      Operations & Supply Chain – Silver 
·      Strategy – Silver 
·      Sustainability – Silver 

Managing Partner Andrew Morgan said

The FT Awards are a humbling recognition of our company’s continued growth and as a direct result of our team’s talent and commitment. I’m deeply grateful for their unwavering dedication, incredible drive and ability to deliver outstanding results for our clients.

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UK’s Leading Management Consultants 2023

17th February 20231 Minutes

We are delighted to have been recognised for the sixth consecutive year as one of the ‘UK’s Leading Management Consultants 2023’ by the Financial Times.  

Recommended across 8 categories and with a Gold Award for the 2nd consecutive year, the annual rating, compiled with data company Statista is based on endorsements by clients and peers. It demonstrates our consistent year-on-year sector and service line growth.

Consulting companies are awarded Bronze (recommended), Silver (frequently recommended) or Gold (very frequently recommended).

Sectoral expertise

  • Construction & Infrastructure – Gold
  • Healthcare – Silver
  • Financial Services – Bronze
  • Public & Social Sector – Bronze

Consulting services

  • Digital Transformation – Silver
  • Operations & Supply Chain – Silver
  • Strategy – Silver
  • Sustainability – Silver

Managing Partner Andrew Morgan said

We are absolutely delighted to see the continued and consistent progression of Curzon.  I am so proud of the team, as this emphasises their commitment and dedication to deliver sustainable, tangible results for our clients through strategic, operational and transformation delivery.

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2022 MCA Awards Winners

5 Minutes

We are so very proud to announce #CurzonConsulting, has won the Commercial Impact #mcaawards 2022 award, with #RamsayHeathCare. Representing the very best of our consulting business, it’s such an incredible achievement to be recognised for our Procurement Transformation Programme. The judges said this was a team that: “brought specific expertise to a problem and rebuilt the procurement capability at speed, changing hearts and minds in the organisation.”

Established by the Management Consultancies Association, the representative body for the UK’s leading management consulting firms, the #MCAAwards demonstrate the transformational work the sector has undertaken during the last challenging twelve months.

The remarkable achievement marks the eight consecutive years that Curzon Consulting has been a finalist at these prestigious awards.

Commercial Impact: Procurement Transformation Programme with Ramsay Health Care UK

Ramsay Group operates a global network of 530+ healthcare facilities across 11 countries.

The pandemic exposed an over-reliance on a ‘single’ income source. With all elective activity (e.g., joint replacements, cataracts), the primary income source, halted overnight, but a high fixed cost base remained.

As a response, Ramsay UK embarked on an ambitious growth & efficiency programme. Curzon was engaged to design and deliver a Procurement Transformation programme.

Over 9 months, we took a pragmatic, agile and “together” approach to accelerate benefit delivery, particularly in high spend / high complex clinical spend categories.

By assessing the existing PO against a methodical and objective review against 8 dimensions we highlighted several data-driven insights; fundamentally, the PO only managed 44% of total spend; hence lack of PO involvement resulted in suboptimal category /supplier management and savings delivery.

Improvement opportunities were incorporated into the design of the new Procurement Organisation.

Our methodology was specifically adapted to address demand-side cost optimisation levers.

Through a deep dive into orthopaedics, a key benefit delivered in Orthopaedics came from ensuring the Surgeon selected the appropriate implant system (metal or ceramic) to match the patient’s profile (e.g., age, gender).

A well-established norm in Orthopaedics is to routinely implant, high quality, lower-cost metal vs. ceramic hip systems into >70-year-old patients. Our analysis showed Surgeons at Ramsay UK implanted costly ceramic hip systems in 33% of >70-year-old NHS patients. The NHS reimbursement for a complete hip replacement is fixed, so every incremental switch from ceramic to metal impacted the bottom line.

Surgeons had little comprehension of how their hip selection decisions impacted Ramsay UK’s profitability.  Our insights directly influenced the Orthopaedic Steering Group’s new policy which required Surgeons to utilise lower-cost metal hip systems in older NHS patients.

Curzon established an open, trusted, and collaborative way of working with the Ramsay team, and by adopting a “one team” approach with the PO we ensured everyone involved with the procurement transformation owned the outcome and maximised the benefits from knowledge transfer during Wave 1.

Fundamentally a key part of the relationship was to ensure recommendations on cost improvement would not compromise clinical outcomes and patient satisfaction.

Wave 1 has delivered £multi-millions in incremental annualised savings. In addition, the savings have translated into several £100 million worth of shareholder value.

Commenting on the success – Ramsay Health’s CFO Peter Allen said:

“Curzon helped us obtain the confidence and operational ‘can-do’ to drive incremental savings sooner than we could have expected, and then to push on to best practice performance.

Their skill was in balancing pace of change and the results imperative with the need to take the organisation with them on the journey.  A key achievement was building the necessary collaboration between the many functions that needed to act together to drive benefits in complex clinical spend categories.

Curzon’s strong analytical expertise, and ability help us to take a critical view on the “art of the possible” and bring the team along on the journey to demonstrate benefits delivery was a critical success factor.

The result was a tangible and ongoing commercial win, and a new Procurement Organisation to drive cost leadership, profitability and sustainability going forward”

A massive congratulations to the Curzon Consulting team and Ramsay Health Care UK and the other finalists.

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We are delighted to welcome a new Partner for Financial Services Sector!

25th October 20221 Minutes

Curzon Consulting has appointed Andy Stewart as Partner – Financial Services, starting in October.

Andy will help drive the strategy in the financial services market, which is core to Curzon’s growth plans for the future.  Working with Douglas Badham, Partner & Financial Services Sector Lead, Andy will be responsible for developing new and innovative propositions and go-to-market approaches as well as managing some of Curzon’s long-term client relationships.

Andrew Morgan, Managing Partner, Curzon said: “It’s fantastic that Andy has joined the team.  He brings a wealth of background and experience that will help us add even more value to our financial services clients”

Douglas Badham, Partner & Financial Services Sector Lead, Curzon said: “I look forward to working with Andy as his expertise and strong client relationships will be invaluable to us as we execute our growth strategy”

Andy Stewart, Partner – Financial Services, Curzon said: “I’m excited to be joining the team at Curzon as they have long been committed to outstanding client service and the delivery of tangible results for their clients.  I’m looking forward to getting started”

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Award-Winning Procurement Transformation Programme

We are extremely proud to have won two awards in two months at two different ceremonies, this is true testament to the value delivered by the joint project team.

Background & Challenge

After a challenging year where the Covid-19 pandemic impacted activities and financials, our client launched an ambitious strategic initiative focused on becoming more efficient, concentrating on growth and delivering sustainable value for consumers and doctors.

The pandemic exposed an over-reliance on a ‘single’ income source. All elective activity (e.g. joint replacements, cataracts), the primary income source, was halted overnight, but a high fixed cost base remained. As a response, Curzon Consulting was engaged to design and deliver a Procurement Transformation Programme.

Our Client

Ramsay Health Care UK is one of the leading independent healthcare providers in England.

Ramsay Health Care UK provide a wide and comprehensive range of specialised clinical services from routine to complex surgery, day case procedures, diagnostic services and physiotherapy

Ramsay Health Care is well-respected in the healthcare industry for operating quality private hospitals and for its excellent record in hospital management and patient care

  • 40 hospitals and facilities located across England
  • Over 200,000 patients receive treatment each year in Ramsay Heath Care
  • Over 7,600 staff employed at Ramsay Health Care UK
  • Over 3,000 Consultants work in partnership with Ramsay Health Care

Overall Approach

Over nine months, we took a pragmatic, agile and “together” approach to accelerate benefit delivery, particularly in high spend / high complex clinical spend categories

  1. Conducted a full review and defined a new procurement organisation aimed at maximising value to the business
  2. Conducted a review of the external spending and identified cost savings opportunities within complex medical categories
  3. Implemented a full strategic programme that delivered multi-million £ cost savings to the business

Our Solution

1 FULL PROCUREMENT ORGANISATION REVIEW

We assessed the existing procurement organisation against eight dimensions and highlighted several data-driven insights

  • Quantitatively and qualitatively assessed the procurement team, conducted time analysis, salary benchmark & reviewed performance
  • Business partnering and perceived value: Interviewed key business stakeholders across all divisions
  • Assessed procurement influence across all spending areas
  • Defined and costed new (to-be) procurement organisation

Our Results

  • A complete procurement maturity assessment highlighting strengths and weaknesses of the current procurement organisation
  • A new procurement organisation was designed, profiled and costed.
  • A procurement organisation designed to maximise value to the business and stakeholders

2 FULL EXTERNAL EXPENDITURE OPPORTUNITY ASSESSMENT

We conducted a full opportunity assessment on Ramsay’s external expenditure to define adequate sourcing strategies and identify cost savings opportunities

    • Cleansed, categorised and analysed spend data; Providing full spend transparency.
    • Conducted category deep dive for each key medical category, assessed current category management and supplier management
    • Defined adequate sourcing strategy, identified opportunities and sourcing levers
    • Identified and quantified savings potential via internal and external benchmarking

Our Results

  • Category strategy for all key medical categories
  • Multi-million cost saving opportunities identified
  • Prioritised sourcing plan with saving targets by spend categories
  • High level 3-year business plan

3 THE IMPLEMENTATION

We implemented procurement transformation and a cost reduction program

  • Our methodology was specifically adapted to address demand-side cost optimisation levers. Whilst we addressed a range of spend categories and redesigned the PO, we delivered sizeable benefits in difficult clinical areas such as Orthopaedics.
  • A key benefit in orthopaedics came from ensuring the surgeon selected the appropriate implant system (metal or ceramic) to match the patient’s profile (e.g. age, gender).
  • Our analysis showed surgeons implanted costly ceramic hip systems in a high percentage of older NHS patients. With fixed NHS reimbursement every incremental switch impacted the bottom line.
  • Our insights directly influenced the Orthopaedic Steering Group’s new policy which required surgeons to utilise lower-cost metal hip systems in older NHS patients.
  • Fundamentally, a key part of the relationship was to ensure recommendations on cost improvements would not compromise clinical outcomes and patient satisfaction.

Our Results

  • Delivered £multi-millions in incremental savings and a new procurement organisation
  • Engaged with all key medical stakeholders and instilled a cost-consciousness culture
  • Ramsay Health Care UK will benefit from the savings over multiple years

“Curzon helped us obtain the confidence and operational ‘can-do’ to drive incremental savings sooner than we could have expected, and then to push on to best practice performance. ​

Their skill was in balancing pace of change and the results imperative with the need to take the organisation with them on the journey.  ​

A key achievement was building the necessary collaboration between the many functions that needed to act together to drive benefits in complex clinical spend categories. ​

Curzon’s strong analytical expertise, and ability help us to take a critical view on the “art of the possible” and bring the team along on the journey to demonstrate benefits delivery was a critical success factor.​

The result was a tangible and ongoing commercial win, and a new Procurement Organisation to drive cost leadership, profitability and sustainability going forward”​

Peter Allen
Chief Financial Officer
Ramsay Health Care UK

Contact our Procurement service line lead,Stephane Boroncelli, to find out more

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CIPS Awards Winners

1 Minutes

Last night at the CIPS Excellence in Procurement Awards, we won “Best Procurement Consultancy Project of the Year” for our collaboration with Ramsay Health Care UK.

Congratulations to both teams!

Procurement Transformation Programme with Ramsay Health Care UK

As a pandemic response, Ramsay UK embarked on an ambitious growth & efficiency programme. Curzon designed and delivered a substantial cost reduction and Procurement Transformation programme.

Over 9 months, we defined a pragmatic and agile approach to implementing a best-in-class procurement organisation with an increased mandate, able to accelerate benefit delivery, and manage high spend / high complex clinical spend categories.

We helped Ramsay UK to deliver £multi-millions in incremental annualised savings. In addition, the savings have translated into several £100 million worth of shareholder value.

View the full case here – https://www.curzonconsulting.com/procurement-consultancy-project-of-the-year-ramsay-healthcare/

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Framing the requirements for developing a customer-centric approach and service model

The issue

  • With a re-focusing of the organization on energy transition and a strategic objective to grow B2C Mobility and Convenience revenue streams, the current, largely B2B, customer care service model was increasingly being asked to meet needs beyond core capabilities and capacity, putting a strain on service and cost to serve
  • With limitations on internal capability, business units have chosen to outsource services, leading to a proliferation of suppliers, models and customer experiences
  • No cohesive corporate narrative of the customer promise exists and the internal focus was on fixing service failings to reduce the noise within the organisation
  • The need for a future-proof operating model that is aligned to the projected steep growth in the B2C customer base was recognized
  • Gaining an appreciation of leading external practices in customer care delivery was considered an essential input to framing the right future state operating model 

Solution

  • Current state assessment of customer care and customer centricity capabilities against a set of standard dimensions to establish current maturity and points of commonality or difference across business groups
  • Established current state maturity of each business against an industry reference benchmark  
  • Developed design criteria to frame a future operating model and as a reference against which to benchmark external leading practices
  • Undertook competitor and cross-sector benchmarking to identify areas of Customer Care differentiation, including desktop research, expert input and interviews with Customer leaders within major organisations (both B2B and B2C).
  • Defined the priority levers to drive improved customer-centricity and articulated the linkages between the dimensions 
  • Developed an initial roadmap to outline how the Customer Care capability should evolve

The results

  • Mobilised the senior stakeholders to want to move beyond fixing performance failings in Customer Care to evolving a business-wide Customer-centric operating model
  • Delivered a customer centric maturity assessment across three representative businesses against a series of capability levers
  • Multi-industry, international benchmarking exercise, highlighting customer-centricity maturity and leading practices
  • Identification of priority levers to increase customer centricity maturity and approach options to achieve a viable system model
  • Development of a roadmap to move beyond operational fixes to a strategically customer centric approach 

Curzon consulting mca finalist 2019

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UK’s Leading Management Consultants 2022

28th January 20221 Minutes

We are delighted to have been recognised for the fifth consecutive year as one the ‘UK’s Leading Management Consultants 2022’ by the Financial Times.   

Recommended across 8 categories and with our first Gold Award, the annual rating, compiled with data company Statista is based on endorsements by clients and peers and demonstrates our consistent year on year sector and service line growth.

Consulting companies are awarded Bronze (recommended), Silver (frequently recommended) or Gold (very frequently recommended).

Sectoral expertise

  • Construction & Infrastructure – Gold
  • Financial Services – Silver
  • Public & Social Sector – Silver
  • Healthcare – Bronze

Consulting services

  • Digital Transformation – Silver
  • Operations & Supply Chain – Silver
  • Strategy – Silver
  • Sustainability – Bronze

Managing Partner Andrew Morgan said

We are absolutely delighted to see the continued progression of Curzon, competing alongside some major consulting brands.  I am so proud of the team, and this emphasises their commitment and dedication to deliver tangible results for our clients in a range of markets through strategic, operational and transformation delivery.

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Congratulations to Our 2021 MCA Awards finalists

24th May 20218 Minutes

We are delighted to announce that Curzon Consulting are finalists in 2 categories of the Management Consulting Awards 2021, representing the very best of our consulting business.

Established by the Management Consultancies Association, the #MCAAwards demonstrate the transformational work the sector has undertaken during the last challenging twelve months.

2021 marks the seventh consecutive year that Curzon Consulting has been finalists at the prestigious awards. 

Commercial Excellence

Curzon with AIG – ‘Back to Life’ – Fast-Tracking to Leadership in Customer & Profit Retention

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After a period of impressive top-line growth, AIG Life’s leadership now concentrated on driving for profitability on a US GAAP basis.  Working with Curzon to isolate what could best deliver profit uplift, we zoomed in on a stubbornly un-moving customer persistency rate and recognised that every 1% point of lapse averted would yield significant and multiplicative profit gains.  

Curzon was engaged on an ambitious programme to rapidly get control of lapse and release commercial benefit, and to build the capability to achieve best practice retention management.  This was an enormous challenge given the starting point: no set persistency strategy, an absence of key lapse analytics, retention not owned or resourced in the organisation, and a lack of lapse prevention and turnaround processes.   

Over 11 months through 2019, we took a pragmatic, agile, and ‘together’ approach to accelerate to retention excellence, securing the organisation’s buy-in to what it would take to get there, and quickly demonstrating the commercial, operational and customer benefits of joined-up retention management.  Curzon enabled the new cross-functional working essential for success, and gave the business the structures and confidence to operate highly effective preventative and save processes – internally and leveraging external partners.  

Among the prime watershed moments were revealing how:

  • a shift in distribution mix from advised face-to-face to telesales had created a hitherto unseen problem of drop-out inside first 3 months
  • customer communications from welcome onwards needed to explain clearly the personal value of life insurance, and how holding it ensures financial provision for those you love
  • rather than automatically cancelling customers on request, customer service had a responsibility to engage them before they make a potentially uninformed decision 

When the business took the reins 3 months after improvements were implemented, lapse rate had been reduced to the best practice % mark on a run-rate basis and incremental revenue and profit benefit unlock was exceeding our original target.  This translated annualised into 5-figure policy saves and a cumulative £multi-million gain in Pre-Tax Operating Income by 2023.  The business had taken ownership of a new retention management function, with a new Lapse MI suite providing the predictive insights to continually optimise retention.  Beyond achieving the agreed objectives, the work also led to complementary projects including work to minimise drop-out in the Bank partnership sales channel. 

Commenting on the success, AIG Life CFO Donald MacLean said: 

“Curzon helped us obtain the confidence and operational ‘can-do’ to get control of lapse sooner than we could have expected, and then to push on to best practice performance. 

As always, their skill was in balancing pace of change and the results imperative with the need to take the organisation with them on the journey.  A key achievement was building the necessary collaboration between the many functions that needed to act together to manage retention in a joined-up way.  

The result was a tangible and ongoing commercial win, and a vital new balance struck between sales and retention for business profitability and sustainability”

People

Curzon with Highways England – ‘Project Performance Accelerator – Enhancing delivery capabilities through innovative approaches and working relationships to achieve HE delivery goals

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Project Performance Accelerator (PPA) was designed to develop and implement a delivery mechanism for Highways England’s (HE) overarching Business Transformation Programme, addressing inconsistent levels of capability throughout HE’s Project Management community and developing highly skilled project delivery teams. Overall, HE’s three main Major Project programmes account for 80 projects worth more than £23bn, each being delivered by a supply chain or contractor led by a Project Management team.

PPA’s leader Steph Illingworth engaged Curzon to interpret and structure her Vision of the PPA Programme into clear deliverables, shaping the fundamentals. There was consensus on cultural flaws and ineffective ways of working. Revealing a deeply siloed organisation with multiple departments or technical areas that lacked collaboration or a holistic view of the primary objectives and deliverables: projects were not executed on time and within budget, nor maximising benefits and social value. Also, capability development and training programmes were too theoretical and onerous, focusing on processes and systems rather than people, impacting the overall project success.

Focusing on performance management, capability development, project control capability and enhancing commercial acumen, the PPA Programme included two outputs as the medium for change: An Immersive Learning Experience and Digital Project Management Guidebook.

The Immersive Learning experience was designed to disrupt the way programmes are delivered. The Digital Project Management Guidebook contained PM content selected through independent reviews and capability assessments. Both outputs were crafted around the project lifecycle of typical HE infrastructure projects, set to be delivered in-person over a period of 18 months. Cohorts were selected to receive a tailored experience, improve project team maturity, and provide a solid foundation for capability uplift to achieve clear learning outcomes and benefits.

At the heart of the PPA philosophy was to enable project teams to grow, enhancing ‘ways of working’ whilst bolstering project performance. These included a “working better together model”; a fundamental shift in the way individuals interact and take ownership of overlapping project aspects and problem-solving techniques. This, along with the Immersive Learning, reinforced the Programme’s success, shifting the focus from systems and processes to people.

The pandemic introduced significant challenges, necessitating the immediate conversion of the Programme from in-person workshops to a virtual setting. The team adapted structures and materials, incorporating a variety of software suites to enhance the learner experience. Frequent interaction and close collaboration with the internal and senior stakeholders were critical to maintaining speed and delivery, adopting a fail-fast, fix fast approach to syllabus creation

The consulting team could interpret the client’s vision into a clear pathway, support and enhance the design to become one of the most successful transformation project delivered in HE.

The Digital Project Management Guidebook launched in August 2020 via four interactive webinars to c.300 employees have now received over 1,000 unique viewers. A modified deployment strategy was adopted in light of the pandemic, redesigned as a remote Immersive Learning Experience. However, over 5,049 hours of remote learning have been received by 100 staff through 9 project teams, enhancing teams’ capability with a combined portfolio value greater than £3.3bn.

Congratulations to all of the other finalists.

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