Creating a strategic procurement function
BGL Group is a leading digital distributor of insurance and household financial services. The group comprises 7 different insurance businesses, including the market-leading ‘Compare the Market’ website.
BGL approached eXceeding at the point that they had decided to install a new procure-to-pay (P2P) system and it was the perfect opportunity to review overall strategy and process and procedures.
They had no formal procurement strategy in place and only one internal procurement resource, so they lacked the internal capacity or category knowledge to deliver a formal strategy. They sought help from eXceeding to develop the procurement strategy and detailed processes and procedures for the P2P system they had selected.
Whilst working with BGL on the development of the strategy, we identified an opportunity to carry out a spend review with the big four accountancy companies they were using.
We completed the spend review and uncovered an opportunity to standardise rate cards and significantly reduce costs.
It was identified that there were 3 key challenges, that needed to be considered:
Strategy and process
An approach that would feed into the new P2P processes and procedures was key
Internal resource and capacity
Specialist knowledge was needed to detail best practice processes and procedures
Control vs. culture
Balance between consistency whilst maintaining the existing culture was key
eXceeding assisted BGL with a procurement strategy as the group looked to install a new P2P system, as well as assisting them in reviewing their spend with the big four accountancy firms.
BGL now has an improved procurement function and a formal strategy in place, which provides a consistent approach to procurement across the group, but is flexible enough to allow each business to operate independently. The new P2P and enabling processes and procedures have streamlined internal activities and governance.
We engaged eXceeding to help us to formalise our procurement processes, to assist us in the procurement of a new P2P system. We knew we needed more structure in place but we were keen to empower our heads of business units to maintain autonomy. eXceeding worked with us to ensure that our procurement processes and procedures were aligned with our culture. They also helped us to identify an overspend in one area which resulted in a spend review and led to considerable savings for our business.
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