Case Study

Type of Business: Nursing, Care Home and Domiciliary care provider for the elderly

Number of Locations: 9 care homes 8 Domiciliary Care sites

Area: West Midlands

Problems encountered

To run a successful business is to have the ability to successfully control overheads and spending. With each site purchasing all products through central contracts on a paper based system, the system was time consuming and unreliable, also allowing stock outs to arise. They were also suffering from ‘maverick’ spend that the system was unable to control.

Requirements

• Complete spend control over all 17 sites

• Cost Centre and Budget Control

• Spend Authorisation Processes

• Price reduction where possible

• Usage reduction where possible
• Eliminate stock outs

Solution

• Implement an eprocurement, requisition to delivery system to manage supplier spend.
• Set up cost centre and budget control within the system
• Set up multilevel spend authorisation protocol to control spend
• Generate reports on company spend
• Implement procedures to remove all maverick spend
• Identify areas of saving, once usage was identified.
• Train staff on system and good purchasing practices

The Impact

• Total control of all consumable spend

• 30% reduction of on site stock

• 100% reduction in stock outs

• 13% reduction goods purchased

• Reporting on group spend broken down by cost centre

• 40% reduction on invoices received

 Case Study

Type of Business: Multi Site Service Company

Number of Locations: 5 locations,

Area: Central Scotland

Problems encountered

To run a successful business is to have the ability to successfully control overheads and spending. The business was finding their market was shrinking and their profit margins were being eroded by general market influences. They had a limited budget and resources to undertake a spend review internally.

Requirements

• Spend Control customised to each company’s requirements

• Overhead spend consolidation across all 5 sites

• Product identification and consolidation

• Spend and product usage reporting across all sites

• Improve commercial terms

• A group purchasing process defined and implemented

• Reduction in carbon footprint.

Solution

• Reviewed spend across all sites identifying all overhead spend

• Generated an aggressive cost reduction and control action plan to detail processes and timescales for the project.

• Implemented eprocurement system to manage spend and report on cost centre and budget expenditure.

• Negotiated commodity consolidation, working with the company facilities team to identify the company’s requirements with regards to each commodity.

• Rolled out new suppliers and purchasing processes across the Group training all staff on the new products and purchasing processes

• Introduced carbon friendly and recycled products where possible.

• Created purchasing contracts.

The Impact

• Increased company profit by 7.3% average.

• Reduced administration within each site.

• Increased saving potential made available through combined buying power.

• Access to products and systems not affordable as a single site operation.

• Increased employee satisfaction due to better working conditions.

• Reduced carbon footprint.