Challenge
With a multi-billion-dollar acquisition imminent, the client was on the verge of becoming one of Australia’s largest retail wealth managers. To ensure the success of this integration, the business had launched a wide-ranging transformation program designed to deliver significant synergies and efficiencies across the organization.
Procurement was identified as a key contributor to the $150M synergy target. However, the client recognized that external expertise was required to rapidly identify, validate, and execute savings opportunities at pace. Our team was engaged to apply a cost savings methodology, designed to quickly surface both quick wins and larger structural opportunities while building the governance and delivery mechanisms to ensure savings were realized.
Approach
Working closely with the client, a structured approach was deployed that combined deep category expertise, agile governance, and robust execution discipline.
Key elements included:
- Savings opportunity identification – Conducted a rapid diagnostic across in-scope spend, identifying more than 50 savings initiatives. These spanned quick wins and larger opportunities across technology, labor hire, professional services, and property.
- Deep value discovery – Applied proven analysis techniques, led by category SMEs, to uncover opportunities often missed by traditional reviews.
- Agile governance process – All initiatives were documented and validated through a structured review process before approval. This ensured alignment with business objectives and stakeholder buy-in.
- Joint ownership – For each initiative, a procurement lead was paired with a client-side business owner to share accountability for delivery.
- Execution and tracking – Leveraged a savings tracker platform to report progress, supplemented by fortnightly executive meetings chaired by the COO to maintain momentum.
Alongside the savings program, a new procurement operating model and requisition-to-pay (R2P) processes were designed for the client to support the rollout of a new procure-to-pay system.
Results
The program delivered substantial value, with savings identified, validated, and executed at pace:
- $39M in identified savings across targeted spend categories.
- $21M in delivered savings with a >10x ROI on project investment.
- $7M of savings in flight, scheduled for delivery.
- A further $11M earmarked for delivery by the BAU procurement team.
The savings methodology not only unlocked tens of millions in procurement savings but also embedded the structures and processes required for sustainable delivery.
The client now has:
- A pipeline of validated savings opportunities aligned with synergy targets.
- A new procurement operating model designed to scale with the organization’s growth
- Robust governance and tracking processes to ensure savings are realized and sustained.
- Enhanced procurement capability, ensuring ongoing delivery beyond the life of the project.
By combining rapid opportunity identification with disciplined execution, the client received immediate results and the groundwork for long-term procurement excellence.
This project was delivered by Proxima’s APAC team, under the former brand name, ArcBlue.
