Case Study: Commercial Management for insurer
As part of a whole-of-business transformation program, a major insurance company required an uplift in Commercial Management capability to assure supplier delivery of new technology.
The project outcome was to assess the current process maturity, reduce audit and risk items, and build an enduring capability to get the best from the buy-side and supplier-side. This involved capability development in processes, people, contracts and tools, as well as relationship building with the business and the key suppliers to enhance definition of requirements, acceptance criteria and service level expectations. In so doing, confidence was raised in the governance of supplier performance and in the effectiveness of risk controls.
In achieving this outcome, it was crucial to provide greater visibility of issues, performance, and pricing (including through leveraging global benchmarks) to support business executives in making informed decisions between competing options.
We brought a consultative approach to the Commercial Management capability uplift
We worked with the key program leads and suppliers to:
- Assess the current process maturity focusing on the end-to-end procurement lifecycle from work requests and authorisations; deliverables and obligations; contract authoring; deliverables acceptance; and invoice management.
- Conduct due diligence analysis, through industry research, reference calls, financial and risk analysis; and contractual ‘showstoppers’.
- Track current performance, identify areas for improvement and report to whole-of-business governance forum.
- Resolve issues, audit items and risk events, with enduring process improvement.
- Manage the workload, process improvement, and the communications of value-adding in parallel.
The Commercial Management uplift also helped deliver significant savings on rate cards and fixed price projects in the order of $20M.
What we can learn from this project
- Communicate that the procurement process requires all parties to do their part.
- Engage the Commercial Management early for proper due diligence, requirements definition and price negotiation.
- Maintain line of sight to the objective to educate in the ‘why’ not just the ‘how’.
What the client shared about the objective
Project sponsor: “I am very grateful for what you have given the program – common sense, calm, knowing ‘what goodness looks like’ for Commercial Management.”