Sales agency with ongoing strategic support
Sales agency with ongoing strategic support
Building on Success
Keen to pursue its agenda for the Printless offering in the UK, our client extended its pilot agreement with us in order to maintain continuity and exploit market potential with current and potential partners, among enterprise clients, and also in the public sector.
Managing the Cost of Sale
Employing a below-the-line strategy to avoid the need for large investment in building market presence, Acert built the initial sales pipeline from its own network and contacts database, with additional strategic research and targeted activity in certain category areas in order to widen the net. This has created a regular flow of sales engagements, system demonstrations and opportunity development actvities, with examples covering up to multi-million annual page counts in areas such as global logistics, NHS Mental Health Trusts and outsourced IT services.
Value to the Client
For a fraction of the cost of operating a fully-fledged UK subsidiary, our client has been able to project a virtual presence and demonstrate ongoing market continuity, for more than 2 years. Acert resources are on hand to seek and close business, negotiate the contracts, project manage transitions and support ongoing continuous service improvement.
IT Strategy delivery projects for a national trade unions body
IT Strategy delivery projects for a national trade unions body
Building on Success
Following Acert’s strategic consultancy report for the TUC in Summer 2016, the senior executive team were keen to establish the IT steering group and appoint a part-time (virtual) Chief Information Officer, as well as to commission work on the IT risk register. Earlier analysis having revealed some onerous service agreements no longer fit for purpose, there was also an appetite to negotiate early savings where possible.
Practical Support
We established four concurrent and related projects to address the required deliverables.
First we prepared a Charter for the Steering Group, negotiating its constitution and recruiting its members.
Next we wrote a brief for the role of part-time Chief Information Officer (vCIO), researched suitable candidates, invited applications and facilitated the short-listing process for final interview by the TUC senior management team.
To manage some of the risks we identified in the earlier consultancy work, we developed an IT risk register and led the first Steering Group meeting to assign ownership of risk management and mitigation tasks to individuals. To identify and drive savings, we met with suppliers responsible for the highest spend to discuss the options and begin the process of renegotiation.
Enduring Benefits
The vCIO was appointed and is providing clear direction and leadership for all core initiatives. The Steering Group is functioning well as the IT change agency, with strong programme management underpinning its strategic and tactical decisions. The Risk Register remains at the heart of programme prioritisation and is contributing significantly to readiness for the GDPR deadline of May 2018. In-year savings were obtained from targeted key suppliers, all of whom were also invited to participate in the comprehensive managed service and Office 365 procurement resulting from another workstream in the strategic proposals.
Launching a new managed print service in the UK
Launching a new managed print service in the UK
The Client
A leading French provider in the world of managed print, our client’s software platform has more than 250,000 devices under management, serving countless end-users in banks, hospitals and major retail organisations. Printless is a service based on this platform, allowing UK businesses to acquire the solution at no cost and deploy in a multi-vendor fleet, saving 30% or more on current costs.
Our Appointment
Speaking at an international Managed Print event in Prague, Acert directors met the client’s executive team. Proposals were then discussed in London and in France, following which we were engaged to conduct strategic market exploration, leading to significant relationship development. Based on this success a sales development contract was agreed, with lead generation, creation of a sales funnel and pipeline all in scope.
The client’s go-to-market strategy is indirect, with a significant channel in Europe. Based on demonstration of our capability, Acert was awarded further assignments to develop all of the operational process documentation, the Master Service partner agreement, Customer/Partner agreement templates and partner Heads of Agreement.
Business Impact
Now with multiple partner agreements in place, the project has established both the sales pipeline and the associated collateral for a successful line of business for Printless in the UK.
Interim commercial management for a major international outsourcing organisation
Interim commercial management for a major international outsourcing organisation
The Challenge for the Client
Our client was struggling to find sufficient resources to provide commercial support for an influx of new bids and recent successful sales.
Based on previous successful engagements with this client, Acert was selected to provide an interim commercial manager to augment the existing commercial team. Our consultant was embedded into a series of bid teams (the majority of which were to prove successful) and was then retained to manage the contract drafting and negotiation of a £40m+ IT outsource engagement.
Retained Support
Following the success of that negotiation, our consultant was further retained as an embedded team member providing commercial oversight of the outsource transition and early stages of steady state delivery, going on to further assignments with the client thereafter.
Transforming CEVA’s Outsourcing Model
Transforming CEVA’s Outsourcing Model
The Challenge for the Client
CEVA is one of the world’s leading logistics and supply-chain management companies and has over 40,000 employees spread across more than 160 countries. With a long history of outsourcing its IT Infrastructure and applications support services in a piecemeal fashion, CEVA wanted to transform all its arrangements into a single global managed services agreement. In addition, it sought to move away from all existing input-based charging models, replacing them with an outcome-based, solution oriented contract.
Complex Scope
Acert was selected by the Global Infrastructure CIO to drive the commercial aspects of the project.
Working closely with the global infrastructure central procurement teams we supported the development of the initial business case and obtained a green light to effect the reform. Using the agreed design principles, we then developed the global outsource support agreement. Detailed RACI matrices were developed across all key service areas for inclusion in the contract, along with comprehensive governance processes, a detailed Service Level and Service Credit regime, continuous improvement obligations, and audit and benchmark processes.
Tangible Business Benefits
Acting as commercial lead, Acert directed supplier negotiations leading to a successful outcome for all parties. The contract model and negotiation process secured an improved quality of service from the supplier together with substantial business efficiency improvements derived from centralised visibility and control, delivering close to €1m savings per annum.
Managed print project management and procurement for a global enterprise client
Managed print project management and procurement for a global enterprise client
Rapid Growth
Having grown massively both organically and by acquisition, this large media conglomerate recognised the opportunity for business improvement and savings to be realised from a shared services approach. A substantial IT innovation project had been established right across the scope of technology for the business. In-house and office (managed) print was one of eight categories targeted.
Immediate action
An audit was commissioned to develop a meaningful understanding of the scale of the opportunity. The project required collection and analysis of data from many tens of companies and locations in the UK, US and Germany, as well as detail-gathering on the underlying contractual and commercial position across hundreds of individual local agreements.
Tangible results
The assessment phase was delivered to budget on an aggressive timeline, revealing a $1m+ annual savings opportunity. We went on to commission and manage an expanded assessment, covering sites in a further fifteen US cities. As a result of the success of the initial phases, we were retained to project manage the supplier selection process in the US, UK and Germany, together with subsequent contract negotiations.
Solution Strengths
Acert was engaged because of our relevant competencies including:
- Deep knowledge of the managed print market, solutions and delivery models;
- Global supply-chain co-ordination and solutions architecture experience
- Multi-faceted project management across the technical, information-gathering, solution architecture and market entry elements of the programme
- Rapid engagement and project onboarding capability
Ability to bring in additional associates and resources for short-term requirements
Business Impact
The assessment phase covering c.30,000 staff and c.140m pages per annum was completed in under five months. Market entry and supplier shortlisting for the three territories followed quickly, with new contract development and negotiation over the following five months.