Process Improvements: Streamlining Your Procurement for Maximum Efficiency

£1bil revenue British free-to-air public broadcast television channel had an underperforming commercial and procurement mindset, alongside immature finance and procurement technology and process meaning significant value was being left on the table.

A specialised project team, equipped with expertise across procurement, project management, and multiple spend categories, was created to act as the client’s interim procurement function for 12 months. The team’s remit was broad, focusing on immediate Spend Diagnostics and Cost Reduction Programmes across high-impact categories (Marketing, IT, HR, etc.), and developing a Procurement Target Operating Model Design. Crucially, the team also led unique value creation initiatives, such as Barter and Contra deals, successfully identifying £8 million in savings in Year 1 alone, all while driving change towards a future sustainable in-house solution.

The client, a leading UK healthcare equipment and services provider, faced mounting pressure to optimise its £30M third-party spend. Following a private equity acquisition, the business identified significant cost-saving opportunities in an under-prioritised indirect supply chain. However, supplier engagement was limited, strategic partnerships were lacking, and commercial rigour was minimal—highlighting the need for external expertise and resource to drive improvement.

7SS took a structured, data-led approach to define the as-is state and identify improvement opportunities. Spend, contracts, and policies were analysed to establish a clear baseline, then validated through interviews with key buyers to understand real-world processes and capability. The findings were benchmarked against best practice to develop sourcing strategies by category, and a delivery roadmap was created to prioritise actions by ease and benefit — forming the foundation for implementation.

Our client is a prominent alternative investment firm with $30bn assets under management focussing on private equity, credit, real estate investments across North America and Europe.

7 Step Solutions was hired as the client’s outsourced procurement function to provide seamless, ongoing operational support. The solution was built on four key pillars: leadership alignment to define ongoing procurement needs; process excellence to shape sourcing approaches; commercial execution leading competitive tendering and negotiation; and risk mitigation in coordination with legal counsel. This was all underpinned by monthly reporting and the implementation of a Contract Management solution to ensure continuous cost optimisation and compliance visibility.

Client expressed their vision of becoming a role model as an environmentally aware global research laboratory.

This global public sector research facility sought to become a world leader in environmental responsibility, but faced a massive challenge: 64% of their 450,000 tonnes of annual CO2 emissions were tied directly to the £438 million of goods and services purchased from their supply chain. With their 70-strong procurement team focused solely on standard sourcing and compliance, they urgently required expert, external support. The goal was to fully embed a responsible environmental procurement policy into their organisation and supply chain, all while strictly adhering to global public sector purchasing regulations and operational controls.