Margin matters. Discipline delivers.
I run a global direct-materials portfolio across Tier-1 contract manufacturers, and I bring that standard down to mid-size US manufacturers, where it is rarely applied and makes the most difference. The savings are rarely in the negotiation. They are in the process nobody has looked at.
The perspective
Procurement functions do not fail loudly.
They lose hours in three specific places, and every one of them is invisible on an org chart. Almost every cost problem I have been handed turned out to be one of these three wearing a price costume.
Retrieval
Senior people spending the day finding numbers rather than deciding with them. It looks like diligence. It is the most expensive clerical work in the building.
The wait
Work that is finished but not allowed to move, because approval lives in an inbox or a spreadsheet one person updates. Nobody is idle and nothing is progressing.
The re-argument
The same decision made from scratch every time, because nobody wrote the rule down. Teams mistake it for judgment. It is an undocumented policy costing a meeting a month.
I take on a small number of engagements at a time, so that each one gets an operator’s attention rather than an advisor’s.
Tell me what you are working on.
Fifteen minutes, no deck. If I am not the right person for it, I will say so and point you somewhere better.