Many divisions. No shared rules.

Facility costs were climbing and the contract files were incomplete. A partner firm reviewed spend across every division and recommended common rules.

Request a professional

A large multinational company with several divisions saw its facility costs rising and asked a partner firm to find out why.

The situation

Each division managed its own properties, with no shared review procedures. The company had many vendors and many contracts, and the contract files were incomplete. That made it hard to tell what had been agreed, who owned each contract and what each vendor should have been billing.

The hard parts

Contracts, amendments and addenda had to be found before they could be checked. Many vendors gave little support for what they billed, and comparable client records were sometimes missing. The firm said the project succeeded because senior management backed it fully and kept the project team informed.

What the firm did

It began with a high-level look at company-wide spend, to separate real estate facility costs from other costs. It then collected sample data for each facility and period, built a model for each agreement from its terms and the client's understanding of them, and used the models to check billing and find errors.

The firm also researched the history of each agreement and looked for vendors that held several contracts, which could be combined. It helped bring consistent wording and terms into contracts, and it identified the best practice in each division to build shared policies.

What the client received

An executive report describing the discrepancies found and resolved and the amounts recovered.

What the firm recommended

Reduce the number of active vendors.
Set up approved vendor pools for the main categories.
Enforce work order rules and invoice approvals.
Run a company-wide contract audit each year, on a random basis.
Act on billing noncompliance as it is found.
Write audit clauses that favor the client, and agree a fair process for disputes.
Complete a baseline analysis before adding any new contracts.

Note: This is an anonymized example supplied by a partner firm. Details are general, no figures are given, and your own result will depend on your contracts and records.

See supplier contract compliance, accounts payable audit and utilities. The case studies page lists the other examples.

Find out what you are overpaying.

Tell us what to check. We match you by hand with an independent partner firm. You keep your existing vendors.