Commercial / Cost Optimisation
Cross 8 have been pivotal in building and operating commercial functions across a number of organisations. Our teams have been directly responsible for sourcing more than £2 billion and running cost optimisation programmes which have saved our clients approximately £310 million.
Our commercial experience started out at the hard edge of acting on behalf our clients to negotiate and manage multimillion pound transformation contracts. Since that time we have successfully helped clients in both the private and public sector with a full range of commercial activities.
We like to think that cost optimisation is the ideal demonstration of the Cross 8 approach: small teams that have a disproportionately large impact. Something that our track record of saving blue chip companies tens of millions of pounds annually bears out. And even better, by unlocking value from other suppliers we can leave our clients net beneficiaries from our cost optimisation projects.
But a commercial function isn’t only about cost, we have also:
- Developed Commercial and Supplier strategies that deliver sustainable value – both writing and implementing those strategies
- Acted on our client’s behalf in major negotiations and sourcing
- Redesigned Procurement and ongoing Supplier Management functions
In short, we’ve delivered value across the whole commercial portfolio.
The overriding thing we have learnt is that true commercial optimisation (as opposed to one off cost cutting) is an ongoing activity. There’s always more to do and, although we are happy to act on your behalf, you don’t always want to be contracting with externals to do it for you.
As a result, a key part of most of our engagements has been about building our client’s internal capability, leaving them better off not just financially but also organisationally.
Contact us to find out how we can help maximise your commercial position.
Business Change
Regardless of whether your change is the rollout of a new IT system, a cost saving exercise, or introducing a new product, people are what will ultimately make the difference between success and failure. Your staff, your suppliers, your customers. They’re all people with their own motivations.
The key to unlocking the benefits of change is to get your people to actively adopt it…
It’s easier to concentrate on the concrete milestones, and that’s where many projects and programmes fall over. Understanding that just about all change involves behavioural change, and that people are central to it, is one of the ways that Cross8 has delivered successfully across so many organisations.
Our decades of experience of change means that we understand the cycle of emotions that are inevitable when moving to any new state so we can provide support, guidance, and a communication strategy to help your people through the journey, ensuring a successful outcome for you. Key to this is making sure they have the right information so we liaise with your training provider (whether that’s internal or external) to ensure that your people know what they need to, when they need to.
So whether you want us to carry out a standalone change readiness assessment so you know what to plan for, or to plan a full organisational change roadmap for you, we can help you and your people through your change and make sure you realise the benefits you are expecting.
Contact us to talk about your Behavioural and People Change needs.
Business Transformation
With decades of experience leading change from small scale continuous improvement initiatives to multimillion pound Transformation programmes, we can help you manage your organisation’s change whatever the size and cost.
We have successfully supported our clients with teams including:
- Transformation Directors responsible for leading portfolios of programmes
- Programme Managers and Project Managers delivering individual changes
- Design Leads and Solution Architects ensuring the system as a whole delivers your strategy and fits with your operating model
- Business Analysts to ensure that the running requirements gathering workshops
- Programme Management Offices ensuring every stakeholder has the visibility of progress they need
And with Cross 8, you’re never buying time, you’re getting solutions.
We specialise in placing small teams of key people into pivotal roles so that they can focus on delivering your outcomes: Light touch… Maximum impact.
Check out our Case Studies so you can see how our expert consultants have helped our clients shape and deliver changes to start releasing value as quickly as possible, and then get in touch to find out how we can do the same for you.
Assessment & Assurance
One of the benefits of the breadth of experience we have gained from across a wide number of industries, is an ability to spot risks early enough to prevent them becoming issues.
We’ve translated this experience into a series of Assessment Tools, assurance exercises, risk assessments and health checks which we can apply across the whole of your business:
- Operating Models
- Commercial and Operational Strategies
- Large scale change / Transformations
Using our suite of Assessment Tools, our expert consultants provide an independent review of your existing controls, processes and ways of working, to identify strengths and weaknesses.
Much more than simply a report, our robust assessments include clear recommendations to help you course correct and maximize the chance of a successful delivery.
Business Design & Architecture
Our Architects and Designers are skilled in a variety of techniques and can apply their deep knowledge of their area to alternative methods to meet client needs.
However, if a client does not have a chosen EA framework then we recommend TOGAF, and we produce models in the Archimate modelling language due to its ease of use by both technical and non-technical audiences. In order to produce a balanced operating model, we focus on people, process, data and technology.
Way of Working
Alongside those formal techniques, our architects and designers apply a common set of principles to ensure they deliver value, including:
- Start from the business: Our Business Architects are just that – business architects. All have a deep knowledge of technology, and often have an IT background, but they all design from a business-first perspective. We believe effective architecture is based on aligning to business needs. Design should not be an isolated IT activity.
- No reinventing the wheel: We can help produce standards and guidelines, but usually you’ll have things in place you’ll want us to use – we don’t see our job as persuading you to switch to a new method.
- Data primacy: Despite recent improvements, it remains the case that data is often an underappreciated asset. Our considerable experience with GDPR means that we design with data in mind from the beginning, often unlocking opportunities and improving MI, while complying with necessary standards.
- Collaboration: We have found that Architecture, more even than Change Management, is a collaborative exercise. Our people can drive through change fast given the remit, but Architecture is about choosing where to drive and that cannot be done without you.
- Design preferences: We will align to your company policies but when we get down to solution and system design we lean towards: open source code, cloud solutions and browser based end user interfaces. We believe these choices reduce your total cost of ownership.