Case study: Shaw Trust

This year the organisation has set itself the additional challenge of saving more than half-a-million pounds through automated procurement processes.

Gregory Asante, head of commercial enterprise finance for Shaw Trust, recognised that having a range of independent cost centres around the country was duplicating workers’ efforts.

To improve efficiency, the Trust has implemented an e-procurement system from enterprise management specialist BasWare. One of the system’s first tasks will be to clarify and rationalise the supplier list.

‘When deciding to look for an e-procurement tool, Shaw Trust had more than 5,000 different suppliers generating more than 50,000 invoices a year,’ says Asante.

‘We are a charity but like any business we want to improve profitability by reducing costs to further our objectives.’

To support the new systems, Shaw Trust has designed a procurement strategy that determines how goods and services are bought.

‘Looking at purchasing really opened our eyes to what people were buying and where they were buying it,’ says Asante. ‘We know we can get the same value for less money, and that’s what we intend to do.’

The 60 offices and 28 retail outlets within Shaw Trust will all use the new software to ensure that the purchases they make are in accordance with the policy, and that they are approved and within budgets.

The BasWare system will not only speed up the purchasing process, but also obtain authorisation where required.

‘Our intention is to reduce the number of suppliers by two-thirds, and negotiate better central volume discounts with them,’ says Asante.

Asante and his team are in the process of setting up the new procurement system and automating the finance functions to ensure maximum productivity. They say the target they have set themselves of saving half-a-million pounds in the first year is realistic.

‘We spend about £15m a year, so a three per cent saving should be easily achievable through consolidation and centralisation,’ he says. ‘Then we will start to look at spending patterns and other trends to identify areas for further improvement.’