Professional Services
Implementation of Panels for Consulting and Legal Services
Established strategic panels for legal and consulting services to improve quality, transparency, and spend control.
Industry
Construction
Direct/Indirect
Indirect
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Sourcing Context & Procurement Challenge
Consulting and legal spend had grown unchecked across business units, with little coordination, poor visibility, and inconsistent quality. Procurement was often bypassed, leading to fragmented supplier relationships, suppliers taking advantage of the situation, overlapping scopes, and inflated hourly rates. The challenge was to regain control, build transparency, and introduce quality assurance in two politically highly sensitive categories.
Procurement Objectives & Strategic Levers
Objectives included reducing spend by >30%, improving project quality, and enforcing legal and ethical standards in external engagements. Strategic levers included framework-based panel agreements, performance tracking, rate harmonization, standardizes rate-cards as well as a skill-level matrix and strict onboarding criteria. The vision was to establish consulting and legal services as governed procurement categories – not executive exceptions.
Sourcing Strategy & Execution Approach
Procurement collaborated with senior management, compliance, and in-house legal counsel to define panel structures, tiering logic, and approval workflows. A two-tier model was introduced: strategic partners with retainer-based pricing, and tactical partners on project-based scopes. Panel members were selected through a weighted evaluation matrix that included independence, diversity, and domain expertise.
Results & Values Delivered
Spend dropped by 32%, with greater control and visibility across all engagements. Feedback scores improved by 21% due to clearer scopes and faster response times. Maverick buying declined by 60% thanks to centralized access to pre-approved experts. Rate leakage was eliminated, and compliance with procurement policy rose from 45% to 85% within the first 12 months.
Role & Contribution
Procurement led the full sourcing effort and change management program and worked with CFO and General Counsel to align internal governance and drove stakeholder buy-in across regions. It also implemented a quarterly panel review process with structured feedback loops for continuous improvement.
Conclusion & Reflections
This project showed that even politically “untouchable” spend areas can be professionalized with the right structure and stakeholder diplomacy. Panels only work if they are dynamic and performance-managed. A key takeaway: transparency is not a threat to executive freedom – it’s a precondition for trusted partnerships. Just like in the project related to the consolidation of IT-Contractors, also in this project the buy-in of the board was crucial for the success.