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Procurement & Supply Management

We help utilities and independent power producers to become world-class purchasing leaders by adopting advanced procurement and supply-management capabilities across all materials, services, operating, and capital-spending categories.

As the world enters a technology-driven energy transition, energy enterprises will rely more and more on their procurement and supply-management capabilities to meet cost targets, secure supplies, improve safety and reliability, innovate, and optimize the total cost of ownership. Using our proven tools and approaches, we work hand in hand with clients to equip them for success in a challenging landscape.

We help clients unlock the potential from new value levers across all spend areas, and derisk and sustain value capture through advanced capabilities and techniques. We help them build operating models for the future based on effective cross-functional partnerships, and integrate emerging digital and analytical technologies to boost efficiency, generate insights, and uncover new opportunities. We also help them develop new skills, manage talent, and transform their culture and organization to achieve industry-leading performance and long-term impact.

Examples of our work

Drawing on decades of experience serving the world’s top utilities and independent power producers, we help clients reduce their total cost of ownership by an average of 15 to 18 percent across all spend areas.

Optimizing IT Procurement Strategy

We helped a major integrated utility design a new procurement operating model based on closer collaboration with the business, develop a world-class IT outsourcing strategy, and identify savings in excess of 25 percent.

Shaving a Fifth Off Program Costs

We introduced an agile operating model for a top natural-gas utility by applying advanced analytics to construction and maintenance contracts in gas distribution and transmission, reducing capital costs and expenses by 20 percent.

Adopting Advanced Sourcing

We transformed the transmission contracting and project delivery for a large electric utility by introducing leading-edge sourcing methods, “should cost” modeling, and an innovative partnership model.

Transforming the Procurement Function

We assisted a regional public utility to address spend categories across all business units and delivered savings of 15 percent by reengineering the structure, design, and capabilities of its procurement organization and adopting a new operating model.

Reducing Contracting Expenditure

With our help, a large merchant generator adopted advanced methods for forecasting and managing demand, and identified cost savings of 20–35 percent in service categories from outage and maintenance contractors to maintenance, repair, and operations spend and security.

FEATURED CAPABILITIES

We invest in developing the following distinctive resources, capabilities, and tools to help clients meet their business objectives for innovation, cost, and value delivery:

  • Commodity-savings database. Custom insights into value levers for all categories related to generation, transmission, distribution, and the corporate center.
  • Global purchasing-excellence survey and benchmarking database. Assesses an institution’s performance and health in procurement and supply management.
  • Global sourcing centers. Supports best-cost sourcing initiatives in Brazil, China, Eastern Europe, India, and Mexico..
  • Comprehensive tool kit for optimizing materials and services procurement. Includes a clean-sheet library, category-specific total cost of ownership models, and a digital “control tower” for demand management.
  • Global sourcing information exchange. A database to identify potential suppliers in best-cost countries.
  • More than 25 capability-building programs. Covers core procurement and supply-management skills, from category analytics and strategy development to negotiations and contractor management.
  • A benchmarking database of best practices across all contracting models, supported by dedicated experts.

Featured expert

Roman Belotserkovskiy
Partner, Austin
Brings extensive experience in the energy sector, including operations-performance transformations, accelerated cost-repositioning...
Samir Khushalani
Partner, Houston
Helps companies transform their procurement function to improve productivity and unlock new sources of economic value through...

Related insights

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Utility procurement: Ready to meet new market challenges

– North American utilities’ procurement leaders are tackling today’s challenging times by partnering closely with business unit leaders, deploying bespoke category strategies, and building innovative capabilities.
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Long tail, big savings: Digital unlocks hidden value in procurement

– Until recently, many companies thought it was futile to try to extract savings from the low-volume purchases in “tail spend.” New technologies are changing the equation.

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