How a $6 Billion Retail Company Achieved SG&A Savings of $50M with GEP

A retail company sought to gain much-needed visibility into indirect spend across categories and subcategories to have a better understanding of who was spending what, and where. The challenge was to establish cross functional governance and shift the mindset around spend from being budget-centric to being needs centric. By doing so, the company could align its spend more with strategic priorities and be more efficient going forward.

Objectives

• Reduce SG&A expenses by 10%-20% by using levers above and beyond traditional procurement price levers
• Improve visibility into “who spends what and where”
• Shift spending from a budget mindset to a needs mindset
• Reallocate budgets to align with strategic priorities
• Establish a cross-functional governance structure consisting of finance, procurement and other stakeholders to enable and sustain the identified benefits

Approach

• Partner with key stakeholders to drive sustainable cost reduction program
• Identify policies and processes that can be tightened to gain visibility and control of spend
• Increase visibility into savings by establishing ownership, managing data and developing reporting dashboards
• Facilitate partnership between procurement and finance for seamless integration of savings structure
• Improve cost of capital and cash optimization strategies