Procurement Professional Services | Sourcing Professional Services

Professional Services

Professional services firms have traditionally reaped healthy profits. Relatively recently, however, several economic and market factors have combined to increase competition and are beginning to shift greater market power to buyers.

This macro trend is clearing the way for a more robust complement of sourcing strategies. Thus, GEP has been able to realize historic levels of savings in the professional services category for its clients. One example ― GEP recently achieved savings of nearly 20 percent on management consulting services for a global pharmaceutical giant, while maintaining service levels, work product output and contractually guaranteed deliverables.

GEP Professional Services™ – Unmatched Category Expertise

Recent research indicates that professional services firms are increasingly moving toward gain-sharing pricing structures. But a gain-sharing model can be implemented only if gain can be accurately measured.

GEP has the proven capability to work with business units and client stakeholders to identify objectives, quantify them and craft success-fee mechanisms in line with industry standards.

Professional services firms, quite understandably, will often seek to maximize their compensation. If the client is otherwise being served, cost savings may not be a priority. The result can sometimes be chronically costly premiums. What services, services levels and resources are in fact necessary and required? That varies from case to case, but in our experience, clients can often end up overpaying.

Because fees can really add up, questioning assumptions can really pay off. When does it make economic sense to bring an activity in-house? When does outsourcing make most sense? Is there an equivalent offshore option? Only one thing is certain ― there are no cookie-cutter answers. One size does not fit all.

The truth is that budget holders are often unaware of or unfamiliar with all the capabilities and offerings of services firms, as well as the potential economic impact of the pooling of volume. Establishing a pool of preferred vendors by project type and negotiating standard rate cards can work wonders. We can help you get there. GEP works with enterprise procurement teams, developing and documenting the business cases that facilitate the sometimes-bumpy business of consolidation of spend.

Because our work encompasses numerous clients from multiple industries, we can leverage a unique and potent proprietary database of benchmarks, inclusive of fee, contract and team structures, as well as hours allocated to each project activity.

Working with this database is a significant team of subject matter experts. Members of our professional services sourcing practice have years of category experience and have a proven track record of hard-dollar savings. They understand, on a deep level, the varying relationships between project complexity and required resources. And they also understand the impact of new tools, technologies and global talent pools on various cost and quality equations.

Deep Category Expertise

GEP manages billions in professional services spend every year. With a team of the industry's leading subject matter experts, expertise across global enterprises and levels of complexity, and detailed, up-to-the-minute market intelligence, GEP delivers significant, measurable savings to its clients every day.