Vendigital with Spectris

Following on from a series of strategic acquisitions and after a low-growth period where the group’s operating margin had been gradually declining, Spectris – a FTSE 250 company operating across a range of industries with specialisms in materials analysis and measurement – wanted to improve operational performance and leverage synergies across the group. The company had thirteen largely autonomous businesses with extensive product lines operating in different markets and countries. Spectris elected to partner with Vendigital to work within their Supply Chain function. The aim; to deliver profitable growth through better coordination across the company and leverage scale in areas such as direct procurement, indirect procurement, IT and footprint, together with a focus on business process excellence in  R&D, sales and marketing. 

Working collaboratively with Spectris, Vendigital produced a vision of how the transformation could take place, before embarking on a programme which sought to achieve organisational reform without constraining the individual entrepreneurial drive of each of the operating companies. Spectris wanted resources to be unfettered by the complexity of its business –  driving attention towards intelligent procurement and cost savings. There was a clear ambition for growth and a desire for change. 

For a collaboration that would grow into a 27-month engagement, drawing upon the company’s global resources and utilising the most cutting-edge techniques in data management, Vendigital’s partnership with Spectris began in the most unlikely circumstances. Neither party was on the other’s radar. Introduced, however, by another management consultancy the partnership blossomed into one which saw Vendigital deliver comprehensive and far-reaching reform with cost savings in excess of £10 million allied to a profound change in corporate culture. 

Vendigital developed the programme of work by tapping into its core capabilities in procurement, supply chain, engineering and value implementation. Vendigital engaged with each operating company to discuss the projects identified and secure endorsement to begin delivering tangible benefits. 

As Clive Watson, Chief Financial Officer at Spectris comments: “Before our engagement with Vendigital we simply didn’t have a global procurement function and they brought us the expertise to establish one.” 

“Vendigital have forced people at Spectris to get out of their comfort zone and share a lot of data and knowledge with each other that they hadn’t previously been comfortable sharing,” he adds. “They’ve certainly forced me to think really deeply about what needs to be done in our procurement function. 

Watson concludes by saying: “Thanks to Vendigital we’ve already got a great deal more collaboration between our operating companies. Compared with how the company functioned before Vendigital, there’s more of a willingness to talk across operating companies generally. We’ve established a number of communities across the company, an R&D community, a marketing community and a procurement community. There’s a legacy there. From my standpoint, it’s been nothing but good. Vendigital opened doors for us.” 

View the Vendigital company profile in the MCA Members Directory.