Challenge

Founded in 1997, Caffè Nero has grown to become one of the UK’s most popular coffee shop chains with c650 stores nationwide.

The small Caffè Nero F&B procurement team were so busy with the ‘day to day’ challenge of supporting a growing business, they weren’t able to effectively address all of the spend in their remit.

Across the rest of the business, procurement had been undertaken by Operational stakeholders. Again, these stakeholders had limited capacity, so were unable to effectively drive maximum value from the spend under their responsibility.

In a lot of cases, the current suppliers had been in place since Caffè Nero’s inception – and they had built very strong relationships across the business.

Approach

Procure4 set-up a series of meetings with the key stakeholders to understand the ‘As-Is’ Situation and understand the current challenges of the business.

It was a cultural shift for Caffè Nero to introduce a Consultancy so the Procure4 Team had to very quickly build trust, credibility, and most crucially, positive working relationships. This was done by working as One Team from the offset. Procure4 were present at the Caffè Nero office and each team member spent 1 – 2 days a week there.

Across the portfolio of categories including Food & Beverages, GNSFR, Property, FM and Professional Services, Procure4 robustly tested the market. In most cases, Procure4 also held open and frank conversations with incumbent suppliers about where the costs, service or quality could be improved.

In some areas there was resistance to change, however, Procure4 were able to overcome this by working closely with the key stakeholders to ensure they were comfortable with the approach adopted and ensuring all their requirements were considered throughout. This was underpinned by robust procurement exercises and establishing strong implementation plans if a change of service or supplier was the agreed course of action.

Procure4 went on to lead the implementation of a new supplier and distributor of Consumable Products to unlock a 15%+ saving, changing a supplier that had been embedded for over twenty years. It was a three-month implementation phase that was proceeded by a six-month tender process.

Results

Procure4 demonstrated the sustainable value additional procurement capacity, pace and category expertise could bring to Caffè Nero.  

The benefits of e-procurement technology, including e-auctions, were also shown to the Caffè Nero team.

Throughout the project the Procure4 Team built great relationships across the Caffè Nero business, from the Reception Team through to the Managing Director, Glyn House who said, “One Team was what we set out to achieve and that is what everyone delivered.”

 “From start to finish Caffè Nero and the P4 Team worked together in a collaborative fashion to deliver a great set of results.” Ben Norris, Procure4 Project Manager

“We delivered a great set of results and we thank all the Procure4 Team for that.” Matt Spencer, Caffè Nero Commercial Director.

 

Key Facts

35 Categories
9% CBR

Testimonial from Caffè Nero

“The Procure4 team were a pleasure to work from the start to end of this project. A natural extension of our team, they quickly built strong relationships across all levels and functions to deliver significant cost reduction. They achieved this with huge integrity and, most importantly, our culture and customer were always front of mind. They will all be missed.”

Sam Dooks, UK Finance Director, Caffè Nero

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