Take control of your consulting spend in four weeks
Know what your company actually spends on consulting, where it's bought, which projects should be stopped or challenged, and what to do about it. And we don't leave you with a list of homework - we help you implement the actions, from recovering overbilled fees to preparing the conversations.
Request more informationThe questions we answer along the way
- 1.What do we spend on consultants - including the misclassified spend?
Then, for every engagement:
- 2.Is it still needed?
- 3.Is it delivering what was promised?
- 4.Is it staffed as agreed?
- 5.Is it billed at the agreed rates?
By the end of week four, each has an evidenced answer - and an action attached.
The actions
Everything we find becomes an action - and we help you take it
For each action, we provide the issue, the evidence, the owner and the next step - plus the judgment behind it, so your team knows what the answers mean, not just what to send. They fall into four types:
Quick wins
Issues where the evidence is complete. Invoices billed above the contracted rates, for example: we document the difference and help you claim it back.
Bigger wins
Issues that take preparation. The same work bought from two suppliers, or a contract unchallenged for years: we prepare the consolidation case or the re-tender.
Careful wins
Issues where the money is real but the handling matters. A project running past its approval: we prepare a business-case request to the supplier, so the decision can be made on facts.
The long game
Issues better addressed later. Work that could come back in-house, renegotiations better timed to a renewal: recorded in the plan with an owner and a date.
The problem
Consulting is often bought by the teams that need it - which makes the total difficult to coordinate, control or count
The controls exist - approvals, budgets, preferred suppliers, invoice checks - yet each team buys through its own process and records the spend in its own way, so each engagement looks reasonable on its own. The category is bigger than the strategy work and transformation programmes that get top-table attention: beneath them sits a long tail of operational, regulatory and specialist support - individually unremarkable, collectively a significant share of the total.
Five typical problems
None of this shows up as an invoice error. The invoice can be correct, the PO can exist, the budget can be available, the supplier approved. The question is whether the work should still be bought, on the right terms, and whether it would pass the same investment test today.
The data is spread across systems and teams
Finance
payments and accounts
Procurement
suppliers, contracts, POs
Statements of work
scope, rates, dates
Project owners
what's actually happening
What we do
How consulting spend is constructed - and where the waste hides
First, find all of it: the spend already visible as consulting, plus the consulting-like work sitting in adjacent accounts - together, the real portfolio. Then test every engagement in it: should it still be bought, and is it on the right terms? What fails those tests is the waste - and we help determine what to do about each case. Nothing is counted as waste until the engagement owner has seen the evidence.
How your spend gets tested
Built from data you already have: invoices and accounts payable records, purchase orders, supplier records, contracts and statements of work.
In our experience, a review like this typically surfaces actions worth 10-20% of the reviewed consulting spend. We show everything we find, so you see precisely what business as usual is costing - and because the fee is fixed, we have no reason to inflate what we find.
We handle the data collection, the analysis and the evidence gathering - your team gets decisions to make, not a list of theoretical opportunities. Every engagement gets held to the same standard you'd apply to any other use of the company's money.
How it works
Four weeks from raw invoice data to actions underway
No new tools for your team to learn. We work from data you already have, and most of the work sits with us.
Week 1 - Map the spend base
We do
Collect what exists (AP, PO, supplier master, contracts, statements of work, mappings) and build the first portfolio view - separating clear consulting spend from consulting-like spend in adjacent accounts, and flagging gaps. A missing contract, rate card or statement of work is a finding in itself.
You do
Send the data extracts and point us to where contracts and statements of work live.
Meetings
Sponsor kick-off. Data access set-up with one finance or procurement contact.
Week 2 - Identify need and value issues
We do
Review for need indicators (stale, duplicated, extended, weakly owned, off-business-case) and value indicators (rate differences, seniority, scope movement, supplier concentration, unmanaged extensions). Output: a prioritised issue list by type, value, evidence and confidence.
You do
Nothing scheduled - answer the odd data question.
Meetings
Short calls to resolve data questions, as needed.
Week 3 - Confirm what is real
We do
Test the findings against documents and remove false positives, so the list gets smaller, cleaner and evidence-backed. Engagement owners - the budget holders whose work it is - see the findings that concern their area before anything enters the action plan: a review, not an audit by ambush.
You do
Introduce us to the engagement owners.
Meetings
A small number of conversations with engagement owners.
Week 4 - Prepare the actions, and start them
We do
Turn confirmed findings into decisions, separating what can move now - cash this financial year - from what's tied to a renewal or approval point. Quick wins raised with suppliers; requests prepared for the conversations that need more care.
You do
Agree the actions and confirm an owner for each.
Meetings
One session to agree the actions. One final walk-through of the action plan.
The week-4 output
- Reviewed consulting portfolio
- Spend by supplier, business unit, account and project
- Consulting-like spend found outside expected accounts
- Spend outside central commercial review or existing agreements
- Need actions to stop, reduce, consolidate or not renew
- Value actions to renegotiate, correct, reset or challenge
- Estimated first-year financial impact, split by what can move now and what's tied to a future decision point
- Evidence for each action
- A suggested owner and next step for every action
- Prepared requests for the conversations that need more care
- A directional view of how your spend compares with peers - overall and by consulting type
The action plan also records what we reviewed and did not recommend changing - for many engagement owners, independent confirmation that their portfolio holds up is as useful as the savings. Most value actions correct supplier terms without touching delivery. Some findings need a nudge rather than an action: a team that negotiated its own rates well above what another unit pays may simply need to know the gap was seen, and what's expected next time. And everything is shown separately - by confidence level and action type, operating expense and capitalised spend - never blended into one headline number.
Pricing
Fixed fee, agreed upfront
Typically £35,000-50,000, depending on the size and complexity of the organisation. Built to finish - everything done and handed over within four weeks.
About Scopecreeper
Scopecreeper's founders built their expertise at consulting firms including Efficio, EY and Capgemini. We learned what makes projects succeed inside large organisations, and how the consulting business model behaves - Scopecreeper puts that knowledge to work for you.
Ulrik Soeraas, Co-founder & Managing Director · More about us →
Ready to see what your consulting spend is hiding?
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