Spend Discovery and Control: PE-backed Tech Platform

TL;DR: A PE-backed tech platform with around €1.5B in revenue and 4,000 employees was running a sponsor-led margin improvement programme. The CFO couldn't produce a reliable consulting spend figure. Finance reported €18M; the actual figure was €26M — an €8M gap. A structured review across 40 engagements and 12 suppliers produced €4.6M in forward savings and a governance framework that made the number visible for the first time.

Background

Consulting spend at this business had never been managed as a category. Product, engineering, and marketing each had their own supplier relationships, their own cost centres, and their own ways of buying. There was no central approval process, no preferred supplier list, and no rate framework. Each team bought what it needed, when it needed it, from whoever it had worked with before.

When the PE sponsor initiated a margin improvement programme, consulting was flagged as a category with likely hidden spend. The CFO asked for a consolidated figure. The finance team produced €18M. Nobody was confident it was right — but without a way to cross-reference invoices against cost centres across the business, there was no way to check.

What we did

Spend discovery

We pulled 24 months of invoice data across all cost centres and reconciled it against what finance had recorded. Around 30 interviews with budget holders across product, engineering, and marketing helped us map engagements that weren't visible from invoice data alone — work that was being bought informally, or coded to non-consulting lines.

The actual spend figure was €26M — €8M more than finance had reported. Most of the gap came from engagements split across multiple cost codes, or bought under non-consulting categories like "professional services" or "software licences."

Rescoping and cuts

With a full engagement map in place, we reviewed all 40 active engagements across the 12 suppliers. Four had been running for more than a year with no named sponsor — the original requestor had left or moved on, and the engagement was continuing on inertia. Rate benchmarking showed a 30% variance between the highest and lowest rates being paid for equivalent roles across different suppliers.

Acting on these findings, the business terminated or restructured the four unsupported engagements (€3.9M in annualised cuts) and renegotiated rates with three suppliers where the variance was clearest (€700K in annual savings).

Central governance framework

To prevent the problem recurring, we worked with the CFO and CTO to establish a central framework: an approved supplier list with agreed rate cards, a review board with mandate to approve or stop engagements, and a quarterly portfolio review. Any engagement above a defined threshold now requires sign-off before it starts.

Outcomes

€4.6M in forward savings. €8M in previously unreported spend surfaced and brought under management. Central governance framework in place within 90 days of the programme starting.

What made it work

Three things mattered most. First, CFO and CTO alignment before the programme started — without both, the central framework wouldn't have had the authority to override local decisions. Second, a willingness to act on imperfect data. The full picture was never going to be perfect, and waiting for it would have meant waiting indefinitely. Third, a review board with actual mandate — not just a reporting function, but a body empowered to stop engagements that couldn't justify their existence.

This engagement was conducted before Scopecreeper existed — with a team of four consultants and several months of manual work. It's the kind of work Scopecreeper now runs continuously, without the consulting team. Get in touch →