Driving Portfolio Value With a P&L-Focused Toolbox
What We Do
Traditional private equity (PE) spend reduction “toolboxes” have missed the mark with indirect services. At this very moment, your portfolio companies are incurring problematic indirect service expenses, eroding your portfolio profits and diverting already-lean resources from mission-critical areas.
The problem is that in highly complex, multi-year indirect service categories, the vendors simply have too many discretionary levers to pull and buttons to push—and with leaned out resources, your portfolio companies’ procurement departments are simply unequipped to engage in the joust over the actual spend that occurs after contract negotiation. A good contract simply cannot solve the problem—what is needed is not a sourcing solution, but an expense management solution.
At Fine Tune, this is precisely the solution we’ve been building for 23 years…and if growing EBITDA is your priority, it’s the only way to tackle indirect services.
A “Three-Legged Stool” Solution to Growing EBITDA
Indirect services remains an area where even the best strategies developed by leading PE firms for driving costs out of newly acquired businesses have fallen short. These strategies have invariably focused on sourcing and contract negotiations; leveraging spend to drive down unit rates. With indirect services, this is playing checkers—while your suppliers are playing three-dimensional chess. A more sophisticated approach is needed.
At Fine Tune, we liken our solution to a three-legged stool; without any one of its “legs,” it fails to produce optimal expense reduction impact. The three “legs” are expertise; technology; and a model of dedicated, vigilant, continuous management:
Expertise
- World-class industry leaders
- Mastery of supplier-side costs
- Best-in-class pricing and terms
- Bringing “unknown unknowns” to light
Technology
- Software built around the nuances of each expense
- Terms & conditions compliance—way beyond “price”
- Recurring inventory & invoicing/payment reconciliations
- Analysis & control of new purchases and program changes
- Optimization of quantities, items & services
Continuous Management
- Fine Tune does it all
- Data analysis
- Strategy setting
- Negotiations/RFP
- Implementation
- Continuous auditing
- Credit recovery
- Issue resolution
- Program optimization
- Bill payment services
- More subcontractor than consultant