IICGInternational Industrial
Consulting GroupDiscuss a mandate

Flagship practice

Industrial Procurement & Cost Transformation

The commercial core of IICG. We do not stop at identifying a price gap. We determine where the economics come from and what must change to close it.

The challenge

Most cost programmes only reach the cost that is priced in.

Cost in an industrial business is decided in three places. Part of it is designed in, through specifications, tolerances and material choices. Part of it is made in, through manufacturing routes, cycle times, yields and tooling. And part of it is priced in, through margins, indexation and commercial terms.

Programmes that only benchmark prices or negotiate harder reach the last of these, and usually only once. Durable cost competitiveness comes from understanding all three, and from working with engineering, manufacturing and suppliers as well as with procurement.

Designed in

Where it hides
Specifications, tolerances, material grades, features and variant complexity.
Levers
Design-to-Value, value engineering, specification challenge.

Made in

Where it hides
Manufacturing routes, cycle times, machine rates, yields, tooling and logistics.
Levers
Should-cost and clean-sheet costing, process costing, supplier development.

Priced in

Where it hides
Margins, raw-material indexation, payment and commercial terms, competitive tension.
Levers
Strategic sourcing, negotiation preparation, category management.

What we do

From diagnosis to finance-validated savings.

Diagnose04

  • Procurement diagnostics & opportunity assessment
  • PPV analysis
  • Spend and cost baselining
  • Benchmarking

Engineer the cost07

  • Should-cost / clean-sheet costing
  • Product cost engineering
  • Raw-material modelling
  • Manufacturing route & process costing
  • Machine-rate & cycle-time economics
  • Tooling economics
  • Total cost of ownership

Challenge the specification03

  • Design-to-Value / value engineering
  • Specification challenge
  • Supplier quote challenge

Source & negotiate05

  • Strategic sourcing
  • Category management
  • Direct-material procurement
  • Indirect procurement
  • Negotiation preparation

Deliver & validate04

  • Cost-reduction programmes
  • Savings governance
  • Implementation PMO
  • Finance-aligned savings validation

Should-cost lab

What a quote looks like once the part has been engineered.

A supplier quotation is where our analysis starts, not where it ends. Each line is rebuilt from the part: material, route, machine, cycle, tooling, yield, overhead, logistics and margin. Move the levers yourself.

Indirect procurement

Indirect spend deserves category expertise too.

Companies often devote less category expertise to indirect spend than to direct materials, and it shows: fragmented suppliers, unmanaged specifications and prices that have drifted for years.

For private-equity-owned businesses in particular, indirect procurement can provide relatively rapid savings and EBITDA improvement. We bring the same category discipline to it that we bring to a forging or a casting.

  • MRO
  • Packaging
  • Tools
  • Safety & PPE
  • Industrial consumables
  • Electrical
  • Hydraulic & pneumatic
  • Facilities-related industrial spend
  • CAPEX
  • Technical services

Value we can defend

We distinguish opportunity from outcome.

Where mandates include implementation, IICG tracks value from analytical identification through negotiation, implementation and agreed benefit validation. We never blur the four.

Stage 1

Identified opportunity

Quantified by analysis: should-cost, benchmarks and specification challenge.

Evidence: cost models, baselines
Stage 2

Negotiated savings

Agreed with the supplier, with terms, volumes and effective dates.

Evidence: signed quotations, agreements
Stage 3

Implemented savings

Live in purchase orders and price masters, on parts actually received.

Evidence: PO and invoice data
Stage 4

Finance-validated savings

Confirmed with finance against an agreed baseline in the P&L.

Evidence: finance sign-off

Certainty of value

Ways to engage

Start with the question you already have.

Procurement & Cost DiagnosticA fast, evidence-based view of where cost and supply risk sit, and which opportunities are worth pursuing first.
Should-Cost PilotClean-sheet cost models for a selected set of parts, to test the size and nature of the gap before a wider programme.
Quote-to-Award Cost ChallengeSpecialist challenge of live quotations before a sourcing decision is made.
Cost Transformation ProgrammeA multi-category programme from baseline to finance-validated savings.

Related capabilities

Where cost transformation connects.

Cross-practice capability

Product Development & Industrialisation

Cost is created before sourcing begins. NPI procurement, prototype sourcing, tooling, APQP/PPAP coordination and launch readiness.

Cross-practice capability

Supplier Development & Recovery

Sourcing a supplier is easy compared with making one production-ready. Capability, capacity, readiness and recovery.

Cross-practice capability

Industrial Benchmarking

Benchmarking should produce decisions, not just comparison tables. Product, technical, cost, supplier and route benchmarks.

Have a quote, a category or a cost target you want to understand?

Send us the part or the problem. We will tell you what we would look at first.

Talk to IICG[email protected]