Introduction
Our client, a Tier One Bank in Australia and New Zealand, had reached a pivotal crossroads: its legacy Contact Centre (CC) technology was approaching end-of-life. There was an urgent need to select and transition to a modern Contact Centre (CCaaS) platform.
A modern and unified customer experience was needed across all customer channels. However, with seven different banking divisions-each with its own Contact Centre system-aligning on a common strategy, scope, and set of priorities was a formidable task. With so many stakeholders, not everyone was convinced that a single CCaaS platform could do the job.
To address this urgency and complexity, the Bank engaged Esby & Co to lead a cross-divisional team and fast-track the procurement process. With our commercial insight and expertise in complex technology sourcing, we enabled the Bank to align stakeholders around a clear, shared strategy. CCaaS partner evaluation, selection and contract negotiation took just 3 days. In the eyes of the bank, we redefined what was possible and set a new benchmark for how they could deliver future transformation.
Our challenge
The project was high-stakes. We needed to:
- Find a CCaaS partner with transformational capabilities
- Replace critical end-of-life systems while ensuring continuity
- Identify and set up a team of people across multiple countries
- Balance divisional needs with enterprise goals
- Ensure compliance across 30+ regulatory jurisdictions
- Negotiate a commercially and legally-acceptable contract
- Achieve all this within 4 months
Our job was to bring together a diverse group of people who hadn’t worked together in a team before and deliver.
The compressed timeline left no room for conventional, drawn-out procurement processes. A new approach was required – one that could simultaneously enable strategy, alignment, speed and rigour.
The Solution: Esby & Co’s Lean-Agile Procurement
We initiated the project with a Kickoff Workshop. We involved all 25 senior stakeholders across the seven divisions. This set the tone for alignment as to our ‘North Star’ and the opportunity for stakeholders to hear from each other about their needs and customers.
We used the Lean Procurement Canvas to articulate and align business goals, needs, timelines, constraints, and user stories. Instead of lengthy requirements, we prioritised using the Canvas.We applied market research to shortlist partners and prepared all stakeholders on what to expect next.
In LAP, ‘RfP’ means ‘Request for Participation.’ The Execute and Decide steps are iterative. Firstly, we invited the 3 prospective partners to a Big Room Workshop (BRW). At the BRW, suppliers presented and ‘role-played’ -functional evaluations were interactive and run in parallel with commercial/legal evaluation and negotiation. This was highly structured and dynamic.Suppliers were encouraged to improve proposals, based on feedback, and the Bank was able to assess ‘Partnership Potential.’
Once the partner was selected,Executive Endorsement was sought to proceed with the preferred partner. Stakeholders were aligned, and the Bank committed swiftly signing a contract with the preferred partner.
Classic Procurement vs. Lean-Agile Procurement
Classic Procurement operates in a linear fashion and usually takes a long time. There is often a lot of paperwork, with multiple hand-offs between different parts of an organisation. Classic procurement can often suffers from ‘bloated requirements’ and assumes the buyer has perfect knowledge of what it needs. Classic Procurement generates unnecessary risk and cost, while limiting collaboration and feedback.
Lean-Agile Procurement is fast, iterative and collaborative. A Lean Procurement Canvas is used to align a cross-functional team for swift decision-making. We invite suppliers to a Big Room Workshop to collaborate, evaluate, improve proposals and make decisions. LAP is an award-winning approach to procurement, founded in 2016 by Mirko Kleiner and championed by the Global LAP Alliance in 25+ countries.
LAP enabled us to move at a pace we didn’t think possible -without sacrificing quality or control.
Esby & Co. client
Results
- Accelerated delivery
“We completed planning, shortlisting, evaluation and contract negotiations in just four months – a process that would normally take us more than nine.” - Strategic alignment
“You brought us together and aligned us. You gave us a structure to focus on what mattered.” - Informed decision-making
“The feedback I got from my stakeholders was: ‘I’ve never had so much information to make a good decision.’ The information we extracted from that process was far better than a normal RFP.”
- Commercial benefits
“The parallel evaluation and negotiation led to outcomes that had never been realised before -more innovative solutions, better terms, and substantial cost benefits.” - Partnership alignment
“The Big Room Workshop let us see how vendors behaved under pressure -we could assess cultural fit and resilience, not just functional capability.”
