Savills Case Study

Savills plc is a global real estate services provider listed on the London Stock Exchange. They have an international network of more than 600 offices and associates throughout the Americas, the UK, continental Europe, Asia Pacific, Africa and the Middle East, offering a broad range of specialist advisory, management and transactional services to clients all over the world.

Savills needed to go to tender for a new mobile telephony contract. Mobility is of critical importance to Savills because of the productivity benefits it provides, facilitating collaboration and communication with buyers and sellers, and allowing for rapid interconnection of data. Savills asked The Network Collective to help them secure a mobile solution that was robust and flexible enough to support their UK operations, with service improvements, while also generating cost savings.

The Network Collective’s competitive tender process is a complete end-to-end progression from selection of the initial suppliers to be invited to tender, through agreement of selection criteria, evaluation of proposals and commercial, technical and operational negotiation, right through to selection of Preferred Supplier(s).

With guidance from the Network Collective, Savills selected 4 service providers to invite to tender. The Network Collective then drew up a Request for Proposal (RFP) document which detailed every aspect of Savills’ mobile telephony requirements, and this was issued to the selected service providers for their proposals.

The Network Collective ran a rigorous procurement process, using their expert market knowledge to ensure that the suppliers’ proposals included the best possible technical and commercial outcomes for Savills. The supplier selected through this process had to offer a market-leading solution at the best optimum value to Savills, because The Network Collective knew exactly what commercial terms could be realised and what technical solutions were possible.

Before a decision was made the Network Collective ran a Best and Final Offer (BAFO) round with shortlisted suppliers. This helped to secure significant cost savings as well as a generous tech fund and substantial service improvements.

Once Savills selected their preferred supplier, The Network Collective led the commercial negotiations, supported the drafting of the Mobile Telecommunication Services Agreement and the bespoke commercial schedules for the mobile telephony service. The Network collective leveraged its experience to devise a best-in-class contractual landscape which included safeguards on minimum spend requirements, ability to scale the mobile estate within pre-defined commercial parameters and commitments from the supplier to honour the commercial charges framework for the full contract term.

The Network Collective worked as an extension to the Savills’ multi-disciplinary team to develop a legal and commercial framework that was fit for purpose with a strong governance structure that supported the business needs. The focus throughout was on striking a balance between the optimal solution and robust commercial cover with competitive pricing, ultimately underpinned by tough contractual protection.

The Network Collective took on the lead commercial negotiation role and challenged the status quo from the outset, there was a significant push back from the supplier’s legal and compliance functions to recalibrate the risk allocation terms, but the Network Collective neutralised this through pro-active negotiation and a collaborative working model, highlighting future growth opportunities and engagement with business sponsors.

As a result the commercial negotiations resulted in an excellent new mobile telephony solution for Savills, securing 24% savings on like-for-like services, plus service improvements at no added cost, improved contract, and generous tech fund to support large scale smartphone refresh.