Telecom / Selected work

The negotiable gap was never in the labour rates — it sat in overhead and margin.

A field-services renewal was set to roll forward historical rates. Rebuilding the supplier's economics from the cost drivers up moved the negotiation onto what the service should cost, and secured ~£2M a year with the incumbent retained.

At a glance ~£2M

a year — about 18% of annual contract value

Engagement context

In-house category ownership · BT Group

My role

Category & sourcing manager — renewal and negotiation

Duration

6 months

Exhibit 1

Labour and materials matched; the 16-point gap sat in overhead and margin

Indexed annual cost by element

So what

Overhead and margin sat 16 points above a defensible build-up, which made the gap negotiable rather than a market price to accept.

Exhibit 2

Four levers took the contract from £11.0M to £9.0M a year

£M, annual contract value, rounded

So what

The rate move took roughly the margin gap (~9 of 16 points), leaving overhead to protect continuity. The rest came from costs the day rate hides.

The commercial question

A multi-year regional service-delivery contract was nearing renewal with no refreshed cost baseline behind it. Rates had been accepted for years without visibility of the supplier's cost build-up, and pressing a regional incumbent too hard would put field-service delivery at risk.

My contribution

Led the renewal end to end: built the should-cost model from first principles, priced the total cost of mobilisation, travel, service credits and rework, set the negotiation strategy and walk-away position, and led the supplier negotiation to close.

How I approached it

Rebuild the baseline

Deconstruct the contract into a should-cost model — labour, productivity, materials, overhead recovery and a fair margin — built independently of the quote.
Look beyond the day rate

Price what the rate card hides: mobilisation, travel and standing time, service-level credits and rework.
Sequence the ask

Order the commercial asks by evidence strength and continuity risk, so the strongest argument leads and delivery is never the bargaining chip.

The decision that mattered

The negotiation that mattered was total service economics, not the headline day rate. A lower rate means little if mobilisation or rework push cost back up, so the ask was sequenced to take the margin gap while protecting continuity.

What the work delivered

~£2M a year locked into the renewed contract, with the incumbent retained and delivery uninterrupted.
Total-cost visibility across rates, travel, mobilisation, service levels and rework.
A defensible should-cost baseline left with the team to anchor the next renewal cycle.

Sources: a should-cost model built from first principles — labour and productivity, materials, overhead recovery and fair margin — indexed to the quoted renewal = 100, with the total-cost build covering rates, mobilisation, travel, service credits and rework. BT Group is named as engagement context; the supplier is withheld. The £100M figure elsewhere describes annual category responsibility at BT Group, not this contract.

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