How Can Procurement Impact an Organisations Cash Flow

1. How Can Procurement Help
Improve an Organisation's
Cash Flow
NEIL MORLING
CFO, OLSWANG LLP
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2. Expectations
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3. Context
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 No matter what the challenge, environment or
organisation cash flow is fundamental, a business will
only run out of cash once
 For a business to prosper, four fundamental elements
need to be in place:
 Organic growth
 Margin improvement
 Cash generation
 Build a sustainable business

4. Organic Growth
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 Market insight
 Develop broader offering with suppliers as an integral
element
 More sustainable solutions
 Enhance client retention though improving integrity of
service/product
 Deliver fee earning capacity

5. Margin Improvement
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 All of above … a given if volumes improve against an
element of fixed cost
 Cost reduction
 Ability to charge more for cost neutral improvements
 Use leverage of higher volumes derived from organic
griowth

6. Cash Generation
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 All of above, and…..
 Terms of payment
 Prompt payment is rarely a problem when service
provided was in line with expectations to a trusted
client

7. A Sustainable Business
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 All of above … growth in order book (backlog)
 Sustainability in it's own right, a business that works to
deliver the "triple bottom line":
 Economic
 Environmental
 Social

8. Business Cycle
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9. Thoughts….?
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10. Biography
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Neil is a CFO with wide ranging experience across Europe as well as the US, the Middle East and
Asia, now with over 25 years' experience operating in dynamic, global professional service
organisations dealing with a wide range of often conflicting stakeholder requirements.
Adept at simplifying and translating complex financial data, he helps shape corporate strategy
through commercial and financial insight.
Recently Neil was a part of the Olswang LLP leadership team that secured the iconic, tripartite
merger with Nabarro LLP and CMS LLP to form the 6th largest global law firm which becomes
effective in May 2017.
Prior to joining Olswang in late 2015 he was integral to the merger of EC Harris LLP into
ARCADIS NV which created a leading global programme and project management consultancy.
The combined group now employs 28,000 professionals with turnover of €3.0 billion.
Other companies Neil has worked for include Anglian Water Plc, GEC Plc, Alstom sa, Invensys
Plc, Jarvis Plc and Ricardo Plc.