How we helped Liberty Global with a centralised procurement model
And realised huge savings in annual costs
Liberty Global had grown rapidly, to the point where business in Europe, at the start of 2016, comprised some 12+ operating companies.
Those businesses, linked with a significant backbone network across Europe, provided the group with a significant opportunity to re-structure its telecoms procurement, leveraging the group spend.
Download the Full Case Study
Contact Form - Technology Practice
The
Challenge
From early 2016, supporting Cartesian who held a portfolio of projects with the Liberty Global group in Europe, the team took the lead in helping the client manage a suite of identified savings initiatives and develop a strategy for leveraging spend to achieve greater savings.
Our Role
- Acted as Programme Director for the existing savings programs, helping the teams refine their approach and ensuring that lessons learned in one group of companies was shared and replicated in the other companies
- Reviewed and renegotiated existing agreement to improve the commercial terms
- Provided guidance on centralising telecoms procurement across the group, based on the logic of a ‘plan globally, act locally where needed’ philosophy
- Led the development of a procured telecoms ‘product tree’ as part of the group’s deployment of Ariba software to assist with procurement, supply chain management and reporting business-intelligence information
- Worked with the client finance team on mapping spend to the correct GL codes, so the end reporting was accurate and useful from both a finance and business intelligence perspective
- Trialled the new centralised procurement model by drafting and managing the RFP process for a new cloud-based Wholesale Voice Billing platform to be deployed across the group in Europe. This took a high degree of stakeholder management, as many of the group companies were reluctant to consider moving from their current, familiar supplier
Knowledge & Skills
- Detailed Program Management and reporting capabilities.
- Our knowledge of procurement models relevant to large pan-European telecoms organisations.
- Practical procurement skills including understanding market rates, contract review and analysis, negotiations and the drafting for approval of final agreements.
- Strong analytical and financial skills relevant to large and complex business structures.
- The ability to define, draft and manage end-to-end Procurement RFP processes across large and conglomerate businesses.
- Our knowledge of a wide range of telecoms products including voice, data and infrastructure.
Outcomes & Results
01
Huge savings
The realisation of multi-million savings across the programme-managed projects.
02
Deployment of Ariba
The relevant deployment of Ariba as a procurement tool for telecoms services.
03
Road map
A road map for the implementation of a new, cloud-based, Wholesale Voice Billing platform that was scaleable and flexible with respect to the need for future acquisitions and divestitures.
04
Centralised leverage and local procurement
A model that provided the best of centralised leverage and local procurement for telecoms.
05
Complete handover
A complete handover of the work to the operational teams tasked with carrying it forward in the day-to-day life of the business.
Get in touch with Our Consultants today
Just some of our clients
Amazon
Audi
Post Office
BA
BP
A little bit about Cambridge MC
Cambridge Management Consulting is a specialist consultancy drawing on an extensive network of global talent. We are your growth catalyst.
Our mission is to help our clients make a better impact on the world.
Industry insights
We were approached by a global networking systems, services, and software company that specialises in optical and routing solutions. Their technology helps carriers, enterprises, and governments build more efficient and scalable networks, particularly for high-bandwidth applications like 5G, cloud computing, and AI-driven networking. Africa is a key strategic market for this client. They are also playing an active role in advancing outlined 5G technology on the continent, emphasising a focus on routing and switching aggregation components, network slicing, and monetisation. The Opportunity The client engaged Cambridge MC to provide external insight and support to augment and accelerate the progress of their Go-to-Market plans for Africa. We proposed our in-house rapid Strategy Stress Test that delivers key insights across areas of your strategy using a 1–5 health-scoring matrix. The client's aim is to grow market share in the region with a precisely focussed strategy that targets their market with key propositions and solutions. We were engaged to review this strategy and their plans for the region, identifying critical opportunities and gaps with a quick turnaround. Approach We used our Rapid Strategy Stress Test methodology which provides: Target geographies, opportunities, and partners for resource effectiveness and success maximisation Assessment of client's Go-to-Market Strategy including identification and testing of key assumptions Identification of new opportunities and any gaps in the strategy Recommendations on how best to capitalise on the market and accelerate their route to success This included carrying out target addressable and client-addressable market sizing by country for the Optical, Data Centre Interconnect, Routing and Switching portfolios; competitor market share analysis; analysis of current and planned data centre build in the target countries; future trend analysis, including Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Legal and Environmental trends by country. We put their GtM strategy and plans through our Stress Test framework, scoring capabilities against best-in-class – across 11 parameters such as Market Potential, Adaptability to Local Needs, Pricing and Marketing & Demand Generation. Recommendations were made against each of the 11 areas relating to opportunities to accelerate their GtM strategy. In order to support effective targeting of resources into key countries, we developed a country prioritisation framework across 15 parameters, such as GDP growth, energy supply, stability of regulatory environment, and ease of doing business. This quantitative assessment was supplemented with the real world experience of our Africa experts.
Why digital transformation fails: human adoption. Learn how leaders can reduce change resistance, protect ROI and improve programme success with structured change management | READ FULL ARTICLE
This article suggests how to pilot AI in 90 days with five practical use cases for operations leaders – from triage and forecasting to summarisation – with clear governance and measurable value | READ FULL ARTICLE
Sustainability | Energy, risk and competitiveness – find out why sustainability is no longer just about reporting, but about resilience, cost control and long-term advantage | READ FULL ARTICLE
International consulting firm, Cambridge Management Consulting has acquired telecommunications cost-reduction specialist, The Carrier Club, strengthening its ability to help organisations reduce their telecoms and network infrastructure costs.
CAMBRIDGE | See how Cambridge MC and Pembroke College are creating mutual value through a unique corporate partnership spanning student opportunities, academic collaboration and industry events | READ FULL CASE STUDY
Cyber Security | Ransomware in 2026 is a board-level resilience issue. Learn the key risks, weak spots and practical questions boards should ask to improve readiness, recovery and response.
The #21toWatch Top21.2026 winners have been announced at an awards ceremony at The Glasshouse innovation hub in Cambridge.
BLOG | A student’s perspective on why women shouldn’t have to ‘play masculine’ to succeed at work – and how valuing empathy, confidence and inclusive leadership can help close gender gaps and build healthier organisations.
