The spend management experts

We help our clients achieve excellent performance in Source to Pay and we do it differently

About Us

We pride ourselves on being different

Parade Consulting is a professional services company, specialising in the implementation of digital cloud based solutions for Finance and Procurement.

We have a deep understanding of the complexities of the Source to Pay process, and we have the ability to identify and resolve potential issues quickly and efficiently. Our consultants are experts in the Source to Pay market and have a wealth of knowledge and experience in selecting, implementing and optimising Source to Pay solutions

We work flexibly alongside our partners to manage functional system delivery as well as supplementing expertise required internally for our clients to drive change.

We pride ourselves on being different. We care about long term relationships with our clients & are happy to help whether that be low cost advisory support or a full lifecycle transformation

About Us

We support clients by providing expertise on all aspects of the project

Our Approach

We focus on what we do best. We have over twenty years of experience in Source to Pay solutions and have a complete focus on delivering tangible bottom line benefit and top quartile performance for all our transformation engagements.

Our Methodology

Our methodology is focused on end to end change management, always with the business stakeholders and value case in mind. We design processes and solutions innovatively and bring proven tools for change management and supplier enablement to master data transformation to process re-engineering to embedding and operational performance improvement. Our post go live model goes beyond simply a few weeks of hand holding, we see the system through to leading performance, taking ownership for results.

Our People

We operate a trusted associate model, leveraging a strong network group who have worked together over the past 15 years. This allows us to provide highly experienced and talented consultants who are at the top of their chosen expert area, whether that is change management, process design, data and reporting or supplier management.

Parade consulting services

We specialise in the implementation of digital cloud based solutions for Finance and Procurement.

Opportunity Case

We work with our clients to drive the value case both in terms of tangible bottom line savings and wider benefits to the business.

Technology Implementation

We have a globally scaleable team and partner model to implement across regions such as EMEA, APAC and AUS.

Cost Reduction

Our methodologies in strategic sourcing, compliance and benefits tracking have been adopted by big 4 consultancies as best in class and we have a track record in bottom line savings and budget reduction.

Innovation

Whether it be AI, robotics, supply chain financing or virtual payments, we work with our technology partners to find the right solution to each problem statement.

Change Management

Our view is ground level change is just as important as the strategy. Our embedding methodology means we help our clients well beyond bringing the technology live. We want to help our clients and their BAU teams see the results.

Performance Improvement

We have experience of improving performance across existing technologies. With a track record of top quartile performance and process best practice, our teams set clear targets and achieve them.

We work with our partners to deliver flexible solutions

As a Coupa implementation partner, we have built deep experience of the product and have delivered multiple case study projects. We have successfully implemented Coupa in over 40 countries. We are passionate about finding the right team for every engagement and providing flexible, cost effective means of supporting client success.

Parade offer a Coupa ‘spend management in a box’ which allows customers to implement at speed and at a very low cost with additional support & toolkits offered as part of our core package. This packaged solution provides the following benefits:

  • Accelerated and cost effective – as fast as 8 weeks when out of the box solution adopted
  • Simple, best practice Coupa solution ready to review by week 2 of the implementation
  • Toolkit to support business and supplier change based on ground level experience and case study performance
  • Support for business side activities as needed – modular approach provides flexibility

We support clients with all aspects of the implementation and our toolkits and methodologies are based on experience of making Coupa work with business stakeholders and users on the ground.

Let’s talk

request a call back

meet our team

Our leadership team is ‘hands-on’ and involved in all our delivery projects

David Strickland

Managing Consultant

David Strickland

Managing Consultant
Summary of experience

David is a Chartered Accountant and a senior procurement professional with 18 years transformation experience. Having started his management career in a big 4 environment, he has been responsible for Parade growth and service offerings as well as overseeing and quality assuring many of the Parade delivery programmes.

Ed Blomfield

Managing Consultant

Ed Blomfield

Managing Consultant
Summary of experience

Ed has over 20 years experience in Procurement and Supply chain operational, leadership and consulting roles. Ed has led large scale procurement and digital transformation projects across a variety of sectors and supports clients with best practice system design and implementation.

Christina Conrad

Solutions Lead

Christina Conrad

Solutions Lead
Summary of experience

Christina has over 10 years experience in S2P and ERP implementation and has a track record of leading large teams of system consultants across complex global transformations. Christina is our solutions lead and is responsible for managing and growing our technology capability

Case studies

Our consultants have led the implementation of various Source to Pay solutions across a variety of business sectors

Energy

  • Global project to replace multiple legacy systems and processes with a single integrated SAP S4Hana and Coupa solution
  • Parade was engaged to lead the S2P implementation of Coupa across 10 countries and 70 Legal entities
  • Design of a global template, standardising global processes & governance, that could be adapted to meet local legal and regulatory requirements
  • Project leadership, Change Management, Design & process reengineering and Data transformation provided throughout the implementation
  • Creation of tailored dashboards providing real-time analytics and KPIs to drive continuous improvement
  • Delivering significant improvements in order and invoice automation, increased control through pre-approved purchase orders and over 75% of spend under contract

Pharmaceuticals

  • After the successful implementation of Coupa, AstraZeneca faced the challenge of reducing an invoice backlog and improving the efficiency of Accounts Payable
  • Parade conducted an initial diagnostic to analyse the Purchase to Pay process with a focus on downstream accounts payable solutions design, processes, , supplier enablement, and operating model
  • The system design and operational review identified 11 key Coupa enhancements designed and approved in the first three months
  • Processes and reporting were put in place to enable clear identification of root cause and provide a more targeted approach to reducing the invoice backlog
  • A range of operational processes were designed and deployed to tackle the most common causes of “stuck” invoices
  • By reducing the invoice backlog from C.8,000 invoices to 1,500 in 5 months, 85% of invoices are now approved within 10 days

Financial services

  • Legacy systems replaced with scalable cloud based S2C and P2P solutions with revised operating model
  • Collation of business requirements to shape the detailed design and configuration of Oracle Fusion & IBM Emptoris S2C functionalities
  • Performance improvement across all metrics – compliance improvement from 20% to 80% in 9 months
  • Systems architecture developed to support outsourcing and offshoring of low value transactional procurement activities
  • System automatically routes requests to appropriate onshore / offshore teams optimizing resource allocation
  • Project management and change management ensuring 100% of procurement requests captured in the system (>100 per day)

Government

  • End-to-end S2P transformation to drive pre-approved spend and invoice matching efficiency.
  • Business case creation based on key metrics and industry benchmarks (PO compliance, spend under management, etc)
  • Supplier sourcing and selection process including requirements gathering, RFP development, demonstration and negotiation
  • Project leadership and change management provided throughout the Cedar implementation to ensure delivery on time and to budget
  • Top quartile (80-90%) KPIs hit across purchase order compliance, electronic invoicing & invoice payment within 2 months of go live
  • Programme recognized as best in class across government, shortlisted for several national awards

Automotive

  • End-to-end S2P transformation using Coupa to drive pre-approved spend and invoice matching efficiency.
  • Programme & change management, supplier enablement, master data transformation, definition of global design & process re-engineering
  • Multi country deployment across multiple complex ERP systems
  • 24 legal entities live across 3 continents in first 9 months of programme
  • Top quartile (80-90%) KPIs hit across purchase order compliance, electronic invoicing & invoice payment within 2 months of go live
  • Effective management of multiple implementation providers & system partner)
  • Management of technical integration architecture in partnership with Mandant Solutions

Financial Services

  • Opportunity assessment and execution of buying channel compliance and vendor consolidation, in support of Oracle Fusion implementation
  • Set up of best practice analytics and spend classification to cleanse global data set
  • Process & target operating model of review of Source to Pay processes, systems and organizational design
  • Introduction of KPI reporting sets cut by country with a focus on UK, Ireland & India
  • Formulation of buying channels map & strategy in partnership with Global Sourcing
  • System design review & support
  • Change management & user support for new compliant buying channels

our clients