Overview
Established in the UK, 1989, Focsa Services (UK) Ltd, is one of the UK's leading waste management companies. Focsa provide a full range of quality and environmental services, to both municipal and commercial clients. Their services include domestic refuse collection, recycling services, commercial waste collection, street cleaning, civic amenity site management, clinical waste collection, ground maintenance, vehicle maintenance and fleet management.
Case Study
Client Backgound
Established in the UK, 1989, Focsa Services (UK) Ltd, is one of the UK's leading waste management companies. Focsa provide a full range of quality and environmental services, to both municipal and commercial clients. Their services include domestic refuse collection, recycling services, commercial waste collection, street cleaning, civic amenity site management, clinical waste collection, ground maintenance, vehicle maintenance and fleet management.
Focsa's temporary industry workforce is primarily driven by tenders, for the public sector, which entails workload peaks and covers a range of job categories including drivers, labourers and administrators. Their temporary workers were mainly supplied by one main agency, who determined pay and charge rates. Management information was limited and invoice/timesheet consolidation was time consuming for both site managers and finance.
Prior to a consultation with de Poel, Focsa realised an opportunity to obtain cost savings and a desire to gain more control over site spend, but were aware of the integral role of their main agency supplier, whom had operated within their business for many years with successful fulfilment rates. Based on their vendor neutral position, relationship with 1,300 agencies and subsequent procurement leverage de Poel were appointed to review Focsa's management of temporary agency labour.
Approach
Invoices and timesheets were analyised, together with their administration process. de Poel's market knowledge and expertise of temporary agency labour within the waste industry, quickly established new pay and charge rates, identifying significant savings. de Poel's analysis report provided:
- Site rates and spend summary, per site and the composite rate structure.
- Pricing summary, this compared current pay rates with de Poel recommendations
- Savings overview, highlighting savings per location with an annual projected spend and savings report
de Poel held several agency seminars, presenting Focsa's operational needs and ascertaining the suitability of agencies based on their skill set volumes, locations and experience within the waste industry.
Agencies were selected and invited to join a preferred agency panel, which would operate with standard pay and charge rates and service agreements with key performance indicators, based on Focsa's unique tendering requirements.
Introducing de Poel's e-tips® invoice and timesheet processing software, which is a web-based system, was a logical solution to eliminate the burden of invoice administration and provide the desired management information necessary for Focsa to improve control.
Results
Focsa approved de Poel's approach and subsequent implementation of their solution. Focsa's main supplying agency declined the opportunity to join the preferred agency panel. However a panel of 21 agencies was established. Immediate savings of 5% were achieved, with consistent order fulfilment levels attaining an impressive 100%.
The introduction of e-tips® reduced invoices from 9,000 to 52, with de Poel assuming agency payment responsibility, alleviating Focsa of further administration. Real-time management information provided a new level of visibility and control over agency spend and staff usage.
Benefits
Although Focsa is one of 9 waste industry clients, their primary public sector operation has created a unique affiliation with de Poel. By de Poel assuming responsibility for their facilitation of temporary agency labour, they have been proficient in supplying all tender details required such as managing fulfilment, rates and charges, volumes and performance of the preferred agency panel.
e-tips® users have found the system simple to use, but powerful in the scope of real-time management information available, the reporting and control it has provided is now the key element in managing their temporary workforce.
de Poel's solution has simplified all aspects of temporary labour through one single point of contact, whilst offering sites choice and retaining agency relationships at local level. Their de Poel Relationship Manager has been integrated into Focsa's operation to maximise the use of temporary labour and as such constantly strives to improve efficiencies.
If Focsa were original apprehensive, those apprehensions have long gone, with their dedicated de Peol Relationship Manager pioneering new projects, attending their AGM and improving profit margins. Although Focsa's primary objective was to reduce costs, x month post implementation, the primary benefits of the de Poel solution are somewhat different.
Focsa now operate their temporary agency labour with control and visibility, allowing strict budgetary control.
