[CASE STUDY]: IWG

Mark Dixon founded Regus in 1989 after noticing how many business people were huddled round small coffee tables in busy cafes trying to conduct meetings.  Just 11 years later, the business was worth over £2bn.  

Over the years many strategic acquisitions were made and brand names were added to Regus, including Spaces, No 18 and HQ.  Today IWG is firmly established as the market leader in flexible office space.

With over 3,400 locations across 1,100 cities in 120 countries, controlling spend and managing facilities is a mammoth task.

Furthermore, throughout 2019 IWG were adding 1 new office centre around the globe every single day on average, often unique in design and construction, whilst Mark’s keen eye on efficiency posed further challenges to the supply chain.  

And so in October 2018, IWG recruited Chris Kayatz to take the Procurement & Supply Chain function to the next level.  The remit was to shape the supply chain for faster and profitable growth, whilst maintaining the best-in-class customer experience. 

Chris was well-positioned for the role, with a unique blend of soft skills from building the central Indirects Procurement function at Carlsberg as VP Procurement, “probably the best Procurement team in the world”, as the Carlsberg advert might say, as well as being a beacon to establishing McKinsey’s internal procurement function as Director of Global Strategic Sourcing.

Chris initially focused on recruiting his world-class Procurement team, establishing regional Directors across the Americas, EMEA and APAC to effectively propagate Procurement’s influence.  

After drafting global procedures, next came technology, without which the objective of “faster and profitable growth” was unattainable.  Chris was well-versed in the “Enterprise” eProcurement suites, however realised that to be fit-for-purpose at IWG, an agile, rapidly deployed tool without the typical implementation phase would be essential.   

Therefore, Chris, like many other innovative Procurement leaders, utilised the best-in-class combination of Market Dojo and Per Angusta as an end-to-end strategic sourcing solution, covering Pipeline Management, Contract Management, eSourcing and Savings Tracking. 

“Our objective was simple:  faster and profitable growth.  Sourcing Dojo uniquely offered an affordable on-demand model with instant access, clearly evidencing their ability to hit our brief.  Sourcing Dojo was the right tool for the right context.”   –  Chris Kayatz

While recruitment of the global Procurement leadership team was ongoing, savings needed to be delivered, so Chris relied upon niche expertise of Procurement contractors to help lead strategic projects.  These contractors utilised the technology with little to no training required to ensure that all of their work was immediately accessible across the team as well as stakeholders, particularly important given their temporary employment.  

Projects and supplier relationships could be easily stored and retrieved, with the contractors’ best practice approaches captured in the technology, such as their tender documentation, cost analysis and supplier interactions.  

Fast forward to today, Sourcing Dojo continues to be used by IWG to centralise many complex RFPs on some of the most strategic projects around the globe, such as Architecture & Engineering, Designers, Access Control Systems, Financial Services and numerous installation and facilities projects.  

Sourcing Dojo has been instrumental to the IWG Procurement function to deliver savings in excess of 3% of addressable spend and achieve those results faster.  The tool continues to deliver for both central sourcing approaches as well as local sourcing efforts.  

Chris Kayatz

“In retrospect, Market Dojo has truly helped our global Procurement team collaborate more effectively with both the business and the supply chain.  The team now benefits from the accessible history of projects lead by the contractors and can quickly replicate that best-practice in the tool.   This was especially prevalent when new colleagues joined my team, giving them an immediate foundation to build on.”  –  Chris Kayatz

In conclusion, it is very easy to draw comparisons between IWG and Market Dojo.  Both solve major problems that businesses face in their respective markets, specifically being made to deploy long-term contracts with large up-front deposits, for services that would be under-utilised, and offer an under-whelming customer experience.

Therefore, both IWG and Market Dojo globally offer flexibility, affordability, a fantastic customer experience and first-class support.  Now that’s a great partnership.

“Market Dojo have a great reputation in the market, and we quickly saw why.  Their highly intuitive tools combined with the proactive support & advice from their Customer Success team helped us enormously.  The Market Dojo Leadership would regularly offer to meet to discuss our partnership, giving me confidence that our needs were addressed.  I would have no hesitation to recommend Market Dojo to global Procurement teams that wish to see instant results from best-of-breed procurement technology.”  –  Chris Kayatz

About IWG

IWG is leading the workspace revolution. Our companies help more than 2.5 million people and their businesses to work more productively. We do so by providing a choice of professional, inspiring and collaborative workspaces, communities and services.

Our customers are start-ups, small and medium-sized enterprises and large multinationals, with unique goals and aspirations. They want a choice of workspaces and communities to match their needs. Through our companies we provide that choice.

About Market Dojo

Market Dojo offer an array of capabilities to help procurement professionals get the most out of their sourcing and supplier engagement activities.

Whether you’re looking to run ‘on the spot’ eAuctions, revamp your Supplier Onboarding process, or simply a safe place to store your all important supplier contracts, we have the tools to help. 

We believe in making better eSourcing a reality for all procurement teams, regardless of location, experience or budgets. All our products are fully on demand, designed by procurement professionals and built with a focus on ease of use.