MCA Awards 2023: Vendigital announced as finalist in three categories

Vendigital has been announced as a finalist in the following three categories for this year’s MCA Awards:

Change and Transformation in the Private Sector with The Club Company
Commercial Impact with FLSmidth
Rising Star – Muneeb Sheikh, Principal Consultant at Vendigital

Winners will be announced at the awards ceremony on 9th October 2023.

Change and Transformation in the Private Sector with The Club Company

The Club Company is a hospitality and leisure business with ambition to be the UK’s premier collection of country clubs incorporating state-of-the-art health and fitness facilities including championship golf courses, swimming pools, gyms, spas, luxury hotels and lodge accommodation.

When the pandemic struck and the UK went into lockdown, the ensuing restrictions had a devastating effect on the business. However, by H2 2021, the business had re-opened and the private equity owners sought Vendigital’s support to optimise its recovery and achieve fundamental changes to its operating model, required to achieve their investment goals. The backdrop of rapidly rising costs and recruitment challenges meant that this outcome would only be achieved through a truly transformational approach.

Vendigital delivered a project which fundamentally changed the business and its culture, ensuring that customers were at the heart of every decision and the focus for all employees. The strategic programme simplified the operating model by aligning the structure to the business proposition, promoting accountability across all team members, and delivering a consistent customer journey that improved the experience of all members and guests. All of this was achieved whilst uplifting revenue and delivering cost savings and improving market value for the private equity shareholders.

Commercial Impact with FLSmidth

FLSmidth is a Danish-based global leader in the mining and cement industries, offering end-to-end assets, engineering expertise and unmatched service solutions to clients around the world. Vendigital and Tenzing LLP were privileged to join forces with them in 2021 providing cutting-edge cost and value engineering (C&VE) services for a single product project. By delivering tangible results and establishing trust between client and consultant, Vendigital’s relationship has evolved to that of an advisor and coach to senior management, whilst tackling ambitious initiatives including driving synergy savings after FLSmidth’s acquisition of mining giant Thyssenkrupp.

The success of this relationship comes from Vendigital’s distinct offering which combines over 22 years of in-depth procurement experience, with a team of chartered professional cost-engineers with decades of industry experience. This powerful combination has enabled Vendigital to offer unmatched C&VE capability and procurement know-how, with the project team delivering an impressive €75 million in savings to date. Vendigital’s innovative approach to fact-based negotiations, utilising ‘should-costing’ techniques, has been revelatory for FLSmidth, by reducing costs and providing a deeper understanding of their components and cost drivers.

The journey has involved learnings on both sides: the client has realised the benefits of utilising a trusted partner and Vendigital’s project team has refined its knowledge of both the client’s products, markets and ambitions. The relationship has further developed with FLSmidth asking Vendigital’s team to set-up and build out their C&VE function over a 12-month period, to establish their in-house C&VE capability, while Vendigital continues to work on in-depth and specialist projects.

Rising Star – Muneeb Sheikh, Principal Consultant at Vendigital

Muneeb is a talented procurement expert, who has used his extensive industry experience adaptive abilities, to thrive in a fast-paced, results-driven consulting environment. His ability to deep dive quickly to understand businesses and their markets, and his focus on delivering outstanding project outcomes, has won him the trust and respect of clients and colleagues alike.

A practising Muslim, he proudly embodies the integrity and diligence enshrined in his faith, and plays an active role in Vendigital’s Diversity & Inclusion team.

He graduated in manufacturing engineering and worked for some of the UK’s leading engineering companies including Trelleborg, Jaguar Land Rover and Rolls Royce. An experienced project manager, before joining Vendigital he was responsible for purchasing capital equipment for bodyshops with a budget of £450m per year.

At Vendigital, Muneeb has lead a number of international businesses; designing and creating effective solutions to meet their needs. His skills in cost engineering, strategic procurement, and negotiation design have been innovatively combined to achieve positive outcomes.

Muneeb has successfully developed one particular client relationship – taking it from a relatively small, product-focused, cost-reduction project, delivering €1.4m of savings, to a company-wide, pre- and post-merger project, delivering €75m of savings. Muneeb was promoted from senior to principal consultant in just 20 months.

Likeable by nature, Muneeb uses humour to keep his teams engaged and believes delivering projects should be mentally motivating, and developmental for the entire team.