Investors
BSI assists private equity firms and other investors in optimizing the supply chains of their portfolio companies. We often deal with investment interests such as:
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PROJECT COST BASELINING
An analytic solution at the Project level that helps buyers estimate the cost of high-value capital projects and custom engineered components such as offshore rigs, gas turbines, and catalytic refinery reactors
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VALUE CHAIN ENGINEERING
A proven service that maximizes Return on Invested Capital at the Category level by exploiting lower-cost sources, alternative channels, substitute components, more cost-efficient design parameters, and optimized bundling and pricing schemes
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TENDER DESIGN AND MANAGEMENT
A proven, 16-step program at the Category and Supplier level for ensuring market-based prices, with special attention to mitigating high bids from dominant suppliers and sole sources
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SUPPLY CONTRACT NEGOTIATION
Hands-on negotiating at the Supplier and Contract level, supported by proprietary analytical tools and industry experience to reduce the cost of high-value equipment and services
In addition to our core solutions, we offer these solutions for Power Producers:
PROJECT VIABILITY ASSESSMENT
Due to long investment cycles, such as for refineries, decision-making must account for a high degree of uncertainty. Moreover, demand varies over time as demographics and economic conditions change, and equipment and service prices change over extended capital and construction timeframes. BSI deploys proven financial and risk management tools to support capital investment decision-making.
TECHNOLOGY COST-BENEFIT ANALYSIS
New technologies, such as RFID downhole, have little or no cost or benefit history, and can take a long time to gain acceptance because of an industry predisposition toward proven solutions. BSI’s highly-qualified economists address complex issues involving sophisticated costing and indirect benefit assessment methods to support decisions with broad impact, such as technology selection.
EQUIPMENT LIFECYCLE COSTING
Initial cost is rarely the most reliable indicator of lifecycle cost for capital-intensive and highly engineered equipment and systems such as steam turbines. Moreover, small improvements in reliability can be extremely valuable if they increase operating efficiency or reduce downtime. BSI combines advanced economic methodologies and engineering expertise to help you make the best long-term technology and vendor choices.
PRODUCT OR SOLUTION “SHOULD-COST” ANALYSIS
The prohibitive cost of downtime, for example on rigs, makes reliability imperative: the opportunity cost of a rig often exceeds the cost of the equipment. BSI uses its seven-step methodology to derive how much products, services, and solutions should cost.
STRUCTURING GAIN-SHARING AGREEMENTS
Bundled pricing of solutions that involve both products and services are often priced on a per-unit-of-output basis rather than a simple upfront cost. This can align both parties on the benefits, but should the benefits then be split between the buyer and the seller, and if so, how? BSI has 20 years of experience in structuring gain-sharing agreements.
NEGOTIATING FRAMEWORK AGREEMENTS
Partnerships, for example technology alliances in produced water treatment, should yield far more than cost reduction and should result in enhanced innovation and a more agile response to changing market and regulatory conditions. Long-term partnerships should combine the best of both parties’ strengths and achieve dramatic results. BSI brings to bear its proprietary optimization models to determine the optimal number of suppliers and contract term, and its industry experience to help negotiate fruitful long-term partnerships.
EVALUATING BUNDLED AGREEMENT PROPOSALS
The interrelationship between components, such as in a smart grid, requires a systems view, but it can be difficult to compare system bids if they are different on many dimensions. BSI uses its proprietary market intelligence and cost and price benchmarks to credibly evaluate bundled bids.
OPTIMIZING INVENTORY LEVELS
The value of inventory depends on the urgency of the need (for example, it is worth more if an offshore rig is down), complicating the issue of how many spares are optimal, where they should be located, and how much they are worth. BSI’s inventory management optimization aligns processes, systems, and data to ensure inventory is available at the right time and place.
FEATURED BSI ARTICLES ON RENEWABLE ENERGY
Green Supply Chains by 2020
For nearly 30 years, companies have been doing everything they can to improve efficiency both within and between organizations, which was in large part responsible for the global growth throughout the 1990s and early 2000s. Now the returns are diminishing and the very success that has enabled complex multinational supply chains is under attack for wasting energy and creating pollution. It is time to put supply chain in the public political agenda by asking governments to front major subsidies and tax incentives to help make supply chains truly green.
Click here for free download.
Energy Prices Reshaping the Supply Chain: Charting a New Course? (BSI State of Strategic Sourcing Study)
Would a doubling of transportation or inventory carrying costs change your supply chain strategy? Would a 70% increase in the cost of Chinese-sourced products cause you to re-evaluate your sourcing plan? Can your supply chain flex to adjust to major changes in input costs? Energy volatility appears to be here to stay, and companies that are good at managing supply risk will have more cost-effective and resilient supply chains. Boston Strategies International’s fourth annual State of Strategic Sourcing Study explores these issues and more.
©2007 Boston Strategies InternationalClick here for free download.
Planning your Carbon Footprint
If you’ve never thought much about your carbon footprint, you may think of it as the direct pollution emitted by your productive assets. The reality is that the carbon footprint is much wider than your direct costs, and making an effective program requires analysis, forward technology vision, and a pilot program.Click here to download the article.
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