Amplify Procurement celebrates growth and five-year anniversary
Amplify Procurement has celebrated its 5th anniversary during its annual event, bringing together its staff from its offices in Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane at the Sydney Opera house to reflect on the firm’s growth and ambitions.
Launched in 2018 as a consultancy dedicated to the procurement function, Amplify Procurement has since its inception growth into a team of 25 staff working for clients nationally.
“We began life working in the healthcare sector, but have grown and diversified to providing our services to organisations across ten sectors including aviation, financial services, agriculture, professional services, consumer goods, retail, education, industry and defence,” said Michael Baron, founder and managing director of Amplify Procurement.
According to Baron, the firm prides itself on being a specialist consultancy that focuses solely on the procurement and supply space. “We’re noting recent developments in the consultancy market accelerating the shift away from working with large generalist consultancies. In times of scrutiny around the use of bigger consultancies, more than ever we believe in the value proposition of a specialised, local and independent consultancy.”
Although many of the firm’s team members have previous Big Four experience, Amplify Procurement haven’t followed the traditional consultancy playbook. Aaron Whitfield, co-founder and executive director, said that the firm practices what it preaches, adopting procurement principles to its own operations to “maximise value-for-money ensuring that clients don’t pay for things that don’t necessarily benefit them.”
“Consultancies generally invest large amounts of time and dollars into hosting forums and events and publishing thought leadership. These costs ultimately get passed onto clients. We have made a conscious decision to minimise our overheads – we haven’t published a single thought leadership article in our 5-year existence,” Whitfield said.
“Instead, we choose to focus on investing in our people, and in things that allow us to deliver the best value and service we can, and then the sales take care of themselves.”
The ambitions
So, what does the future hold for Amplify? “Our mission is to become the leading and largest independent procurement consultancy in Australia, and for people to choose procurement,” said Baron.
Bruce Stevenson, who was previously a partner at EY and CEO of Infosys Portland, recently joined Amplify Procurement to support the business with its next phase of growth. Stevenson joined Infosys Portland in the early days with 10 people in the team and worked his way up to CEO, leading a team of 140 people.
Now in his new role at the boutique, Stevenson has welcomed the opportunity to work once again with people who just work in procurement. “I see a lot of parallels with the early days of Portland – focused offerings, a customised approach – and most importantly great people.”
Branding
Procurement as a profession is still experiencing challenges with the ongoing skills shortage. To address this, Amplify Procurement recently launched a ‘Choose Procurement’ campaign, which spans a series of videos looking to bring people into the profession.
Reflecting on the campaign, Baron said that the firm didn’t follow the stereotypical approach to video marketing in consultancy, instead promoting the values of its own workplace culture.
“A lot of consultancies can take themselves a little too seriously which we find disengaging, and I’m sure clients do too. Our people have fun doing serious work. Our videos are a little tongue-in-cheek, but we’ve received great feedback so far and most importantly we are getting people into our profession.”