Shift your focus from price to true cost
In today's procurement landscape, shifting from price-based negotiations to true cost-based strategies is both essential and challenging. Whether sourcing hardware, software, or services, organisations often face a fundamental question: Are we truly getting value for what we pay? Without visibility into the real cost of each component, it's impossible to know. Adding to this complexity are the growing pressures to manage supply chain risks and reduce environmental impact.
Since 2017, Vodafone's award-winning Design-to-Cost (D2C) programme has redefined supplier negotiations, enabling fact-based discussions that shift the focus from price to true cost. This approach has delivered savings 2.7 times higher than traditional procurement methods by empowering procurement experts to identify cost-reduction opportunities and optimise designs.
Our Design-to-Cost Lab applies this proven methodology across a wide range of sectors, including professional services, electronic hardware, enterprise IT, logistics, installation services, contact centres, facilities management, telco network software, and maintenance services. We help you achieve smarter, more cost-effective, and sustainable procurement decisions by unlocking hidden costs and mitigating supply chain risks.
What we offer
Gain cost insights
Get fact-based, should-cost analysis that reveals exactly what you should be paying for components and services
Drive cost optimisation
Reduce expenses systemically with our automation and standardisation of cost-saving models
Optimise value
Match design to needs and performance
Minimise supplier risks
Protect your business with proactive identification and mitigation of potential supply chain risks
Enjoy efficient services
Eliminate complexities and bottlenecks with our streamlined processes
Enhance environmental performance
Meet sustainability goals by identifying and reducing environmental impact
Improve market tracking
Seize opportunities through monitoring component pricing
About Design-to-Cost Services
Design to Cost is an in-house cost engineering initiative powered by patent-pending models, designed to shift
procurement negotiations from price to total cost and value. It combines cost teardowns, value engineering, and
risk assessments to help businesses optimise costs, enhance product design, and achieve sustainability goals.
Key Capabilities
- Cost Teardown: Gain visibility of cost structures to drive negotiations and identify optimisation opportunities.
- Value Engineering: Improve product and service design using Lean principles.
- Risk & Sustainability: Map supply chain risks and analyse carbon footprints to drive greener solutions.
Applicable across hardware, software, and a wide range of services, Design-to-Cost empowers organisations to make smarter, data-driven procurement decisions.
List of products and service portfolio:
Design-to-Cost
Determine the should-cost for products and services
Design-to-Value
Optimise product design Lean process re-engineering for services
Design-to-Risk
Advise and mitigate geopolitical risk in your supply chain
Design-to-Sustainability
Calculate the carbon footprint of your products and advise on solutions for reduction
Negotiation training
Develop skills to use D2C outputs effectively in supplier negotiations
D2C in a box
Establish your own D2C function
Why choose Vodafone?
- We're recognised by Procurement Leaders and CIPS for Business Transformation (2019) for our award-winning programme.
- We can help you achieve up to 2.7x higher savings compared to traditional procurement methods.
- With us, you'll access the telecom industry s most advanced teardown and cost modelling capabilities.
- Our team consists of fully Lean Six Sigma certified experts.
- We can cover 100% of spend across hardware, software, and services, whatever your procurement needs.
- With us, you can harness patent-pending, AI-driven automation for hardware and advanced AI capabilities for software.
- We drive sustainability with proven expertise in reducing environmental impact and GHG emissions.
- We've established a proven track record, with €300 million in savings achieved within the first two years and over €1.3 billion within six years.
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