We have loved growing CURSHAW - this one is for our team
When Max Curzon-Hope and I met in 2013 we had different styles, but agreed that commercial services must be improved and buyers/clients and suppliers/providers should work more collaboratively.
8 years on, the last two of which we’ve been scaling CURSHAW and helping our clients with their complex commercial problems, has cemented this view.
As we celebrate our 2nd year anniversary, we wanted to tell you about this challenging yet thoroughly enjoyable journey. There have been huge milestones and amazing accomplishments, but this is just the beginning (once our teams have had a Christmas break and got some fresh air).
Establishing ourselves
Over the last two years we’ve worked long days, 7 days a week. We’ve worked from our homes, shared offices, our own London office, our parents homes, our cars and even our new Paris office. (We’ve now banned ourselves from working when on holiday).
Scaling CURSHAW has meant we’ve relied on our trusted networks - people we’ve worked with before who we know are first class. And we cannot thank this group of people enough - you’ve all been great. We’ve also employed new people who are innovative, passionate and keen to make a difference to citizens, taxpayers and customers. This has meant we’ve developed a culture. One that focuses on:
For our clients: service delivery, knowledge transfer and social value for money and return on investment.
For our people: open and multidisciplinary environments that are fun, rewarding and based on empowerment.
For our professions: developing innovative methods and styles and ensuring our professions can look forward whilst learning from the past.
*We do this through delivery and not award chasing.
What we’ve learnt
The last two years has taught us some fundamental things about commercial:
Procurement is painful for most users - so make it less painful by hacking processes but not breaking the law, but first of all work out who your users are.
Total commercial delivery, not just procurement - most people focus on the rigid and most often legally-driven procurement process. Value won’t be found there. The value is in the wider commercial lifecycle, so focus on market engagement and service delivery (i.e. contract management).
Collaboration is essential - in many of the areas we work there is a failure to acknowledge and operate on the basis that clients need providers and vice versa.
Be open - far too many people are secretive with their knowledge. This creates delivery barriers which ultimately prevent delivery.
Our clients
We’ve worked on an exciting and diverse portfolio of commercial transformation projects, ranging from short pieces of technical advice, through to some of the biggest and most complex areas of outsourced spend. As such, our clients and their needs have been equally diverse, and represent a range of organisations and sectors, both domestically in the UK and internationally - public (central and local government, education, health, etc), non-government, multilateral, donor, private and social sectors. To date our clients are influencing or leading exciting and ambitious change programmes and projects that embed social purpose in their value for money considerations throughout the commercial lifecycle.
Our Digital Practice has delivered for a range of clients such as but not limited to:
Our PFI Practice has worked with the Infrastructure Projects Authority, the Ministry of Defence and InfraRed Capital Partners on the £290bn unwinding of PFI contracts under which state critical assets have been designed, built, financed and operated by the private sector and return to the public sector.
Our vision
To be the leading global commercial, procurement and contract management experts for Digital (products and services) and Private Finance Initiatives (PFI).
Why Digital and PFI - we’ll tell you more about this in 2022.
Future
We are excited about our future and implementing our 2022 - 2025 strategy. As we reflect on our first two years we know we won’t succeed without the help of some fundamental ingredients:
Great people
New talent
Bold clients
Innovation
Collaborative partnerships
Get in contact
If you would like to learn more about what we do please get in contact: hello@curshaw.com
