Aston Villa

Established in 1874, Aston Villa is a founder member of The Football League and is one of the oldest and most successful football clubs in England.

The financial pressure faced by clubs today is no less intense in the heady reaches of the Premier League where football has become big business. While Aston Villa regularly fills its 42,788-capacity stadium at Villa Park, Mark Fairbrother, the club’s head of finance, was keen to get a better understanding of how to manage expenditure.

Mark explains: “We run a number of income generating operations here that go far beyond our match day activity. As well as our ticket office, shop, community and media teams, we have a hospitality and events department that handles corporate sales and partnerships, catering on match days, non match day conferences and events and operating our onsite pub. Each department operates independently and has quite different requirements of its suppliers.”

Aston Villa enlisted the help of cost, purchase and supply management consultancy Expense Reduction Analysts to carry out a thorough review of the club’s cost base and identify where real savings could be made.

The review began with a look at waste and recycling operations, where savings of £40,000 were identified (against a spend of £99,000) through a change of supplier. Along with the savings, it was vital that the standard of service was maintained, as, for example, a missed collection on Saturday would spell chaos for an upcoming mid-week fixture. In fact, the review resulted in other benefits, including staff spending less time moving waste and less waste being stored at the stadium.

With a maximum capacity of over 42,000 visitors for each match at Villa Park, providing catering facilities and cleaning up afterwards is vital. Expert consultant Hartley Jenkinson was brought in to review Catering Consumables and Janitorial supplies and was able to deliver savings of over 28%. Hartley comments “Aston Villa have exacting standards for services provided to their loyal fans, as well as a commitment to the environment by ensuring as many products as possible are bio-degradable. This was included in the brief given by Expense Reduction Analysts to Suppliers as part of the review.”

Hitting the post – savings on mail

The review also focused on postage and quickly identified more cost-effective processes. The club now outsources general posting, saving money on both the postage itself and the cost of maintaining a franking machine. Tickets are now mailed in pre-printed envelopes, allowing the club to continue to use first-class post, but at a lower cost.

As well as identifying savings and maintaining or enhancing standards of service, Expense Reduction Analysts’ reviews also keep an eye on the bigger picture, considering factors such as a business’s Corporate Social Responsibility. Steve Marshall, Expense Reduction Analysts consultant, explains: “Villa’s CSR policy is key to all of its business commitments and supplier relationships.

“This policy was particularly important when looking at the club’s waste and recycling arrangements, as the incumbent supplier had been recycling more than 80 per cent of waste. Any potential new supplier had to achieve at least the same.

“At Expense Reduction Analysts, we see it as our job, not only to reduce costs, but also to maintain or enhance service. We work to understand our clients and recognise what is important to them. With Aston Villa, the key considerations were CSR, savings, standards and, with their variable match-day schedule, flexibility of service from their suppliers.”