Commercial expertise. Delivered without the overhead.
Xavient Partners delivers commercial, technology, and cyber security advisory services across New Zealand and Australia. Whether you are looking to reduce supplier costs, strengthen your security posture, navigate a complex procurement, or govern the risks that come with AI adoption, every engagement starts with one question: what does success look like for your business? Backed by ERA Group — a global network of 1,400+ specialists — and with direct access to implementation capability through DeliverXP, we bring the expertise to advise and the capability to deliver. Here is how we can help.
Cost Optimisation Consulting — No savings. No fee. No risk.
Most organisations are overpaying their suppliers. Not because they are naive, but because markets move, contracts age, and renegotiation takes time and expertise that most teams simply do not have in-house. That is precisely where cost optimisation consulting makes the difference.
Furthermore, we audit your spend across the categories that matter most: IT, telco, fleet, insurance, utilities and more. and go to market on your behalf with the full weight of a global network behind us. Our 1,400+ specialist practitioners across 60+ categories means we know exactly what the market will bear, and we negotiate accordingly.
Our model is performance-based. If we do not generate verified savings, you pay nothing. Where savings are achieved, we draw our fee from a share of what we save you. There is no upfront cost and no budget required.
Who this is for. CEOs and CFOs in organisations spending $100k+ annually across one or more supplier categories across any sector, including not-for-profits, manufacturing, professional services, travel, and government. Based in New Zealand or Australia, we bring the same rigour and independence to every engagement. Explore our approach.
IT Expenditure Review — Cost Optimisation Consulting for Your Technology Spend
Most organisations are paying significantly more for their IT than they need to. Not because of poor decisions — but because software licensing sprawls quietly, managed service contracts auto-renew without renegotiation, telecoms plans are never benchmarked, and hardware procurement is fragmented. The result is budget that disappears into your IT stack without anyone noticing.
Xavient Partners, backed by ERA Group, conducts a structured, independent review of your IT expenditure across four critical categories. We identify verified savings opportunities and present you with clear options — all on a no savings, no fee basis.
What We Review
Microsoft 365 & Software Licensing — We audit your full application estate for over-licensing, redundant tools, dormant accounts, and licences assigned to users who no longer need them. Many organisations are paying CPI+3% annual uplifts on licences that haven’t been benchmarked in years. We right-size your estate and lock in better terms.
Managed IT Services — Rolling monthly contracts with no formal SLAs, no performance penalties, and no review cadence are common. We assess your managed service agreements against the market, introduce accountability, and structure contracts that protect your interests going forward.
Telecoms — Mobile fleets with inactive SIMs, fixed lines on legacy rates, unmanaged roaming and out-of-bundle charges, and no centralised visibility: these are typical findings. We go to market on your behalf across your full telco footprint and bring back genuine, like-for-like options.
Hardware & Infrastructure — Hardware refresh pricing that has never been benchmarked, assets operating beyond end-of-life, and lease terms set at inception and never revisited. We consolidate procurement and renegotiate terms to reflect current market rates.
How We Work
Our review follows a proven, six-stage process designed to minimise disruption and deliver results within 10–12 weeks. We establish a baseline, take your requirements to market with a like-for-like RFP, present benchmarked options, and support you through supplier selection and implementation — with 36 months of savings monitoring to ensure results are sustained.
Every application and contract in scope is assessed against four optimisation levers: Eliminate (remove dead spend entirely), Consolidate (standardise onto fewer platforms), Renegotiate (market-test and re-rate at renewal), and Optimise (right-size licences and features to actual usage). Most engagements yield savings under more than one lever.
Our Commitment
No savings, no fee — 100% contingency. We make all comparisons on a strictly like-for-like basis, so you maintain or improve your service levels. We have no economic relationship with any supplier, so every recommendation is genuinely independent. We track savings for a minimum of 36 months post-implementation, issuing quarterly performance reports to verify results.
Engagement model: Performance-based — our fee is drawn from a share of verified savings. No upfront cost, no budget required.
IT Vendor & Procurement Advisory — Commercial rigour applied to your technology decisions.
Technology procurement decisions are some of the most consequential a business makes — and among the least well supported. Most organisations negotiate with vendors who negotiate every day. Without independent market knowledge, benchmark data, and commercial expertise on your side, the terms you accept are the terms the vendor preferred.
Sam Hyde brings deep experience in IT vendor management, technology procurement, and managed services contracting — including security-related vendor relationships across telco and enterprise environments. Whether you are selecting a new managed service provider, renegotiating an existing relationship, assessing a major software commitment, or navigating a complex multi-vendor environment, we provide the independent perspective and commercial structure that ensures you go into the decision — and the contract — with your interests protected.
This covers: vendor selection and assessment, RFP development and management, contract review and negotiation support, managed service provider benchmarking, and technology procurement strategy.
Engagement model: Project-based or fixed advisory fee.
Commercial Advisory & Negotiation — The commercial edge most businesses only access when a deal is already going wrong.
In short, having the right commercial expertise in the room changes the outcome — whether you are heading into a major procurement, responding to an RFP, or structuring a new product. The same applies when negotiating a contract that needs to hold for years.
As a result, Alan has negotiated multi-million dollar contracts across IT, telecommunications, and managed services. He has led commercial teams, structured pricing for new market entrants, and helped organisations extract the best possible result from processes they did not originally have the expertise to run well.
This service covers: RFP development and management, commercial review and scoring, contract negotiation, pricing strategy, commercial risk assessment, and deal structuring.
Engagement model: Fixed project fee, monthly retainer, or a blended arrangement including outcome-based components where appropriate.
Business Case Development — If the numbers do not stack up on paper, they will not hold up in the boardroom.
Sound cost optimisation consulting always starts with a credible business case. A business case is only as good as the decision it enables. We build rigorous, board-ready business cases for two distinct audiences: internal decision-makers who need confidence to approve, and external stakeholders — investors, lenders, and joint venture partners — who need to trust the numbers before they commit.
In addition, from new product launches and technology investments to significant capital expenditure decisions and new market entry, we structure the commercial rationale, model the financials, and present the opportunity in language that decision-makers act on. We have supported founders, CEOs, and senior leaders across startups and established organisations — including ventures operating at scale in multi-million dollar markets.
Engagement model: Project-based.
Technology Advisory & Virtual CIO — Senior technology leadership without the full-time overhead.
For organisations that need strategic IT direction, vendor management, technology procurement, or architecture advisory — but are not ready for a full-time CIO — a virtual arrangement gives you senior-level capability without the full-time cost. This is cost optimisation consulting at the leadership level.
Our technology advisory services are delivered in partnership with DeliverXP, a specialist managed services and IT transformation business. Learn more about DeliverXP →
Engagement model: Retainer or project-based.
Cyber Security Governance & Virtual CISO (vISM) — Senior security leadership, without the full-time cost.
Most growing organisations reach a point where cyber security is no longer optional — but a full-time Chief Information Security Officer is not yet justifiable. The risks do not wait for the headcount budget to catch up. A Virtual Information Security Manager (vISM) gives you experienced, board-level security governance on a retainer basis: someone who knows your business, speaks the language of your executives, and ensures your security investments are working in the right direction.
Steven Webb works directly with leadership teams to build practical, commercially grounded security governance frameworks — not security for security’s sake, but cyber risk managed in proportion to your business objectives. Where implementation is required, Sam Hyde brings hands-on experience delivering security projects across telco and enterprise environments through DeliverXP, our managed services delivery arm. Strategy and delivery under one relationship.
This service covers information security strategy, security policy and framework development, risk assessment and risk register management, supplier and third-party security risk, board and executive reporting, and ongoing security oversight as a named advisor to your leadership team.
Engagement model: Monthly retainer or project-based. Implementation services available through DeliverXP.
ISO 27001 Certification — Structured support from gap assessment to certification.
ISO 27001 is increasingly a prerequisite for winning enterprise and government contracts, not just a badge of good practice. But for most organisations, the path from intention to certification is harder than expected — not because the standard is impenetrable, but because implementation requires consistent effort, structured documentation, and someone who has done it before.
Steven Webb is an ISO 27001 Lead Auditor and Implementer who has guided technology, SaaS, fintech, and healthcare organisations through every stage of the certification journey: initial gap assessment, ISMS design, policy and control development, internal audit preparation, and support through the external certification audit itself. Where technical controls need to be implemented — not just documented — Sam Hyde and the DeliverXP team bring the practical delivery capability to get them in place. The result is a certification that reflects genuine security maturity, not a paper exercise.
Who this is for: technology, SaaS, fintech, healthcare, and digital services organisations preparing for their first certification or renewing an existing one, and those responding to enterprise procurement requirements that mandate ISO 27001 compliance.
Engagement model: Project-based, scoped to your current maturity level and target certification timeline.
AI Risk & Governance Advisory — Capturing the upside of AI while managing the risks that come with it.
AI adoption is accelerating faster than most organisations’ ability to govern it. The productivity gains are real — but so are the risks: data privacy exposure, regulatory uncertainty, over-reliance on unvalidated outputs, and reputational harm from AI decisions that nobody adequately reviewed. Getting this right is not a technology problem. It is a governance problem.
Steven Webb helps organisations develop practical AI governance frameworks that allow them to adopt AI confidently — saving costs, increasing productivity, and building competitive advantage — without creating unmanaged risk. Sam Hyde contributes a practitioner’s perspective on how AI tools interact with existing technology infrastructure and managed service environments, ensuring that governance frameworks reflect operational reality, not just policy intent.
This covers AI use policy development, data classification and handling frameworks for AI-processed information, vendor and tool risk assessment, staff guidance and acceptable use frameworks, and board-level AI risk reporting.
Engagement model: Project-based or retainer.
Business Continuity & Incident Preparedness — Know what you will do before you need to.
A business continuity plan that has never been tested is not a plan — it is a document. Most organisations have one. Far fewer have one that their leadership team has actually walked through, that maps to their real technology dependencies, and that would hold up under the pressure of an actual incident.
Steven Webb builds business continuity and incident response capability that is practical, proportionate, and ready to use — covering business impact analysis, continuity plan development, incident response playbook design, tabletop exercises for leadership teams, and post-incident review. Where plans depend on technology recovery, Sam Hyde’s background in security implementation and managed services means those dependencies are mapped against what can actually be delivered, not just assumed. The goal is an organisation that responds to disruption with clarity rather than confusion.
Engagement model: Project-based, with optional ongoing retainer for annual review and testing.
New Venture Advisory — The commercial foundations that most startups only build after getting it wrong.
Starting a business with experienced stakeholders behind it is not the same as starting with the right commercial structure. We work with founders and investor groups at the formation stage — helping them get the entity structure, shareholder arrangements, and early commercial frameworks right before the complexity builds.
Our clients range from first-time founders with lean budgets to experienced operators launching ventures at significant scale. They share a need for senior commercial thinking at the point where decisions are hardest to undo.
This covers: company and entity structuring advice (alongside your legal and accounting advisors), commercial model design, founder and stakeholder commercial frameworks, go-to-market strategy, and early-stage pricing and negotiation support.
Engagement model: Project-based or retainer.
Virtual Chief Commercial Officer — Senior commercial leadership, without the full-time cost.
Many growing businesses reach a point where they need consistent, senior commercial oversight — but are not ready to hire a full-time CCO. Our cost optimisation consulting approach applies here too: structured thinking, measurable outcomes, and no unnecessary overhead. A virtual arrangement gives you that capability on a retainer basis: someone who knows your business, sits at the table for the decisions that matter, and brings the same rigour to a pricing review as to a major contract negotiation.
This is not a one-off advisory engagement. It is an ongoing commercial partnership — covering pricing strategy, contract and vendor oversight, commercial risk, deal structuring, and the kind of direct advice that helps leaders make better decisions faster.
Engagement model: Monthly retainer.
Not sure which service fits?
Tell us what is on your mind , a challenge, a decision, or just a hunch that something could be working better. We will come back to you within one business day with a straight answer.
Or email Alan directly: alan@xavientpartners.com
