Case Studies
The savings aren’t theoretical.
Neither is the proof.
Six engagements, every dollar traced back to invoices, contracts, and the savings we implemented and tracked. These aren’t industry averages or rounded estimates — if we can’t measure it, we don’t count it.
Case Study 01 — Fortune 250 Corporation
$17.2M+ saved for a Fortune 250
corporation since 2015 — and still counting.
Client
USA-based Fortune 250 corporation
Engagement
Launched 2015; ongoing
Spend Under Management
$63.6M
Categories
Telecom, janitorial, document storage & shredding, office supplies, travel, print, promotional, and more
Total Savings to Date
$17,230,069
The Challenge
A company this size already had the purchasing power to command better pricing — it simply wasn’t using it. Spend was scattered across divisions, no one was pushing back on vendor billing, and no single owner watched the categories closely enough to catch pricing as it drifted. The result was a large organization leaking money a little at a time, across dozens of categories, with no mechanism to notice.
The ACC Approach
ACC aggregated the purchasing power the client already had and put it to work — running competitive RFPs and negotiating directly with vendors across telecom, janitorial, document storage and shredding, office supplies, travel, and print. Rather than treat cost reduction as a one-time project, ACC built a monthly savings audit into the engagement: every negotiated rate is tracked back to the invoice, month after month, so savings reach the bottom line and stay there.
Results
| Category | Savings Rate |
|---|---|
| Telecom / Wireless | 46% |
| Document Storage / Shredding | 41% |
| Janitorial Services | 26% |
| Office Supplies | 18% |
| Promotional Materials | 14% |
| Total realized to date | $17,230,069 |
Why It Matters
Nine-plus years in, ACC is still finding savings for this client. That is the entire point of a continuous monthly audit — it does not stop at the first win, and it catches the vendor billing creep that quietly erodes savings everywhere else.
Case Study 02 — $2B Foodservice Distribution Company
$5.35M found for a 9,000+ location distribution company.
Client
Foodservice distribution company (~$2B revenue), owned by a major national QSR corporation
Footprint
9,000+ locations
Engagement
Ongoing since 2015
Spend Under Management
$47.4M
Categories
Broadband, stretch film, telecom, commercial insurance, office supplies, treasury fees, temp staffing, and more
Total Cost Reduction to Date
$5.35M
The Challenge
The company was growing fast across thousands of locations, and its indirect spend was growing right alongside it — more vendors, more contracts, and more invoices than any internal team could keep close tabs on during a rapid-growth phase. Pricing was inconsistent across the footprint, and there was no enterprise-wide view of what each distribution center was actually paying.
The ACC Approach
ACC consolidated vendor contracts across every distribution center, ran competitive RFPs, and layered in a monthly savings audit that surfaced inaccurate billing the client had been paying without realizing it. The audit runs continuously against contracted baseline pricing, so vendor errors and rate creep get caught as they happen rather than years later.
Results
| Category | Savings Rate |
|---|---|
| Broadband Cable | 61% |
| Stretch Film | 43% |
| Telecom — Wireless | 33% |
| Commercial Insurance | 17% |
| Total cost reduction to date | $5.35M |
Why It Matters
The first engagement performed well enough that the client renewed. ACC’s work let them generate double-digit year-over-year savings through a rapid-growth phase — without adding a single person to their own team.
Case Study 03 — PE-Owned Food Manufacturer
$4.5M found for a PE-owned food
manufacturer — 17.2% of reviewed spend.
Client
$300M-revenue food manufacturer, $30M EBITDA, five locations
Owner
NY-based middle-market private equity firm
Complication
A second manufacturer was acquired mid-engagement
Spend Reviewed
$26M across 19 categories
Total Annual Savings
$4.5M (17.2%)
The Challenge
This was the harder version of a cost engagement. The company had already run its own cost-reduction effort right before the acquisition, so there was real internal skepticism that anything was left to find. They were also committed to their incumbent suppliers — the “sacred cow” vendors nobody wanted to touch. And partway through, the PE firm acquired a second manufacturer and folded it in, leaving two procurement departments to reconcile.
The ACC Approach
ACC went category by category anyway — packaging, freight, printing and labels, pallets, insurance, and fourteen others. We leveraged contract negotiations and recent RFP results to save the newly acquired company 11%, on top of the 17% found for the original business, and used the process to merge the two procurement departments into one. Monthly savings audits verify the realized numbers on an ongoing basis.
Results
| Category Reviewed | Annual Spend | Annual Savings | % |
|---|---|---|---|
| Packaging | $9.6M | $1.5M | 16% |
| Freight | $6.7M | $0.85M | 13% |
| Printing & Labels | $2.6M | $0.75M | 29% |
| Pallets | $1.2M | $0.20M | 17% |
| Insurance | $1.9M | $0.48M | 25% |
| All Other (14) | $4.0M | $0.70M | 18% |
| Total | $26M | $4.5M | 17.2% |
Why It Matters
$4.5M in recurring annual savings is the kind of number a PE owner actually reads — and it came out of spend a prior cost-reduction effort had supposedly already picked clean.
Case Study 04 — Multi-Location Purchasing & Distribution Company
$453K recovered across nine distribution centers — and an honest map of where it wasn’t.
Client
Purchasing & distribution company serving 9,000+ franchise locations
Scope
Nine distribution centers, coordinated through corporate HQ
Spend Reviewed
$4.5M
Categories
Stretch film, wireless telecom, safety shoes, janitorial, office supplies, and more
Total Annual Savings
$453,089 (10% blended)
The Challenge
Spend was spread across nine centers with no consistent pricing or vendor discipline between them. Some categories were badly overpriced; others were already close to fair. The client had no way to tell which was which — and no internal bandwidth to work it out center by center.
The ACC Approach
ACC reviewed every category and consolidated vendor contracts across all nine centers. Where there was real room, we took it — 43% out of stretch film, 39% out of wireless telecom, 33% out of safety shoes. Where a category was already competitive, we said so and moved on. A monthly report keeps the C-suite current on realized savings and compliance.
Results
| Category Reviewed | Annual Spend | Annual Savings | % |
|---|---|---|---|
| Packaging — Stretch Film | $375K | $160K | 43% |
| Wireless Telecom | $173K | $68K | 39% |
| Safety Shoes | $324K | $107K | 33% |
| Janitorial Services | $120K | $10.4K | 9% |
| Office Supplies | $194K | $8.5K | 4% |
| All Other (3) | $3.3M | $99K | 3% |
| Total | $4.5M | $453K | 10% |
Why It Matters
The low-percentage rows are in this table on purpose. When a category is already priced fairly, ACC tells you — which is exactly why you can trust the 43%. Cost containment worth paying for is the kind that’s honest about where the money isn’t.
Case Study 05 — Uniform Program (The Loyalty Tax)
A renewal the client assumed was fair — and the $109K loyalty tax hiding in plain sight.
The Situation
Managing a uniform program for hundreds of employees across multiple facilities is complex. This client was 37 months into a 61-month contract and generally satisfied with the service — they engaged ACC simply to verify they weren’t overpaying. In the uniform sector, limited competition among a few major players often breeds vendor complacency and quiet price creep. The review was launched to benchmark long-standing rates against current market value and make sure the client’s loyalty wasn’t being penalized.
The ACC Approach
ACC began with an invoice-level audit of six months of billing across all locations. This line-by-line review caught billing errors against the existing contract terms and established an annual spend baseline of roughly $480,000. Every recurring charge was then re-rated against industry benchmarks. Rather than disrupt operations by forcing a vendor change, ACC used that objective market data to drive direct negotiations with the incumbent — and closed by standing up a continuous monthly audit to keep the new rates compliant.
The Results
- Immediate cash recovery: over $40,000 in historical overbillings identified and recovered during the audit.
- First-year savings: $109,000 in documented savings (a 22.7% reduction) within the first 12 months, combining the one-time recovery with the newly negotiated rates.
- Sustainable reductions: over $60,000 in recurring annual savings — achieved without changing vendors or disrupting service, and audited monthly to make sure they hold.
Beyond the financials, the project centralized a fragmented uniform program across all facilities — improving contract compliance, ensuring pricing consistency between locations, and establishing a framework for long-term cost control.
The Bottom Line
A satisfied client who assumed they were paying a fair price was, in fact, paying a loyalty tax. ACC found it, recovered what had already been overpaid, reset the rates, and now audits the program every month so the savings don’t quietly erode again — without ever changing vendors.
Case Study 06 — Wireline Telecom (125-Location Distributor)
56% off audited telecom spend for a 125-location distributor — with the savings audited every month so they hold.
Client
Multi-state specialty consumer products distributor (125 locations)
Engagement
Audit period began June 2025; ongoing
Categories
Wireline Telecom (lead), Cloud / SaaS, Waste Management
Wireline Result
56% reduction on audited spend
Wireline Projection
$150K annual / $300K over 24 months
Total to Date (all categories)
$147K through Month 10 (24.8% blended)
The Challenge
Each location operates with significant autonomy, which over time produced fragmented vendor relationships, inconsistent service plans, and no centralized visibility into indirect spend. Telecom was the most pronounced example: every location received its own bill, from its own provider, with no enterprise-wide view of the contracts, services, or rates being paid. Specific issues surfaced during scoping:
- 125 separate telecom relationships, each managed locally with no enterprise oversight.
- Bandwidth, voice, and TV services from multiple providers, with no rate standardization across the footprint.
- Missing inventory data — 40 locations had no documented bandwidth details; 9 invoices had no associated address.
- ~$77,500/year in TV service spend that was largely unnecessary, and ~$30,000/year in uncoordinated voice service across 43 locations.
- No internal telecom subject-matter expertise, and no mechanism to audit ongoing billing month over month.
The ACC Approach
- Phase 1 — Inventory & Analysis. ACC collected invoices and contracts for 96 of 125 locations (~$34,500/month, or $540,000 annualized), cataloguing every circuit, voice line, and TV service. Missing data for the remaining 29 locations was gathered systematically on the client’s behalf.
- Phase 2 — Optimization & Implementation. ACC identified specific levers — eliminating unnecessary TV services, right-sizing bandwidth, removing redundant phone lines, and renegotiating with existing providers. 27 audited locations qualified for shared fiber internet at significantly lower cost.
- Phase 3 — Billing Aggregation & Ongoing Audit. ACC consolidated dozens of provider invoices into a single monthly statement, then ran its proprietary monthly audit against that feed — comparing actual billing to contracted baseline pricing, every line item, every location, every month.
Wireline Results
| Metric | Value |
|---|---|
| Annual Wireline spend (in scope) | $540,000 |
| Original projected savings range | $120K–$180K (22–33%) |
| Realized savings rate (trailing 8 mo) | 56.1% |
| Wireline savings to date (Month 8 of 24) | $63,585 |
| 24-month projected Wireline savings | $300,000 |
Realized savings have exceeded the original projection range every month since the audit began, with month-over-month rates between 51% and 63% on actively audited locations.
Other Categories Addressed
| Category | Savings to Date | Rate | 24-Mo Projection |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wireline Telecom | $63,585 | 56.1% | $300,000 |
| Cloud / SaaS | $56,594 | 14.2% | $181,400 |
| Waste Management | $27,177 | 33.3% | $108,000 |
In the SaaS category alone, ACC found a licensing line item billing ~$3,600/month for a flat fee that no longer applied — a single audit finding worth nearly $43,400 a year on its own.
Why It Matters
Wireline telecom at enterprise scale is rarely a single negotiation — it’s hundreds of accounts, dozens of carriers, and ongoing billing complexity almost no internal team can manage well. ACC combines deep telecom expertise with a structured monthly audit that protects savings over time, and a playbook that scales naturally across other indirect categories. The client keeps its provider relationships; ACC provides oversight, not vendor displacement — with no added headcount.
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