Across both education and the workplace, operational leaders are facing the same challenge: how do you reduce costs, improve efficiency, and maintain high service standards at a time of continued financial pressure?
Whether you’re a CFO within a Multi-Academy Trust, an Operations Director overseeing a corporate estate, or a procurement lead responsible for multiple sites, the expectations are clear. Budgets need tighter control, suppliers need closer management, and every pound spent needs to demonstrate value.
At the same time, standards around compliance, sustainability, food quality, and customer satisfaction aren’t going away. If anything, they’re increasing.
That’s why smarter procurement and operational efficiency are becoming strategic priorities rather than back-office functions.
We work across both education and workplace environments, helping organisations identify efficiencies, benchmark performance, improve supplier management, and standardise services without losing sight of quality or compliance.
Here are six operational priorities organisations should be focusing on right now.
1.Benchmarking is essential for identifying hidden inefficiencies
Too many organisations still operate without a clear understanding of how their catering, cleaning, or support service costs compare against similar organisations.
Benchmarking provides the visibility needed to identify overspend, inefficiencies, and opportunities for improvement. It allows operational leaders to assess performance against sector standards, regional averages, and historical data to understand whether current contracts and service models are truly delivering value.
In education, benchmarking can help Trusts understand variations in meal uptake, labour costs, and food spend across schools, and if a school is an independent school, benchmarking can be used as a tool to improve value across every area of non-teaching spend, from transport to admissions support to classroom supplies and laundry – anything that comes at a cost, that doesn’t link to labour costs. In the workplace, it can highlight inconsistencies between sites, uncover supplier inflation, or identify locations where service delivery is underperforming.
Most importantly, benchmarking gives leadership teams evidence-based data to support procurement decisions and long-term operational planning.
2. Standardisation creates scale without sacrificing flexibility
One of the biggest challenges for growing organisations is balancing consistency with local needs.
As estates expand and organisations manage more sites, inconsistent processes, supplier arrangements, and reporting structures can quickly create unnecessary complexity and cost.
Standardising elements such as supplier frameworks, reporting processes and core service specifications helps organisations achieve economies of scale while still allowing flexibility.
For education settings, that may mean standardising procurement processes across multiple academies while allowing schools some menu flexibility. In workplace environments, it could involve consolidating suppliers across offices while tailoring hospitality or workplace dining offers.
It’s about creating operational consistency that improves control and efficiency without removing the end-user experience.
Read more about how we helped the Lighthouse Schools Partnership achieve consolidation, resulting in big financial and operational gains here.
3. Smarter supplier management delivers long-term value
Many organisations review contracts only when renewal dates approach, but proactive supplier management is where significant value can be unlocked. Regular performance reviews, KPI monitoring, cost analysis, and compliance checks ensure suppliers continue to meet expectations throughout the life of a contract.
Strong supplier management also creates opportunities for innovation, sustainability improvements, and service enhancements that may otherwise be missed.
Technology platforms that provide real-time contract visibility and performance reporting – such as Litmus Edge – can help operational teams manage suppliers more effectively while reducing the administrative burden associated with manual monitoring.
4. Procurement should focus on outcomes, not just cost
Selecting the cheapest option rarely delivers the best long-term result.
Effective procurement is about identifying partners who align with your operational goals, compliance requirements, and organisational values while also delivering commercial value.
In both education and workplace settings, factors such as sustainability, employee or pupil engagement, service resilience, nutritional standards, and social value need to be considered alongside price.
A robust tender process helps organisations evaluate suppliers properly, compare like-for-like proposals, and ensure decisions are based on overall value rather than headline cost alone.
5. Data-driven operational management is key
Operational teams now have access to more data than ever before – but many organisations still struggle to turn that data into actionable insight.
Understanding KPIs such as cost per meal, labour percentages, supplier performance, food waste levels, customer satisfaction, and service uptake rates allows organisations to make informed decisions quickly and confidently.
The most effective organisations are moving towards integrated platforms – such as Litmus Verify – that provide live operational insight across multiple sites. This not only improves visibility but also enables faster intervention when issues arise and helps identify trends before they become costly problems.
6. Waste reduction remains one of the quickest routes to savings
Food waste and operational waste continue to represent major areas of avoidable cost across both sectors.
In education, overproduction or low meal uptake can significantly impact catering profitability. In workplace settings, fluctuating office attendance patterns often create additional forecasting challenges.
Tracking waste consistently and understanding where losses occur allows organisations to refine production levels, improve ordering processes, and optimise menus or service offers.
Operational efficiency is not a short-term exercise
In both education and workplace environments, smarter operational management creates opportunities not just to reduce costs, but to improve service quality, strengthen compliance, and deliver better experiences for end users in the long-term.
We help organisations uncover opportunities to improve efficiency, benchmark performance and strengthen supplier value across catering, procurement and other support services within complex operational environments. Our ‘Litmus Test’ approach looks beyond the surface to reveal improvement opportunities others often miss, combining deep sector expertise, benchmarking insight and data-led analysis to deliver practical, measurable results. Find out more here.
The Litmus team
