Pizza Chain
We worked with the restaurant chain to deliver multiple material benefits including a significant, annual 7-figure merchant acquiring cost reduction across the contract term - with no internal operational impact.
CMSPI worked with a leading pizza delivery company, running over 10,000 corporate and franchised stores internationally. The company operates a multi-channel offering, including fast-growing eCommerce and mCommerce channels and has developed a wide range of food and beverage items to complement its primary offering, pizza.
Pizza Company A was initially introduced to CMSPI when a senior representative attended one of CMSPI’s Payments Workshops. Following discussions on the day, it was clear that CMSPI was able to offer it assistance to review the pizza company’s card supply chain. This included its central website, native app channels and separate franchisee face-to-face and telephone order (MOTO) estates. The client had a long-standing relationship with its incumbent card processor and had a responsibility to ensure that its own, and its franchisees’ overall costs, were in-line with the market, paying particular attention to industry regulatory changes.
CMSPI Solution
Through consultation with the client, as well as its incumbent processor, CMSPI identified that the current pricing structure and contractual arrangements were not optimal. CMSPI’s analysis broke down the merchant service charge (“MSC”) structure to give it transparency over what was being paid and expose hidden margin. Each element of the client’s MSC was confidentially benchmarked against its peers from CMSPI’s extensive client base, highlighting the total opportunity available.
With the insights garnered from the MSC analysis, CMSPI recommended that the client entered into an RFP process to drive the most competitive solution for its merchant acquiring arrangements. CMSPI managed the tender process, engaging with suitable suppliers from the merchant acquiring market that could service an estate such as the client. CMSPI requested proposals from six suppliers to service the pizza company’s central online operations, as well as its franchisee face-to-face and MOTO transactions.
Returned proposals were then analysed and negotiated by CMSPI until a solution was offered whereby CMSPI was satisfied that the client ongoing costs were competitive with broader market rates. A key objective for our client was to ensure that the group franchise offer was as simple and easy to sign up as possible, with a competitive commercial offer and marketing support to advertise the key benefits. CMSPI also negotiated the best possible overall solution from both a central, and franchise perspective, taking account of these variables.
Value Added
CMSPI’s analysis provided the client’s team with greater visibility of their payments process, including the newly established industry regulation, as well as the costs and benefits of routing transactions cross-border. The overall process delivered a number of material benefits including a significant, annual seven-figure merchant acquiring cost reduction across the contract term with no internal operational impact.
Further, CMSPI’s work helped improve the client’s cash flow and minimised interest costs by working closely with the acquirer to reduce settlement timescales to transaction day +1. Following the optimisation of commercial arrangements, CMSPI initiated a fresh service level agreement negotiation to protect the client against future potential service disruptions. In addition, CMSPI ensured the client’s acquirer provided PCIDSS guidance and chargeback assistance at no additional cost throughout the course of the contract. In order to support the suppliers’ commitment to onboarding new franchisees, CMSPI negotiated a significant, five-figure marketing fund to be made available for promotion of the franchisee group deal.