Our Services
SUPPLY CHAIN IMPROVEMENT
Our due diligence advisory service achieves optimal risk analysis and value for money and can be integrated into a project at any point in the project cycle. Our integration of Finance, Engineering, SCM, and IT professionals result in a holistic and efficient approach. Advantage’s engineering and procurement professionals have been involved in virtually all major oil sands projects in Alberta in some capacity – from category management, to engineering, to project management, to vendor audit. If you have a need to enhance your procurement capabilities for a major capital project, we can help!
PROCURE TO PAY
VENDOR AUDIT
Advantage’s team of professionals has decades of experience in auditing contracts and vendor compliance. Advantage utilizes a risk-based assessment process to drive its audit process to maximize recoveries. No vendor audit we have ever undertaken has failed to return at least ten times the investment in our services (but usually much, much more!)
SUCCESS STORIES
SAGD Early Civil Works Vendor Audit – ECW projects are often the first boots on the ground for major capital projects. We achieved multiple process enhancements in a client’s contract EPCM contract management, as well as a multi-million dollar clawback from a vendor prior to the facility being commissioned. All enhancements were identified during the first 1% of project spend.
PROCURE TO PAY
PROCESS DESIGN
Advantage always utilizes a Lessons-Learned approach to our procurement process engagements. Many organizations in the energy sector are undergoing a rapid scale-up in their procurement functions, with a dire shortage of adequately trained or motivated procurement personnel. We assist these clients in helping them identify key risk exposures and designing processes that minimize internal control failures.
SUCCESS STORIES
EPCM Contract Management Control Design – A client was undertaking a multi-billion dollar project, however, had never undertaken a project of that magnitude before. We assisted in designing an internal control and contract management system to maintain control of project costs as they were incurred to keep the project on scope and on budget. Vendor fraud exposures were identified up front and were addressed in the ongoing management of vendor contracts and respective payments.
PROCURE TO PAY
CATEGORY MANAGEMENT
Advantage has helped several clients define their project spend categories and rank them with respect to opportunities to exploit and inherent risk exposures by category. Taking such an approach has helped our clients significantly streamline their procurement functions and ultimately maximize their ROI on their major capital projects as well as their routine operational purchasing.
SUCCESS STORIES
Successful Category Analysis – Multiple process enhancements were achieved in a client’s contract EPCM contract management, as well as a multi-million dollar clawback from a vendor prior to the facility being commissioned.
SPECIALIZED PROCUREMENT RECRUITMENT
Our team of senior consultants have performed a wide variety of highly technical and specialized roles – they have literally “been in the chair”. We utilize their insight extensively in recruiting for specialized roles to ensure you have the best possible fit. Advantage’s success rate in meeting our client’s specific recruiting needs is second to none.
SUCCESS STORIES
Unmatched Retention Rates – Whether our professional candidates are going into procurement, IT, legal, engineering, or finance, Advantage has an unmatched retention rate in the recruitment industry.
OPERATIONAL DUE DILIGENCE
Our due diligence advisory service achieves optimal risk analysis and value for money and can be integrated into a project at any point in the project cycle. Our integration of Finance, Engineering, SCM, and IT professionals result in a holistic and efficient approach
PROJECT DUE DILIGENCE
Advantage’s engineering and procurement professionals have been involved in virtually all major oil sands projects in Alberta in some capacity – from category management, to engineering, to project management, to vendor audit. If you have a need to enhance your procurement capabilities for a major capital project, we can help!
SUCCESS STORIES
Energy Project Acquisition Adjustment – Advantage assisted an energy sector client identify several material adjustments to a project that was in the engineering and procurement phases. Additional gains were made with internal control changes during these early stages of the project.
DUE DILIGENCE SUPPORT
Advantage’s engineering and procurement professionals have been involved in projects in every major industry. We can provide professionals to provide assurance that the assumptions that you are using to validate the purchase or disposal of a business are appropriate and that you are not leaving money on the table. We have the ability to travel worldwide and can support foreign offices for local Canadian acquisitions/divestitures.
SUCCESS STORIES
Several energy/power project acquisitions and divestitures – Data rooms and economic models have been successfully compiled for owners looking to add to their holdings or divest of non-key assets. Assumptions on seller’s assets have been challenged to provide material savings to our buyers.
CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY
We strive to help our clients maximize their triple bottom line impact through community development, sustainability practices, and economic impact. As an Aboriginal-owned entity, we strive to “Close the gap” by identifying employment and economic opportunities for Aboriginal communities within our client’s portfolios, but it doesn’t stop there. We have assisted community development efforts on a number of fronts – with non-profits, environmental initiatives, and social development opportunities.
ABORIGINAL ENGAGEMENT
As an Aboriginal-owned entity, we strive to “Close the gap” by identifying employment and economic opportunities for Aboriginal communities within our client’s portfolios. This can involve identifying Indigenous individuals for inclusion into a client’s professional teams, or assisting in identifying Indigenous owned business providers for inclusion into a client’s procurement cycle.
SUCCESS STORIES
Multiple Professional Indigenous Placements and New Business Relationships – Many Indigenous professionals that were “hiding in plain sight” have been placed by our specialized recruiting team in professional functions, including engineering, legal, and procurement as a result of our many industry recruitment searches. As well, clients have also benefited from our direct relationships with Aboriginal suppliers.
COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT
Advantage has assisted several clients in identifying unique opportunities to enhance the communities they operate in. From assisting in the selection of their community investment funds, to developing plans for unique community counselling programs, Advantage has used its professional teams to help!
SUCCESS STORIES
Homeless Halfway House – Advantage helped a senior energy producer engage directly in the community be facilitating a partnership with a homeless shelter that was geared towards keeping families together. The client not only financed a housing project to assist families to get back on their feet, but also employed several of the homeless in their operations to develop income security for the long-term.
ENVIRONMENTAL
Advantage uses its team of engineering and assurance professionals to advise in several areas, including environmental efforts. Alberta has been subject to GHG legislation since 2007, with large emitters having to comply on emissions. Our team have assisted clients with their compliance efforts.
SUCCESS STORIES
Energy Client Environmental Performance Report – Advantage helped a client design and report its first public environmental performance report as a Large Emitter.
GOVERNANCE RISK & COMPLIANCE
Our due diligence advisory service achieves optimal risk analysis and value for money and can be integrated into a project at any point in the project cycle. Our integration of Finance, Engineering, SCM, and IT professionals result in a holistic and efficient approach
ENTERPRISE RISK MANAGEMENT
The professionals at Advantage have been assisting companies with their ERM initiatives since the lat 1990’s when the methodology was introduced to Canada. Advantage has helped clients at all stages of ERM implementation, from risk identification, assessment, risk control design, evaluation, reporting and monitoring, and strategic plan integration.
SUCCESS STORIES
Energy Production Company ERM Assessment – The ERM assessment and implementation for our energy client significantly changed their strategic planning process and identified areas where their internal managment processes were failing to support their strategic objectives.
STRATEGIC PLANNING/
BALANCED SCORECARD DESIGN
The introduction of the Balanced Scorecard by Harvard has dramatically changed the performance of those organizations that have implemented it. In place for decades, it has been a tried and true methodology for maximizing any organization’s performance.
SUCCESS STORIES
Public Technology Company – Advantage helped a client design and report its first Balanced Scorecard in conjunction with its strategic planning process. It was able to effectively launch its Balanced Scorecard to implement its internal process development and growth and sold for a significant premium approximately a year later.
INTERNAL CONTROL DESIGN & EFFECTIVENESS ASSESSMENT (SOX)
All public companies and many private companies have expectations from their stakeholders that their internal control systems are adequately designed and that they work as designed. Advantage has helped many companies over our history to adequately detail their control systems and provide assurance to their stakeholders.
SUCCESS STORIES
SAGD Oil Producer – An energy producer that had no history of internal control certification grew so rapidly that it was thrust into a certification scenario by its parent. Advantage successfully navigated them through a certification process with a full internal control documentation and testing strategy. The professionals at Advantage have helped many clients achieve their SOX certifications, including some of the markets earliest Accelerated Filers, and JSOX filers for Japanese parents.
OUTSOURCED INTERNAL/IT AUDIT
Internal audit and IT resources are very difficult to secure and train for organizations that have routine assurance needs. For most companies, it does not make sense to try to hire, retain, and train such highly mobile, specialized resources if they cannot be fully utilized in-house. Advantage takes a fractional approach to highly specialized resources and can provide internal audit and IT audit resources for smaller projects, saving our clients time, money, and the ability to source high talent resources with minimal effort.
SUCCESS STORIES
Technology Company IT Audit – A public technology company had engaged us to perform a risk assessment and audit of its proprietary IT and related assets. Substantial weaknesses were identified and rectified before they could become catastrophic issues.
Ferus has been a client of Advantage Professional Services for a number of years. We engaged them to conduct a compliance review on significant capital expenditure projects. Their expertise, broad based knowledge and professionalism in managing the engagement were exemplary – definitely subject matter experts.
Throughout the process, their interaction with various stakeholders, at all levels within our company, was very well received.
The analysis and recommendations they provided us with added great value and continues to build on the strong foundation for our company going forward.
Our company has a major construction project in the oil sands in Northern Alberta, completing the civil works phase and commencing the heavy construction of a processing plant and ancillary field facilities.
We engaged Advantage to perform an construction audit of the work done to date to ensure compliance in accordance with our agreement and to glean any potential lessons to be learned as we moved into the next phase of construction.
They delivered on both counts; the audit work was very detailed and precise and the lessons that they identified were insightful and have been added to our processes.
When Caroline connected me to my firm, it was clear that she had done the necessary homework in order to learn about her client’s work and culture.
In doing so, she added significant value to the process.