NHA works across eight core sectors, bringing direct senior commercial experience to each. At any given time, NHA works with one retained client per sector, per geography.
The sectors below represent areas in which Paul Foster has worked at senior commercial level across his career. The depth of that experience varies by sector, and the nature of the commercial challenges NHA addresses varies accordingly. In every case, the approach is the same: commercial intelligence first, strategy second, and a sustained retained engagement built around the specific growth objectives of that client.
The packaging sector faces commercial pressures that are simultaneously structural and cyclical: raw material volatility, buyer consolidation, margin compression from major retail and FMCG customers, and an increasing requirement to demonstrate supply chain credibility in tender processes.
NHA has worked with senior leadership teams in packaging on commercial growth strategy, strategic account management, and new logo acquisition. The commercial challenge in most packaging businesses is not the absence of opportunity but the absence of a structured approach to pursuing the right opportunities at the right margin.
Commercial focus areas: strategic account retention, new logo BD architecture, tender proposition development, pricing discipline and margin recovery.
Print and document management is an industry that has undergone sustained structural transformation. The businesses that have navigated it successfully have done so by moving from transactional supply to strategic outsourcing partnerships, building managed service models that make them genuinely difficult to displace.
Paul Foster's commercial career was built in this sector, at Director level with FTSE 100 clients including Barclays Bank, HSBC, and Sainsbury's. The commercial challenges of major account retention, outsourcing contract renewal, and new logo acquisition in a highly competitive market are ones he has addressed directly and at the highest level.
Commercial focus areas: major account strategy, outsourcing contract retention and renewal, managed service proposition development, FTSE 100 and financial services client development.
Outsourcing contracts are won and lost long before the formal procurement process begins. The relationship dynamics, the internal advocacy within the client organisation, and the commercial credibility of the supplier's proposition are established over months and years, not in a pitch presentation.
NHA has significant experience of the commercial dynamics of large outsourcing engagements, both in winning new contracts and in retaining existing ones under competitive pressure. The Capita engagement, in which a £41.5 million pipeline was built across public sector and financial services clients, and the Barclays retention, in which a £250 million contract renewal was secured, represent the depth of that experience.
Commercial focus areas: contract retention strategy, pipeline development, public sector BD, relationship architecture at senior client level.
Professional services firms face a commercial challenge that is structurally distinct from product-led businesses: the proposition is the people, and the sales process is therefore a relationship process, not a specification process. Commercial growth in professional services requires the right account management architecture, the right BD approach, and the right way of demonstrating value to clients who are evaluating people, not products.
NHA has worked with senior leadership teams in professional services on commercial growth strategy, client retention, and new business development. The emphasis is invariably on building the commercial infrastructure that converts strong individual relationships into institutional revenue.
Commercial focus areas: account management framework, new business development, proposition clarity, pricing strategy, client retention.
The telecoms, IT, and technology reseller sector is characterised by rapid product commoditisation, intense margin pressure, and a persistent challenge around how to differentiate from a competitive field where the underlying product is frequently identical. The commercial opportunity for businesses that solve this challenge is significant.
NHA has worked with senior leadership teams in telecoms and IT on commercial positioning, BD strategy, and the development of value propositions that move a business from transactional supply to strategic partnership in the eyes of its customers. The transition from product reseller to managed service provider, and the commercial architecture that makes that transition commercially viable, is a challenge NHA has addressed in this sector.
Commercial focus areas: commercial differentiation, managed service transition, account management, BD pipeline development.
Construction businesses face a commercial environment shaped by tender-led procurement, long sales cycles, complex stakeholder landscapes, and the persistent challenge of differentiating on more than price. The businesses that win the contracts they should be winning, at the margin they should be achieving, are those that have built a commercial proposition and a BD architecture capable of standing up to serious procurement scrutiny.
NHA has worked with senior leadership teams in construction on commercial strategy and BD repositioning, with particular focus on the approach to public sector and major project tenders, and on the development of commercial propositions that support price realisation rather than undermining it.
Commercial focus areas: tender strategy, commercial proposition development, public sector BD, pricing discipline, strategic account management.
Metals and materials businesses operate in a commercial environment defined by commodity pricing pressure, customer concentration risk, and an increasing requirement to add value beyond supply. The commercial challenge is frequently not growth at any cost but growth at the right margin, with the right customers, and with a level of account concentration that does not create existential dependency on a single relationship.
NHA has worked with senior leadership teams in metals and materials on account prioritisation, margin recovery, and the commercial architecture required to develop new revenue without undermining existing customer relationships or compromising operational capacity.
Commercial focus areas: account prioritisation, margin improvement, new customer acquisition, commercial positioning beyond commodity supply.
The energy sector presents commercial leadership teams with a strategic environment that is changing faster than most: regulatory pressure, carbon management requirements, price volatility, and an increasingly sophisticated procurement community. The businesses that navigate this successfully are those with a clear commercial strategy, not simply a response to external pressure.
NHA has worked with senior leadership teams in energy and utilities on commercial growth strategy and revenue development. The commercial challenges of this sector, particularly the transition from commodity supply relationships to strategic advisory partnerships, are ones that NHA addresses with the same intelligence-led approach applied across all sectors.
Commercial focus areas: commercial growth strategy, senior client relationship development, proposition development, revenue architecture.
NHA works with one client per sector at any time. A discovery call will confirm current availability and whether an engagement is the right fit for your business.