Procurement & Supply Chain Live: Leadership Panel

During day one of Procurement & Supply Chain Live, leading executives from the world of procurement joined Glen White, CEO of BizClik Media Group to discuss all things procurement.

Procurement Takes a Front Seat

Ninian Wilson, Global SCM Director & CEO, Vodafone Procurement began the panel by discussing the shift in the world’s view of procurement since the outbreak of COVID-19. “If we look back two years ago, risk and resilience probably weren’t on the CEO’s agenda. Today it’s on the CEO’s agenda, the CFO’s agenda, it’s on the risk committees agenda, and it’s on the main board’s agenda. [..] we can’t forget the tough times that everyone has been through,” says Wilson. COVID-19’s impact has “certainly elevated the discussion, and I think its a board-level discussion about the resilience of your organisation.”

Joining Wilson on the stage Robert Copeland, Chief Procurement Officer, G4S; Simon Thompson, Sales Director, JAGGAER; Aurelien Faucheux, and CPO – Head of Procurement, Aston Martin, continued the discussion, Copeland added: “the UK and Europe have had a good 20, 30 years of not really needing to worry about supply, and suddenly the global supply chain, whether that’s chips in the wrong place, the Suez getting blocked, you name it, there is the perfect storm of problems that have suddenly made people realise how fragile supply chains are. So procurement in my view, is in a strong position, to fill a void. Which has made our meetings far more constructive, but we’ve also got another problem creeping up - inflation.

“I haven't really thought much about inflation since I was in the automotive industry dealing with raw materials, and that was 15, 16 years ago now. With suddenly having this huge risk of inflation, what are we doing about it? Can our supply chains absorb it? How do we operate that? So I think we're coming out of one problem, but there are a few more that will, again, be testing the resilience of our supply chain.”

Following on from this discussion, Thompson, Wilson, Copeland, and Faucheux dove deeper into the procurement process discussing both the importance of digitalisation, but also the importance of not forgetting to continue the investment in people and their development. 

Watch below the full Leadership Panel from Procurement & Supply Chain Live: