Ninian Wilson is a well-known leader in the procurement world, a regular in the CIPS “Procurement Power List” and held senior roles from an early age at British Gas, Cable & Wireless, and the Royal Mail. He joined Vodafone back in 2009 and is now the Group Procurement Director and is also the CEO of the firm’s procurement company, so “I’m in the fortunate position that everyone in supply chain management in Vodafone reports into us in Luxembourg”.
We asked him how he has seen procurement change in that time. “The biggest change is perhaps what technology has done in terms of our ability to use data and analytics, to talk to the top table with real information and facts at our fingertips. So the eProcurement and eCommerce revolution has elevated the function more than anything else. I remember making a pitch – at very short notice - to get a £20 million investment at Cable & Wireless signed off, which we used for both new technology and also to transform the whole function”.
In Vodafone, procurement has transformed from individual firms doing their own thing, to a more centralised function that is highly digitised. “When people ask us a question, we’re not rummaging around or asking the supplier for information, we have detailed analysis of spend, suppliers, preference, metrics, compliance…” It’s taken a decade or more to build this, and Wilson explains that “Detlef Schultz started this and I’ve inherited the great foundations he built”.
The agenda has moved on from the traditional view of procurement’s role too, with the function playing a broader role now, for example in the “innovation ecosystem”, as Wilson calls it. And now, Nick Read, the CEO since late 2018, is leading a drive for Vodafone to become a purpose-led company. He was the CFO previously, so it is interesting that a bottom-line-focused executive sees these issues as key to the firm’s future.
Wilson explains that the supply chain strategy must reflect the corporate strategy – “so we are making sure we get that alignment to purpose - and it is the right thing to do, we have a moral duty, to society and the planet. And we do believe that if we put purpose at the heart of the business, our customers will respond to that too.”
At a Group level, there are three pillars to the strategy. “The first is about how we help society to digitize – partly our own internal technology but also working with other organisations and customers to help them become more effective and purposeful. And it’s not the same in every country in which we operate - in some places, your mobile phone is about your education, your business, your life”.
The second pillar is around diversity and inclusion. Events in the US have brought the race element of that even more to the fore recently, but Wilson has also been the Group executive sponsor for the LGBT+ community in Vodafone for two years now. Vodafone’s push on diversity has been mainly around gender until recently, but now there is also consideration of sexual orientation and more in terms of inclusivity both within and through the supply chain. There is also some evidence that a diverse supply base can help to develop more innovation, so that fits well with his core priorities.
“Taking on that role has made me realise how easy it is to exclude people. When the world seems to be polarising into people being very for or very against things, companies can perhaps be a sort of sensible voice. We take human rights for granted in many western countries but in some countries, people still hide their private lives because of prejudice. We think you get more out of people when they feel comfortable, and accepted. And as well as the work within Vodafone, procurement can reflect these values and culture more widely when we work with our supply chain”.
The third pillar for Vodafone is around the planet. Supply Chain Management sits on the sustainability committee and the function works closely with Andrew Dunnett, the Group lead on SDGs and sustainable business.
“Even when I was at university, doing Geography in the late 1980s, my professor was starting to talk about global warming, but many didn’t take it seriously. There was a peak of environmental activism in the 1960s, but it kind of disappeared in the 70s with the economic shocks, and now it is building back again. I think there is no question that humanity is having an impact on climate, and large firms like Vodafone have to take some proactive steps around energy use and greening of the supply chain. And customers are demanding it, so I think it will only get stronger – even post-Covid, I think we will see firms building back better and greener”. (Look out for Part 2 next week)