With all that’s going on in the world, maintaining supplier collaboration initiatives can seem overwhelming at times – especially when the returns can be opaque and difficult to quantify.
Most readers will agree that formal supplier collaboration programmes are worth doing; they can unlock huge amounts of value and tap into significant innovation to support growth agendas, sustainability programmes and resilience efforts. The problem is, they are hard.
Supplier collaboration initiatives demand strategic vision, cross-functional buy-in from the C-suite and bundles of energy, enthusiasm and commitment. Done well, however, they can unlock exponential value above and beyond your typical procurement ROI calculation.
A Procurement Leaders CPO Connect call last week provided a timely reminder of this. The session, during which Danone CPO Jean-Yves Krummenacher took the community through the company’s Partner for Growth (P4G) programme, was both inspiring and challenging. He shared how close collaboration with strategic partners was opening the door to billions of dollars of investment in R&D and AI, providing access to expertise and specialist knowledge that would support Danone’s strategic growth agenda.
It was an extremely powerful presentation and discussion, made even more compelling when his team shared a video that showcased the programme with a roll call of the Danone C-suite (and key supplier C-suite leaders) explaining why the programme is worth their time, investment and energy.
We were left in no doubt that P4G was a business programme facilitated by procurement – an important distinction and a key enabler of success.
The programme itself is a fully aligned and crucial part of Danone’s wider strategic programme known as “Renew Danone”, and a September 2024 press release provides considerable detail on what P4G under the vision and leadership of Jean-Yves is bringing to that strategic programme, as well as the specific partnerships.
As he explained during our call and outlined in the press release linked above, the programme is focused on four interconnected strategic pillars: science and technology; precision capacity creation; cost competitiveness; and sustainability.
As Vikram Agarwal, COO at Danone, says in the release: “The supply chain plays a pivotal role in generating business competitiveness, creating value and driving progression… By partnering with industry leaders across our ecosystem we’ve forged strategic partnerships which leverage our respective strengths to create shared value, supporting the acceleration of a sustainable, climate-focused transition across priority sectors.”
Procurement Leaders provided members with an opportunity to dig deeply into the programme and ask probing questions. And while not every CPO will have the determination or strategic vision to make such a programme a success, those who do will reap the rewards across the spectrum of value, including cost competitiveness, resilience, innovation and sustainability.
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