VODAFONE PROCUREMENT COMPANY
the KPIs and making sure those are presented in the correct way . And also that we actually do manage the contract after the award , which is sometimes a bit of an Achilles heel for procurement .
“ We ' ve also just resigned with Vizibl – an SRM tool . They provide information and data on your strategic relationships . So if we have a strategic relationship say with Microsoft then all of the data – what we buy from Microsoft , what we sell to Microsoft , what we do together – will be hosted in that tool and made visible to all key stakeholders . One of the challenges in , in distributed companies is keeping everybody joined up with where you are on key relationships , so Vizibl keeps everybody joined up , but also tracks progress against some key initiatives which we ' ve got with each of those partners .”
“ I think that becomes the new frontier for procurement ,” says Wilson . “ You should be doing machine learning , you should be doing artificial intelligence , but predictive is kind of cool if we can get there . Some companies are doing the cool bits of predictive . We saw some great work by Bob Murphy from IBM . I think there ' s a huge opportunity for us in predictive analytics , especially when you get into physical supply chain operations .
“ We will be making some more digital investments to make sure that we maintain that resilience and build upon it over the next two to three years .”
Smarter data analytics Vodafone uses a wealth of smart tools to provide unprecedented visibility , transparency and increased efficiencies based on data , but what if you could take that to the next level with predictive analytics ? Having that historical database helps to look ahead to potential problems or to reduce inefficiencies .
Wilson talks about getting to a point where he may even be able to predict contract failure . While admitting those advanced analytics are not quite there yet , disruption like Covid-19 highlighted the need to assess and mitigate risk in the supply chain . That not only means being wary of companies that may be at risk of failure , but also supporting those that need it most by perhaps purchasing more inventory or adjusting payment terms .
And you ' ve got 12,000 vendors . It ' s moderately difficult to answer . So I ' d like to have all of that analytics in place where I can know , see I ' m touching a button .
52 April 2021