MIDDLE EAST
Al Ghurair is one of the largest diversified industrial enterprises in the UAE . With over 40 years of experience spanning 20 countries across nine different businesses , including food , construction , property development , energy , resources , international exchange , printing and education , it has been crucial that the group has a strong procurement foundation to fully utilise those business units and continue to be a market leader .
For Pekka Sammallahti , Group Head of Procurement , a way to achieve this has been through the development of a centralized or centrally led procurement function .
“ To try and build this centralised function in a diversified group with multiple Business Units , each focused on its own aspect , there ’ s no real major common procurement category ,” he says .
The bottom line At the start of this procurement process , the key goal was to make an impact on savings in both indirect and direct procurement .
Sammallahti set out to separate what can be categorised as direct procurement and indirect procurement to achieve maximum savings for the enterprise . During this time , the group was also undergoing a shift in focus with regards to functionality .
“ Al Ghurair had previously focused on ensuring that we are buying our products at the right time for the lowest cost ,” says Sammallahti .
“ But I have built up the procurement function so that we have adopted e-sourcing and e-auctions which is key in making the efficiency of procurement much better than the traditional model .”
The development of the procurement function has been driven by two key goals : to improve the bottom line through significant savings and to create a more strategic function and be a business partner to the stakeholders .
“ We ensure that the supply is there and the prices are there , but now we are looking at total cost of ownership and specifically , the total value that
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