THE CHIEF PROCUREMENT OFFICER OF SIEMENS TALKS NEW HOBBIES , THE SHIFTING ROLE OF PROCUREMENT , AND THE MOMENT DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION CLICKED
FIVE MINUTES WITH ...
KLAUS
STAUBITZER
THE CHIEF PROCUREMENT OFFICER OF SIEMENS TALKS NEW HOBBIES , THE SHIFTING ROLE OF PROCUREMENT , AND THE MOMENT DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION CLICKED
Q . WHO ARE YOU AND WHAT DO YOU DO ?
» I ’ m Klaus Staubitzer , the Chief Procurement Officer at Siemens . I ’ ve had many different roles within the company over more than 25 years , but today , along with the many other folks in what we call the Siemens Supply Chain Ecosystem , we manage more than € 40bn in annual spend . It ’ s a massive amount of spend and we do our utmost to make the most of it , which is very interesting , and very , very challenging at the moment .
Q . WHAT ARE THE BIG QUESTIONS OCCUPYING YOU PROFESSIONAL TIME ?
» At the moment we have the obvious challenge of getting all the materials and all the services that we need on site , due to the global availability issue that we ’ re all experiencing . But aside from this , the big challenge is how can we transform our function from a pure cost-cutter into a value-add orchestrator . Where is our next north star ?
Getting the cheapest price is no longer the best thing we can gain out of having such a huge purchasing volume ; there are many other different facets we have to focus on . That means productivity is a given , quality and availability are other facets , and on top of that , using the power of our suppliers ’ innovation is also something we have to focus on . The real discipline is to find the right balance in between all those - and of course sustainability is the outcome of how we manage that transformation from cost to value-add .
Q . WHAT ARE THE BIGGEST CHALLENGES YOU CURRENTLY FACE ?
» Really this is a question of both challenge and opportunity . If I think back to 2017 , some of our board members returned from the World Economic Forum , energised and excited that all the technical systems we needed for our digital transformation already existed . Great , but that was never really the limiting factor .
20 September 2021