Batelco has ‘World Class’ Purchasing and Supply Chain firmly in its sights

NEW STRATEGIC INITIATIVE

February heralded some new and exciting developments as the Purchasing and Supply Chain department received the green light to commence phase one of a major initiative aimed at delivering significant benefit and contributing to the strategic goal of becoming a ‘World Class’ department.

These developments are all part of Batelco’s drive to maintain their leadership position in the face of increasing competition. As Managing Director, Tony Hart remarked “It is essential that we have the most cost effective operation we can, and the Procurement and Supply Chain function is critical to achieving this winning position”.

Salim Buassally, General Manager of Finance, agrees: “We have undergone significant change during the last year and the timing is now right to set new and challenging goals for the department”.

The decision to pursue a ‘World Class’ strategy is the culmination of an extensive review of the purchasing and supply department by an international team comprising of members from Batelco, Cable and Wireless (C&W) and C&W’s preferred purchasing consultants, State of Flux.

Martin Perminas, Vice President of C&W Purchasing and Supply Chain, points out that this is a fantastic opportunity to highlight the value of working in Partnership with C&W. “The opportunity for Batelco to leverage our global relationships and share best practices from C&W’s award winning Purchasing and Supply Chain team is very real and we are delighted to assist Batelco on this journey.”

PURCHASING AND SUPPLY CHAIN STUDY

The review took place at the end of last year and assessed a broad range of issues including the percentage of spend covered by the Purchasing & Supply Chain department and assessing the level of strategic influence the department has on the business as a whole.

Overall the department was found to be highly competent and engaged in the business. Particularly impressive was the departments’ capability in using Requests for Proposals (RFPs) and the level of control the department has over Batelco’s expenditure.

Several opportunities for continuous improvement have been identified, including quick wins to significantly reduce the cost of warehousing and applying advanced negotiation and sourcing techniques to extract greater value from several key contracts

THE SPECIFIC INITIATIVES

The findings of the review, including specific value creation opportunities, were presented to the senior management team in early February 2005. As a result, several initiatives are currently underway to realise these opportunities:

• Reviewing and benchmarking key relationships against C&W’s contracts to assess the opportunity for cost reduction. This will be achieved through applying proven best practices and leveraging the global buying power and strong supplier relationships of C&W 

• Reviewing the warehousing operations at Hamala with specific deliverables around implementation of formulae driven re-order level and economic order quantities which will drive a reduction in the inventory held within the business and a business case for the implementation of bar-coding or RFID.

The warehousing project commenced following approval by SMT, and will run until Mid May. The relationships review commenced on the 28^th March and will run for three months.

Watch this space for further news on Batelco’s journey to develop a leading ‘World Class’ Purchasing and Supply Chain function.