Vodafone Procurement Company February 2020 by Business Chief Europe

Vodafone Procurement Company: transforming the approach

Vodafone Procurement Company: transforming the approach WRITTEN BY

SEAN GALEA-PACE PRODUCED BY

CHARLOTTE CLARKE

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Ninian Wilson, Global Supply Chain Director and CEO of Vodafone Procurement Company, discusses his organisation’s transformation journey and procurement strategies in the supply chain space

ransformation. It’s the major trend of the supply chain industry. And with good reason — it is essential to achieving sus-

tained long-term success. Ninian Wilson, Global Supply Chain Director and CEO of Vodafone Procurement Company, has been with the organi04

sation since 2009. He initially joined in an IT role before transitioning into his current role in 2016. As one of the first objectives upon his arrival, Wilson helped establish a transformation strategy for the organisation. The strategy, called ‘Our House’, was created with a clear mission statement: to be the best digital supply chain management (SCM) team in a connected world, powered by people and partnering to create value through innovation and ecosystem management. There are four main rooms of the house: the kitchen, games room, garage and dining room. “The kitchen is owned by the Chief Operating Officer. The best things happen in the kitchen, so naturally that’s where we run operations from,” explains Wilson. “In the garage, we have our innovation centre where we incubate small companies that can create value, whether

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“ Our House’ is built on solid foundation blocks around health and safety, purpose and inspiring our people” — Ninian Wilson, Global Supply Chain Director and CEO, Vodafone Procurement Company

that’s increased revenue, profit or taking costs out of Vodafone. The games room allows us to trial new things. For example, we try new technology to use internally in supply chain management.

If it works, we scale it. If it doesn’t, then we simply turn it off. Finally, we have the dining room, which represents our supply chain management sales. We work with external clients; not just for Vodafone. We invite those external clients into the dining room to see what we’ve developed and to support them in their procurement activities.” With that clear plan in place, Wilson believes the reason the house strategy has been successful is because it allows the different categories to be split up and looked after individually, while also enabling staff to take responsibility for their respective areas. “‘Our House’ is built on solid foundation

CLICK TO WATCH : ‘ARCH SUMMIT 2019_NINIAN WILSON – CEO, VODAFONE PROCUREMENT COMPANY’ 07 blocks around health and safety, pur-

With technology beginning to take a

pose and inspiring our people,” he

firm hold in the supply chain industry,

explains. “When I first joined, our staff

Vodafone Procurement Company has

decided to renovate the house, took

become more data-focused, building

ownership and transformed it by chang-

inconsiderable digital visibility into

ing some of the themes. It’s great when

supply chain operations. “We’ve built

people feel that the whole SCM organi-

a procurement control centre here in

sation is their house and they own it.”

Luxembourg that gives us a view of

Vodafone Procurement Company

every single purchase order from the

oversees its procurement opera-

operating companies in near real-time.

tions in Luxembourg via a centralised

We can then map all of our perfor-

procurement model. The organisa-

mance metrics into that near real-time

tion manages 83% of Vodafone’s

platform,” says Wilson. “We’ve added a

overall spend and supports all 24

tremendous amount of digital visibility

of Vodafone’s operating companies.

into our supply chain operations, AND w w w.vo da fo n e. com

VMware helps power Vodafone’s network cloud of the future.

Vodafone: Building a Network Cloud of the Future Worldwide, communications service providers (CSPs) are adopting software-defined virtualised platforms and services as they evolve their mobile networks for the upcoming introduction of 5G. That’s because Network Functions Virtualisation (NFV) streamlines the design and deployment of networking services and automates their operation—all while enabling scale and cost-efficiency. Vodafone Group—with mobile operations in 25 countries and fixed broadband operations in 19 markets—is working with VMware to support its global rollout of virtual network functions. Vodafone is using NFV and software-defined networking technologies across apps and networks to accelerate its delivery of cloud-based network functions. “Virtualised, cloud-native network functions are a critical element of our Group-wide program as we continue to transform how we build, operate and evolve our networks and services,” says Matt Beal, director of technology strategy and architecture at Vodafone Group. “Reducing the time and cost to deploy and operate services, using automation and convergence in standardised cloud environments for both our network and IT businesses, is a critical part of our technology and operational transformation strategies.” VMware helps CSPs like Vodafone create new revenue streams, open new industry opportunities, drive down costs and improve overall customer satisfaction by enabling them to become nimbler and more responsive. VMware provides an optimal infrastructure for all telco applications and services: customer-built, packaged, virtualised, cloud-native and software as a service (SaaS). With this infrastructure, CSPs can deliver those applications securely to any endpoint across a telco distributed cloud, including private and public cloud, branch/edge, micro data centre, gateway or end user. Companies like Vodafone can roll out multiple applications on a common NFV infrastructure, rather than building new platforms for each innovative service. The VMware-based virtualised infrastructure also provides a common architecture spanning network and IT operations, further improving operational efficiencies and overall economics. With VMware, CSPs have the flexibility to choose from several certified VMware Ready™ for NFV virtual network functions, providing confidence in pretested and pre-certified solutions that can reduce deployment risk. “Vodafone’s selection of VMware to support network transformation highlights how we are a proven, strategic software innovator that can help CSPs successfully deliver new services faster while driving down costs,” says Shekar Ayyar, executive vice president and general manager, Telco Group at VMware. “Our VMware vCloud® NFV™ platform is an agile and flexible virtualised infrastructure platform. Combined with Carrier-Grade Support, this will provide Vodafone with an open platform for new service development today, with an architecture that will support 5G deployments in the future.”

V O D A F O N E P R O C U R E M E N T C O M PA N Y

to help create that capability we’ve

we have a separate budget to try new

employed several data scientists. It’s

things which may or may not work,”

a truly international operation and the

explains Wilson. “Once we’ve seen,

team helps us to remain focused on

understood and analysed a specific

digitalising everything we do in the

technology, we then create a business

supply chain.”

case for implementation and are rigor-

Although Wilson recognises the

ous on how we implement that new

value of implementing technology,

technology and capability within the

he believes it’s important to not just

organisation.” Over the past few years,

introduce new processes for the sake

Vodafone Procurement Company has

of it. “There are things you should

sharpened its focus on digitalisation

try to see if they work, because it’s

significantly. To Wilson, operations are

important to improve your capabilities

centred around ‘performance manage-

and knowledge. That’s why we ensure

ment and metrics’. “If you think of that

E XE CU T I VE PRO FI LE

Ninian Wilson, Ninian joined Vodafone on 1 June 2009 as SCM IT Director, and was appointed to the board of the Vodafone Procurement Company in November 2009. From 2014-16 Ninian held the role of SCM Technology Director, and was responsible for all technology sourcing in Vodafone including networks, IT and new product development. In March 2016 he was appointed as Director of Group SCM and CEO of the Vodafone Procurement Company. Prior to joining Vodafone, Ninian held the position of Operations Director for Royal Mail plc, managing the largest workforce in the United Kingdom with full accountability for the delivery of Royal Mailâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s customer promise and its transformation programme. Previously, Ninian held senior positions in Cable & Wireless plc. (Chief Procurement Officer & Group Property Director) and was a member of the board of the Caribbean Business Unit and Trustee of the Pension Scheme. Ninian was educated at Aberdeen University and holds a Bsc Hons degree in Geography. He is also a member of the Chartered Institute of Purchasing & Supply and a life member of the Institute of Directors. Ninian lives in Luxembourg with his wife Philippa.

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2008

Year founded

250

Number of employees

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transactional activity, it’s all digitalised

With continuous improvement a key

and metric driven. The next step we’re

component of Wilson’s mantra, he

working on is adding artificial intel-

believes that you can’t afford to stand

ligence (AI) into our processes,” he

still. “If you win a gold medal at the

says. “In our procurement organisation,

Olympics, you’ve done very well in your

everything is digitally presented on

particular sport, but the people who

scorecards. There’s no PowerPoint

really stand out are the ones who win

presentation. Over the past year, we’ve

consistently and keep on breaking

slowly increased our interest in AI

world records,” he says. “This applies

and machine learning (ML), which is

to us because we want to have a mental-

centered around category manage-

ity where it’s about being excellent at

ment and the tender process. It’s a

what we do and continually improving

work in progress and will enable us

all of our metrics, costs and perfor-

to ensure we’ve covered all the pieces

mance. It’s a mindset which we have

of the value stream and digitalised over

here in the leadership team and in

a three to five year journey.”

supply chain management.” While Wilson believes his organisation is in a great place, he also understands the necessity of striving to be better every year. “It’s so important that we all have the mindset around improvement

“ It’s a truly international operation and we remain focused on how they can help digitalise everything we do in the supply chain” — Ninian Wilson, Global Supply Chain Director and CEO, Vodafone Procurement Company w w w.vo da fo n e. com

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and excellence, because we can always do better every year,” says Wilson. “Everyone else in procurement improves, so you’ve got to keep trying to enhance yourself, team and function. I’m a great believer in continuous improvement and striving for things that seem impossible.” Vodafone Procurement Company values its collaboration with other companies. Wilson points to the 12 strategic partnerships which exist

— Name of Person, Position and company

as key network and IT vendors. “Our partnerships are grounded in strong commercial foundations. For example, if we’re working with a technology partner with state-of-the-art technology, then we think about how we manage those relationships so that we both get mutual benefit,” he explains. “Every two months there will be a 90-minute check-in for some of the key technology partners. There are two parts to the agenda; there’s a review of performance and then there’s new releases that the vendor would like to come and talk to us about.” Looking to the future, Wilson believes that Vodafone is built for success in the ever-evolving supply chain industry w w w.vo da fo n e. com

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“ I’m a great believer in continuous improvement and striving for things that seem impossible” — Ninian Wilson, Global Supply Chain Director and CEO, Vodafone Procurement Company

over the next few years. “We have

and that’s a really positive develop-

a tremendous European platform

ment for the industry. Ultimately,

now, following the acquisitions which

digitalisation and transparency will

we completed last year in Germany

walk hand in hand together and con-

and central and eastern Europe,” he

tinue to transform the supply chain

explains. “In terms of future evolution

over the next five years.”

of the industry, I think we’re seeing more automation of the menial tasks and more AI and ML being leveraged. Blockchain is also becoming more important in the supply chain space w w w.vo da fo n e. com

Vodafone Procurement Company S. a. R. I. 15 Rue Edward Steichen 2540 Luxembourg T +352 27 00 27 01102 www.vodafone.com