The Purchaser 18 - John Wilgar

J O H N W I L G A R THE ART OF GLASS JOHN WILGAR CPO AT NSG GROUP DISCUSSES HOW TO AFFECT POSITIVE CHANGE IN THE WORLD, TRANSFORM OUR SURROUNDINGS, AND IMPROVE OUR ENVIRONMENT, ALL THROUGH THE ART OF PROCUREMENT. SUPPORTED BY:

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John Wilgar is a man made for manufacturing.

Starting his procurement journey over 30 years ago, he has a passion for the industry, explaining that he loves seeing raw materials being transformed from their basic state “into amazing products that change people’s lives.”

He is currently Chief Procurement Officer at NSG Group, one of the largest manufacturers of glass and glazing products for multiple sectors such as automotive, architectural, solar, and specialist applications.

Yet he began his career as a graduate trainee for a global car manufacturer – a joint venture between a U.S. and Japanese company – spending the first month working on the production line at the assembly plant.

“It was a very interesting cultural blend.

“By working on the production line – what the Japanese call gemba, which means the actual place or the place where value is created, I learned so much, learnings that are still with me today, even 30 years on.

“I’ve used that experience to understand the core of each issue on how to address challenges in front of me by going back to basics. This is really the power of doing a task to fully understand it,” he says.

Wilgar has always worked in manufacturing companies, and “in terms of the industry I’m currently in, glass is really an amazing product. It’s been around for thousands of years, and we continue to find new innovative uses for glass and the special coatings we apply to it.

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“Glass is infinitely recyclable, and we are developing new, thinner glass – some as thin as 0.3 millimetres, which is helping reduce the weight of glass in vehicles and in other applications. The coatings save energy in cars and buildings and help to generate energy in solar panels as they’re an active ingredient in some solar panel technologies,” he explains.

Wilgar points out that the problem with glass is that when it’s doing its job correctly, people don’t even see it. “It’s transparent and invisible, but I believe the future is bright for the glass industry. And our new challenge will be to decarbonise the way we manufacture glass,” he says.

NSG recently launched a new glass product called Mirai – the Japanese word for future – and it has 50% less embodied carbon than normal glass. “We can achieve this using renewable energy and alternative fuels like biofuel and hydrogen in our furnaces,” Wilgar says. “Our procurement team is instrumental in sourcing those resources to ensure we can manufacture lower carbon products today and in the future,” he adds.

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“Glass is infinitely recyclable, and we are developing new, thinner glass – some as thin as 0.3 millimetres, which is helping reduce the weight of glass in vehicles and in other applications.”

And with the scope of procurement, Wilgar has seen it expand massively, especially in the last five years or so and now, “procurement is instrumental in shaping our company agenda on sustainability, contributing to increases in innovation coming from the outside world from our suppliers, helping drive

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new operating models for our companies, and driving digital transformation around different processes, whether that’s around source to pay, spend management, category management, or supply chain management,” he explains.

“There’s the sort of step change which you can associate with transformation, but there’s also continuous change. This is incremental.

In NSG’s procurement transformation, Wilgar says it was key to get people excited, not threatened by change, and they needed to see how it would improve their lives, jobs, what they can contribute, and the impact they can make on the world. “That could be in terms of addressing climate change, improving worker rights in our supply chain, or how our buying power can work for the betterment of society, with social and diverse procurement programs.

“The Japanese call it kaizen, and this is more of a continuous change rather than step change approach,” he says, believing both types of change management are important.

“Sometimes there’s a place for kaizen and sometimes more for transformational changes.

I think in our world today, there’s more transformational change because the pace of change is happening much more quickly. It’s important to not be stationary. Standing still

“Our new challenge will be to decarbonise the way we manufacture glass.”

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From Wilgar’s leadership perspective, transformation is perhaps an overused word, “and many companies and businesses talk about going through it. Often, they are, but I look at change in two ways.

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is not an option because that means going backwards, which can lead to stagnation, lack of ambition, and ultimately business failure,” he adds.

“It’s also about structure and discipline.

We can all have great ideas about transformation and what we’d like to do, but it must be tailored with reality, and needs to be properly structured and disciplined,” he explains. As there are many moving parts in any transformation program, Wilgar says being organised, aligned, and having good prioritisation is key to success, so it’s not just empty words and wishful thinking.

One of NSG’s recent transformations is the launch of its group Sustainable Supply Chain Charter in September 2023, which looks at human rights, greenhouse gases, and the importance of supplier collaboration.

Wilgar says they knew sustainability was going to be a key pillar, as NSG is an energy intensive company with high CO2 emissions.

Interestingly, NSG is a member of the Sumitomo Group of companies, which has a 400-year-history of being a responsible

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“Energy is our largest spend area and also contributes around half of our CO2 emissions in Scope 1 and 2. So maintaining cost competitiveness, managing supply risk and addressing climate change needs the support of key partners such as RWE, with whom we have a long standing strategic relationship.”

John Wilgar, Chief Procurement Officer at NSG Pilkington

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company. “One of the principles of the Sumitomo Group is that business interest must always be in harmony with the public interest,” Wilgar says. “As such, we wanted to do more in terms of creating fully sustainable supply chains today and for the longer term.

“We wanted the buy-in and ownership of this initiative to stretch across the entire company. We formed a cross-functional team, comprising of members from all group functions and business units. It wasn’t just the procurement initiative we wanted to address – we needed ownership across the entire business,” he says. The Sustainable Supply Chain Charter was then launched, which sets out to address sustainability in the supply chain across eight impact areas, including greenhouse gases, human rights, labour 20

rights, water waste management, diversity, equity, inclusion, and so on.

“This Sumitomo spirit as it’s called, places this huge importance on integrity and sound management,” Wilgar quips.

“These principles are as relevant and valuable today as they were in the 17th century.

So, a strong ethical foundation is fundamental to NSG’s management style and ways of working. We conduct a lot of training and guidance around ethics. And each year, we have a global ethics and compliance week all around the world, with training, seminars, and different initiatives,” he explains.

When Wilgar took over the role of CPO in 2021, he knew that whilst there was a great team already in place, he felt they could do

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more to contribute to the strategic goals of the company. “We began a few projects, like challenging our operating model, increasing our focus on talent and diversity within procurement, looking at how we could contribute more to sustainability, and how we could transform our work through digital transformation,” he explains. And more than two years on, he’s very pleased with the progress they’ve made, including the increase of females in management positions, with the support of a women’s focus group in procurement and mentoring.

A centre of excellence for sourcing and category management has also been created, which looks to increase innovation from suppliers and around sustainability. “This last area, sustainability, is perhaps the most important of all. I see climate change spiralling

“Our procurement team is instrumental in sourcing those resources to ensure we can manufacture lower carbon products today and in the future.”

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out of control, and social inequality is unfortunately also increasing.

“We have a responsibility to address this, putting sustainability and sustainable supply chains at the core of our procurement strategy in NSG. We can reduce our scope 1 emissions via alternative fuels, and scope 2 with introduction and aggressive adoption of renewable electricity.

“Scope 3 represents around 50% of NSG’s total CO2 emissions as a company. The procurement team can impact this by working with our suppliers and incentivising them to reduce emissions.

“These challenges can only be addressed by working closely with our supply partners; companies such as RWE, with whom we have a long standing strategic relationship in the energy area. Energy is our largest spend area and also contributes around half or our CO2 emissions in Scope 1 and 2. So maintaining cost competitiveness, managing supply risk and addressing climate change needs

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the support of key partners such as RWE.” Wilgar says it’s also important to take a long-term view on challenges, particularly around climate change and sustainability.

“These issues won’t be addressed in a year or two years. We need a 10-year strategy for initiatives, goals, and projects that we’re working on.

“It will also involve some risk taking.

Traditionally, NSG and the glass industry is quite risk averse. But when we talk about alternative ways of manufacturing glass, it will involve some risk and we must manage that carefully by testing and validating new products and process innovations.

“We must be prepared to learn and develop our thinking on how to overcome big issues we face. Yet I’m confident NSG has the desire, ambition, and leadership to follow the right path towards our mission of changing our surroundings and improving our world,” he explains.

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Wilgar reckons leadership is largely about empowerment and trust of people around you – “allowing them to grow and realise their full potential. It’s also about two-way communication, not a top-down directive approach,” he says.

“It’s listening more and understanding what’s happening in people’s lives and how we can accommodate within certain roles to realise and support potential.

“If we all think the same, we will always get the same results,” he reckons. “To improve and lead, we need that diversity as an organisation.

I believe the same goes through our supply base.

“We will soon launch a formal diverse and social supplier program to enable suppliers with different profiles to have access to NSG as a partner. We want to use our purchasing power to affect positive change in the world, supporting the NSG mission statement, changing our surroundings, and improving our world,” he adds.

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And in leadership, Wilgar believes you should be a coach to encourage and create the environment for success. “We must also draw clear lines from the work people are doing, to strategic goals of the business. They need to understand what they do in their day-to-day work is contributing to strategic objectives of the business,” he says.

NSG also has a Leadership Behaviour Charter, which provides a clear set of behavioural guidelines for the company.

“If people like the purpose of the Company and believe leaders are committed to it, they will want to work here,” Wilgar explains. “Other important factors include financial rewards, development and growth opportunities, the physical working environment we provide, the culture and spirit of the team, flexible working practices, and the quality of the work itself,” he adds.

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