Supply Chain Digital magazine - July 2016

w w w. s u p p l yc h ai n d ig i t al . c o m

J u l y 2016

Coca-Cola European Partners’ SUSTAINABLE SUPPLY CHAIN

TOP9 Least resilient logistics markets

TECH Streamlining supplier

management with cloud portals

All aboard Arriva Group THE ROAD TO SUCCESS

Learn More

EDITOR’S COMMENT

IN THIS ISSUE

HELLO AND WELCOME TO

the July

issue of Supply Chain Digital, Our exclusive cover story takes a look at Coca-Cola European Partners’ Dunkirk bottling plant and how this key facility has enabled the beverage giant to deliver sustainability savings while rolling out its innovative Euro 2016 packaging.

Also in this issue, Anil Kodali, Vice President of Services for TAKE Supply Chain examines how companies streamlining supplier management with cloud portals can avoid fraud and internal error. Last but not least, Supply Chain Digital looks at the 10 countries with the last resilient supply chains according to the 2016 FM Global Resilience Index.

This month is also packed with a range of company profiles including Arriva Group, Whistl, Siam Winery and Kudu Corp.

Enjoy the read Nye Longman EDITOR nye.longman@bizclikmedia.com

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CONTENTS

Features

Coca-Cola European Partners’ SUSTAINABLE SUPPLY CHAIN Streamlining: supplier management with cloud portals

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6

TOP 9 countries with the least resilient supply chains

22

Company Profiles

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Whistl

EUROPE 32 Whistl 46 Arriva Group

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MIDDLE EAST 62 Kudu Corp 84 du

Kudu Group

104 FrieslandCampina 118 Saveco

ASIA & AUSTRALIA 130 Siam Winery 142 Mon Logistics Group 154 Vision Australia

84

du

46 104 Arriva Group

Friesland Campina

Vision Australia

118

Saveco

130

Siam Winery

154

PROFILE

CocaEuropean

SUSTAINABLE S Writ ten by:

-Cola Partners’

SUPPLY CHAIN N Y E LO N G M A N

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PROFILE

Supply Chain Digital takes an indepth look at Coca-Cola European Partners’ bottling plant in Dunkirk and explains why it is a noteworthy model for businesses everywhere 2016 HAS BEEN a momentous year for Coca Cola European Partners’ (CCEP) bottling plant at Dunkirk.

Not only has the facility maintained its commitment to exemplary sustainability and ethics standards, but has also delivered a never before seen packaging line in time for this month’s Euro 2016 tournament. On top of that, it has emerged seamlessly from a successful combination of Coca-Cola Enterprises, Inc., CocaCola Iberian Partners S.A.U., and Coca-Cola Erfrischungsgetränke GmbH at the end of May. Supply Chain Digital explores in-depth how the award-winning Dunkirk site has made a significant contribution to radically increasing sustainability across the board.

We speak to Site Manager Etienne 8

July 2016

Van Poucke to learn more about the how the plant is leading the industry for sustainability.

CCEP has focussed on innovating across its manufacturing and supply chain operations, while continuing to play an influential role through various local and international sustainability schemes.

The company is well-positioned to lead the industry towards a lowcarbon, zero waste operating model.

CCEP seeks to deliver today’s sustainability targets while ensuring that its work is a guiding light for a future of sustainable innovation.

Spotlight on Dunkirk CCEP’s bottling plant was established in 1989 and since then has gone from strength to strength, becoming

C O C A - C O L A E U R O P E A N PA R T N E R S

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Etienne Van Poucke, Dunkirk Site Manager Etienne Van Poucke has worked for CCE (and then CCEP) for a total of 32 years following the completion of his Master’s diploma in chemical technology at the University of Ghent, Belgium. Previously he worked as a site director at two sites in Belgium before moving on to restructure the supply chain at the company’s Oslo site.

He became Dunkirk site director at the end of 2013: “This plant has been known as one of our top plants for years, so it can be challenging to improve our ways of working.

But we still keep on trying!” He says.

“The Dunkirk site has always been seen as the big brother of other plants. It is one of the biggest sites in Europe. There are great people here and we are making great progress. I love to work as part of the CocaCola system and have never changed to another company in 32 years. I really do believe it’s the best company to work for.”

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its first European plant to use SAP systems in 2003, and was recognised for its exemplary energy saving operations in 2011, 2012 and 2014 by the company’s internal Oscas Energy award. Van Poucke says: “We are on track to deliver a green scorecard for the end of the year. This means all important Key Business Indicators are on track according to what has been budgeted; we have worked very hard to prepare a

PROFILE

compelling sustainability vision for 2020 as well as introducing the new packaging in March for EURO 2016.”

The plant consists of four can lines (0,33L), one aseptic line PET (0,5L) and one large-PET line; these are supported by 379 staff in a warehouse that has capacity for 20,000 pallets and 329 SKUs. All of these provide 56 different Coca-Cola flavours to countless consumers across France and beyond.

“We have around 50 people are working in distribution. Our main key business indicator is customer service level – that means what we can deliver in time with good

quality and with the right number of pallets and cases. For us, the result is more than 99 percent.” Van Poucke adds, “We have a big focus on training and coaching. People development is very important to us”.

Sustainable bottling The teams at the Dunkirk plant have consistently demonstrated their commitment to the company’s CRS goals through a number of impressive achievements. Since 2008, the plant has reduced its energy consumption by 27 percent, its packaging by 28 percent (50 percent for rLPET ) and its water consumption by 15 11

PROFILE

CASE STUDY: Panini sticker campaign Such is capability and experience housed at the Dunkirk site that it was naturally chosen to produce Coca-Cola’s Panini Euro 2016 stickered bottles – a first for both the site and the company. In total 260 million stickers were deployed across Belgium, France, Spain, Switzerland, Bulgaria and Romania.

“This was a high risk project because we were working on lots of avenues in parallel and had to buy lots of additional materials. Another challenge was the changing nature of the project. We had to consider who was going to qualify for EUROs. Volumes and targets were constantly changing because of this.” Van Poucke adds.

“Our aim, right from the start, was to ensure that we sustained environmental standards despite an increase in production levels. The biggest challenge was producing the Panini label on the PET bottles. After the PET bottles are filled, they need to be rinsed with water to clean them and then the bottles need to be dried before labelling. We agreed to extend the capacity of our driers on the line to dry the bottles outside before labelling.”

Although taking months to plan, the timely execution of this project lay in the Dunkirk teams’ ability to adapt processes fast enough to be able to react as quickly as possible - while not once failing to uphold the company’s sustainability directives.

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C O C A - C O L A E U R O P E A N PA R T N E R S

percent. Supporting these savings are a range of innovations which include low-energy LED lighting and low-pressure moulds that work together to reduce consumption.

“We are using a real-time measuring system for efficiency, yield, water, electricity and gas consumption.

This monitoring and tracking system gives us the capability to manage our processes well.” Van Poucke adds.

“Can weight has been reduced by 28 percent since we started in 1989; we are using smaller closures and lightweight preforms for our bottles - we optimised our boiler house and we are using much less pressure for blowing our bottles. We are also working closely with the local community and in four areas: environment, sports, employment and culture.”

The company has backed up its sustainability initiatives with some serious investments, totalling $75 million over the past four years.

This year alone CCEP invested $41 million in bringing a can line closer to its customers in Paris to reduce the distance travelled.

By improving the way in which it receives (fronthauling) and collects

(backhauling) the company has been able to ensure that its trucks move with full loads. Through initiatives such as these 1,897 tonnes of CO2 were saved last year, and backhauling saved an impressive 2.5 million kilometres.

“I call it being responsible and sustainable,” Van Poucke adds, “First of all, we take care of our people and we are doing everything we can to ensure people do not have accidents – we have gone 865 days without a loss-time incident.

“Secondly, we closely follow our environmental ratios, particularly energy. We have improved our energy ratio; we have a monitoring and tracking system of all usage of electricity. We really look at electricity and gas.”

Having recognised its potential to lead its industry, as well as its supporting suppliers, the company has embarked on a new era of sustainable, ethical and profitable business. Having consistently delivered and developed its sustainability targets over the past decade, the plant at Dunkirk is looking forward to leading the business for years to come.

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TECHNOLOGY

STREAMLINING

supplier management with cloud portals Whether through expansion or acquisition, companies will inevitably begin to work with more and more outsourced vendors, exposing them to potential fraud and internal chaos that could destroy supply chain operations Written by: ANIL KODALI, Vice President of Services for TAKE Supply Chain

TECHNOLOGY SUPPLIER FRAUD IS rising sharply and it may be affecting your supplier network. According to the 2015 Kroll Global Fraud Report, 17 percent of companies experienced some type of vendor, supplier or procurement fraud in the past 12 months. Of the firms that were victims of procurement fraud, 49 percent felt highly or moderately vulnerable.

Between negotiations among multiple suppliers and integrating ERPs into a unified system, it becomes vital to leverage supplier relationships for supply chain resiliency. Multiple suppliers vying for control can lead to internal process breakdowns including delay and errors that impact orders, shipments and data transfer critical to manufacturing success. Often times, suppliers cause internal chaos by: • Requiring your company to develop a way for your ERP to communicate with their systems regarding orders and shipments; • Urging your company’s IT staff to develop a way for their systems to communicate with your ERP regarding orders and shipments – commonly done via EDIs or 16

July 2016

APIs for large-volume suppliers; • Attempting to use your preferred portal system to manually log order and shipment data, with little or no training and in the task of doing something different for every customer, potentially causing errors and delays; or • Using outdated processes such as paper invoices, or communicating via phone, fax, and email – causing more labour for your company to transfer the data to your ERP. Effective supplier relationship management (SRM) is not a onetime operation. Companies must set realistic expectations and goals and continue to build trustworthy relationships within each team. To improve communication between multiple partnerships, companies can integrate web-based cloud portals into their technology portfolio to enable stronger collaboration and supplier management. From business cost reductions to higher quality products, cloud and web technologies have the ability to better streamline and manage a diverse supplier network.

S U P P L I E R M A N A G E M E N T W I T H C L O U D P O R TA L S

‘Cloud portals are a costeffective tool to improve SRM and take vendor relationships to higher – and more strategic levels’

Companies can learn to manage vendor interactions and improve resiliency by implementing a strategic approach that begins by categorising suppliers to better serve their needs and end goals. There are four specific categories to highlight: strategic, tactical, operational, and commodity supplier types.

While strategic suppliers need to be monitored closely and internal and external business processes may need 17

TECHNOLOGY

to be adjusted for smooth functioning, tactical suppliers have less overall impact on product delivery success.

As a result, less management is required, but regular monitoring is still needed to ensure quality improvement.

Operational suppliers can be managed less strictly than tactical suppliers, but local decision making may be needed.

Following the operational group in priority are commodity suppliers.

Commodity suppliers provide the lowest value to the organisation and may be easily replaced, but can be used to provide the same material or service interchangeably based on ability to deliver demand requirements.

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Identifying supplier types can help companies learn how to approach and work with diverse supplier groups.

Once foundational practices have been established, cloud portals can be utilised as an SRM tool in order to prepare companies for potential external chaos, such as environmental, economic or regulatory changes/ disasters. Through data integration, cloud portals bring true supplier management control – and internal sanity – in the form of visibility and efficiency. Instead of straining to see what’s coming around the corner, cloud portals bring proactive insight into supplier data, helping to

S U P P L I E R M A N A G E M E N T W I T H C L O U D P O R TA L S

accurately identify potential order fulfilment issues or pain points earlier on in the ordering process.

Today’s advanced cloud-based technologies are becoming more cost-effective given SaaS subscription models that enable companies to charge a monthly fee based on the number of transactions the supply network performs. Ultimately, this all brings a streamlined supplier network to help management gain a stronger grip on its internal processes.

To maintain effective management, however, companies should consider a few cloud collaboration methods when working with diverse networks.

For instance, for suppliers already using B2B integration to upload data to your ERP system, consider consolidating various formats of the supplier’s B2B integration using a cloud portal, which can handle various B2B formats and transmit a single format file back to your ERP. When working with medium-volume suppliers, take advantage of packaged methods to batch transmission data into the web portal, and note that smallervolume suppliers can quickly login to enter order and shipment data.

Other ways to help manage suppliers may factor in KPI measurement, scorecards regulatory compliance 19

TECHNOLOGY

‘With the globalisation of supply chain operations, companies are sharing more data upstream and downstream, which requires a supportive supplier network’

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S U P P L I E R M A N A G E M E N T W I T H C L O U D P O R TA L S

and even negotiation methods to measure and maximise performance.

After setting SRM in place and adding cloud portal tool(s), companies will find continued success by building processes and leveraging relationships to make their SRM program a cornerstone of resilience. Companies should institute business practices that will maintain brand integrity and provide a competitive edge. Specifically, it may be useful to identify areas where competitors tend to cut corners to achieve short-term cost savings. In 2015, for example, Blue Bell Creameries suffered recalls, factory shutdowns and negative publicity in the wake of the discovery of listeria in its frozen dairy products. The lack of strict regulatory compliance with dairy/food inspection not only contaminated their products, but also presented an open opportunity for other frozen dairy vendors to benefit from sales by following Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FDCA) standards and compliance.

Before signing any supplier agreements, companies should also consider researching suppliers for potential risk. In other words, consider how your suppliers’ practices could adversely affect the company’s brand

in ways that might not be detected by technology or internal practices.

For example, there is a huge push to increase supplier audits in emerging economies, such as Asia and the Middle East due to concerns around child, slave and other unethical labour practices that have negatively impacted the brands of their American and European customers.

With the globalisation of supply chain operations, companies are sharing more data upstream and downstream, which requires a supportive supplier network. Selecting strategic suppliers that provide manufacturing locations with consistent global quality and reliable local service is a challenge for many, but collaboration within supply chain management can forge business relationships and secure a clear and competitive advantage for companies desiring to reach best in class status. Effective SRM can lead to better resource management by understanding supplier types and utilising a cloud portal tool to reduce costs and improve operational visibility. Cloud portals are a costeffective tool to improve SRM and take vendor relationships to higher – and more strategic levels.

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TT OOPP1 09

Top 9 countr least resilient s

Resilient supply chains are vital to rob executives and supply chain professi of threats to this, which include the s and the fallout from depr

Written by: Ny

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tries with the supply chains

bust business performance. Financial ionals are losing sleep over a number spread of terrorism, natural disasters ressed commodity prices

ye Longman

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TTOOPP 190

A RANGE OF THREATS have been taken into account in the 2016 FM Global Resilience Index, which is the definitive global ranking of countries’ business resilience to supply chain disruption. FM Global is one of the world’s largest commercial property insurers and has ranked 130 countries according to nine key drivers that can affect the vulnerability of a business operating in any one of the countries. These drivers are categorised under three core resilience factors which consist of Supply Chain, Risk Quality, and Economic Factors.

FM Global believes that all loss is preventable, and has created this publicly available tool to help multinationals make more informed decisions when expanding (or expanding their supply chains) into new territories.

Honduras

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Honduras is subject to a tragically unavoidable driver of poor performance in the rankings - its proximity to natural disaster hotspots (as well as the measures in place to tackle subsequent damage to supply chains.) More manmade natural disasters are also becoming a decisive risk-factor in the wake of increased illegal logging in the South American country.

L E A S T R E S I L I E N T S U P P LY C H A I N S

Jamaica Similar to Honduras, Jamaica is faced being in a disaster-prone location while having the inadequate response resources in place to adequately mitigate supply chain disruption. The Caribbean island operates under a mixed economy and has a number of infrastructure systems in place but these require more investment in order to be resilient.

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TTOOPP 190

Egypt

7 Algeria Algeria’s economy has been reliant on hydrocarbons for some time, which typically account for around 60 percent of government revenues. Coupled with the threat of terror and the slump in global oil price, the country’s supply chains have been subject to increasing risks which is reflected by a seven-place drop on last year’s rankings.

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Egypt’s situation is similar to that of Algeria’s, although the North African nation has not suffered as much from the oil price slump due to its more diversified economy.

Its business environment has been in a state of uncertainty since the revolution in 2011 but has made some recovery.

Commentary from across the political spectrum is calling for an improvement in governance, institutions and human rights.

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Mauritania

5 Ukraine Geographically, Ukraine functions as a trade route and oil pipeline between Europe and Russia, which makes the ongoing turmoil there all the more important on an international scale. The report says: “Ukraine, already one of the biggest fallers last year, is again one of the biggest fallers this year, dropping a further 18 places.

On the political risk dimension alone, Ukraine dropped from 106 last year to 128 this year, as the integrity of the country continues to be threatened by a high degree of tension from both within the country and with Russia.”

While Mauritania is home to substantial iron deposits, the African nation remains plagued by poor infrastructure connections alongside widespread poverty.

The report also highlighted “poor quality local suppliers” as a factor for explaining its low ranking – a factor any supply chain manager would be wise to take serious note of.

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TTOOPP 190

3 Kyrgz Republic Corruption weighs heavily on the international reputation of Kyrgyzstan following its consistently unfavourable placing on the Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI) preceded by two revolutions in the past decade. The country itself has improved economic output in the past twenty years but it remains to be seen how serious the new government is in tackling corruption.

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Dominican Republic The FM Global Index highlights that Venezuela and the Dominican Republic are countries where there is a particularly strong need for investment in risk management controls and techniques.

The country ranks poorly on the CPI index and sources from the World Bank has confirmed the presence of corruption up to the government level. The country is also struggling to meet its energy demands, further harming its resilience.

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TTOOPP 190

Venezuela

1

Alongside numerous points of correction required for its ability to avoid, manage and mitigate risk, Venezuela has been flagged by FM Global for its poor infrastructure and high levels of corruption – these factors have ensured that it has retained its bottom place for the second year in a row. The country is currently facing its highest ever levels of currency inflation amid a host of other economic woes. Hit hard by the global economic crisis and, more recently, the global oil slump, Venezuela’s infrastructure is facing chronic under-investment as a number of multinational companies slow or cease their operations in the South American nation. Venezuela is also exposed to the threat of earthquakes and damaging winds.

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Quick as a Whistl Written by Tom Wadlow Produced by Kiron Chavda

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Whistl

‘Build the plane while we’re flying’ is the motto behind the mail delivery specialist’s IT strategy, steered by an outward-thinking director who arrived with no formal technology background

M

aking sure that mail travels from A to B requires a much more robust and slick functioning IT infrastructure than one might originally think. Alignment with the rest of the business’s operations is critical, and this is the job of Whistl’s IT Director.

After spending 12 years delivering vital business operations and product innovation, working closely with crucial operational, billing and CRM systems from a strategic standpoint, a move to IT Director may not have appeared as a natural step.

Three and half years on and this is exactly what has happened at Whistl. Formerly TNT Post - the UK arm of Dutch company TNT (Post NL) - the now-autonomous

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business has seen a huge overhaul in the way technology is managed.

Guiding the transformation is Whistl’s IT Director Lieneke Happel. Having been involved in the company’s journey since 2004, Happel always believed IT could hold the key to real transformation into a market leader.

“I always felt that within our IT functions we could do so much more,” she says. “But I don’t have an IT background and didn’t really know exactly what my criticisms were based on – I recognised that alignment with the business is just so critical.

The business just wants IT to work as effectively as possible.”

“I was excited about the challenge, yet a little scared at the

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Whistl

prospect of running something which I didn’t know what I did or didn’t understand. I said I’d do it for a year as a restructuring sort of focus but I have loved it. The change you can make and the influence you can have is what excites me.

You can determine the speed of change within the company.”

Indeed, Whistl now processes 26 percent of all UK mail through its seven hubs and is eyeing up further expansion into parcels and international deliveries, of which IT will play a crucial part. It already sorts four billion items a year through its core sorted, unsorted, international and hybrid services, which allows

customers to electronically upload what they want to post with Whistl sorting the printing and delivery. The company also conducts targeted doordrop media and leafleting campaigns with customers, based on careful analysis of client and third party data. Major customers include Sky, Barclays and Aegon.

Keeping it simple Approaching IT from a customer experience standpoint with a holistic business strategy in mind has paid dividends.

“I think two things really help me in my job today,” Happel explains.

“One is that I have an overall business view on running IT. I have experience in managing resources and costs that lead to results. The second is trust. The team I work with know that I know the business.

“The one bugbear I had was the gap between business and IT. IT is simply a department within the business and Lieneke the business is simply a Happel, IT Director series of departments.

I immediately had to

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make this clear. This trust allows me to influence the business decisions a lot more than if I had an IT background.”

Even though Happel works in a deeply technical environment, she has always appreciated the need to keep it simple for the benefit of customers and the wider Whistl team.

“It is so easy to make things overly complex, in every department of business in fact,” she says. “Within IT this is even more important because so much is technical and the people are immersed in the detail. It can be tough to lift yourself out and translate your work into how it really impacts others. But this is what I find normal and help to do for the team.”

“The change you can make and the influence you can have is what excites me. You can determine the speed of change within the company”

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Whistl

“once people have something explained to them and they understand, they are willing to be patient and to listen. They are on board, they understand, they don’t criticise. Communication becomes positive.”

Customer focus The end goal of Whistl’s IT strategy is to make doing business with the company as easy and cost effective as possible. After all, it is still very much a physical company

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nasstar.com

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processing mail and parcels.

The management buyout from parent company Post NL has allowed Happel to bring all IT operations into the UK. She explains: “Being such a big company, the strategy and IT solutions they were implementing, although fantastic, were very risk averse and not very open to quick change. We were the new kids on the block, fast growing and agile and it just didn’t match up in cultures and execution.”

EURoPE

Since aligning a lot of small unintegrated processes and steering the 42-strong IT team’s focus to the wider business strategy, a lot has happened regarding the frontline services offered. Whistl now processes 70 million parcels a year to add to the standard mail, while further expansion into international markets has required careful IT planning. “Every country has different distribution rules on how to handover mail, what manifests you need, addressing items, what labels are used, what pre-notifications are required and

1,600

The number of employees working for Whistl

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Whistl

“We very much embrace bimodal IT with multifunctional teams that succeed quickly and I recruit people who get this concept – building the plane while we’re flying” so on,” Happel adds. “You can see how this impacts right across the business and how IT has to adapt to comply with international ways of delivering mail.”

To help customers manage and track their mail’s journeys, Whistl will be launching a new customer portal later this year. This will allow clients to find delivery information and track progress of their direct marketing all in one place on any device, helping them to plan ahead and think more strategically about how they post.

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Partner power One of the first, and certainly most significant changes implemented

by Happel was to bring in expert outsourcing partners to perform and develop key IT functions, enabling the Whistl team to focus their efforts at a strategic level.

Happel comments: “I expect my outsourcing suppliers to stay ahead of the game in terms of R&D and innovation so we can provide our customers the best possible front end and back end services. I chose all the suppliers in the knowledge

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that they all keep abreast of change, so they will always make sure we are using the latest technologies.

“For example, Attenda, who provide our vital hosting services and ensure we are online 24/7, are further integrating cloud into the managed service offering.”

Other key suppliers include network experts Link Connect and Vesk, provider of end user services which includes a virtual desktop solution, allowing Whistl customers to work anywhere, anytime and on any device. It is

also looking at integrating Microsoft Office365 into its solution.

“All three suppliers work as an extension of my team and really know our business,” Happel adds. “I needed companies which were not the industry giants – midsized companies which are focused on building a real relationship and don’t see us as a number on a spreadsheet.

“They are often in the office working with us and when glitches happen, which are inevitable sometimes, they get resolved quickly. w w w. w h i s t l . c o . u k

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Benefiting from the certainty and flexibility of a trusted IT outsourcing partnership As CIOs begin to replace IT Directors, and IT moves to ‘Hybrid’, new types of partnerships are needed. Attenda’s role is to act as a long-term partner and trusted advisor to Clients’ CIOs, delivering business aligned critical IT services: • Modernising IT estates, monitoring and managing IT operations • Providing CIOs with headroom to focus on transformational change • Facilitating choices with impartial advice from practitioners Through our Client Engagement and Service Management processes, we ensure that we can continue to provide the right advice along the transformation journey.

DELIVERING ROBUST BUSINESS CRITICAL MANAGED SERVICES When Whistl separated from its parent company PostNL back in 2013, it created the opportunity to take a new approach to the delivery of its business critical IT services. Prior to the demerger, it outsourced all of its services from the group company, which resulted in inflexible systems that were not specifically designed or adapted to meet the needs of the business operation. Lieneke Happel, CIO, joined Whistl to lead the business transformation, and as part of this, to migrate all of their core services and applications to a UK Managed services provider.

Whistl is the second largest postal company in the UK, processing over 26% of the UK’s mail. It collects, sorts, sends and transports nearly 4 billion items of addressed mail, packets and parcels for businesses. Over 60 million ecommerce items pass through its UK wide network with the provision of tracked and untracked services.

Outsourcing was not new to Whistl, and therefore when it went out to

tender it knew exactly what it was looking for technically, commercially and from a relationship perspective. It selected Attenda as its strategic partner, impressed with the consistently high quality of individuals that it encountered right across the Attenda business, throughout the engagement process.

The Attenda solution underpins Whistl’s business critical applications, without which their business would grind to a halt. For example, the ‘MailNet’ application facilitates the tracking and management of all mail from the sorting office through to the mailbox from customer to handover to Royal Mail delivery - the uptime of this application is paramount to their business. Attenda’s critical applications managed services embrace all of the technical, operational hosting and management of the business critical infrastructure. Attenda is viewed as a seamless extension to the internal team, freeing up their time to focus on supporting new business initiatives, thus adding value.

Lieneke Happel takes up the story, “With Attenda, I never have to worry about whether the applications are available to run our

Call us on 01784 211100 for an exploratory discussion or Email: info@attenda.com

www.attenda.com

We manage complex critical applications, typically involving multiple locations, using our proprietary PARIS (Performance, Availability, Recoverability, Insight and Security) methodology to establish the optimum applications environment and service levels.

Our packaged and customised application services are designed to offload the operational burden of keeping critical applications transacting. From packaged COTS applications such as SAP, to digital e-commerce and brand-critical websites, we monitor and manage these business critical applications, 24 x 7, ensuring that the business transactions keep flowing.

Our Hybrid IT approach is location and platform independent, combining private cloud, Attenda Cloud, and hyper-scale public cloud solutions, with on premise or 3rd party provided data centre services, to deliver tailored hybrid solutions.

Attenda Cloud is our fully managed and self-managed UK sovereign cloud platform, located in our three UK data centres. We manage private cloud solutions providing state of the art private cloud hosting for virtualised environments. Additionally, we deliver hyperscale cloud solutions providing comprehensive applications and infrastructure (IaaS, PaaS and SaaS) managed services for AWS and Azure.

business.” She adds, “You really don’t know how good you have it when everything runs smoothly all the time.”

Whistl embarked upon the migration project with Attenda in August 2014. It was a massive, complex data centre migration, and was executed incredibly smoothly; from engagement to live operation it was completed within twelve months. The business was completely un-impacted by the migration, it was business as usual throughout the project. In fact, no one had even noticed the changeover, a real testament to the smooth running migration project.

Attenda and Whistl share the same ethos, a passion for delivering clients a quality service experience and genuine peace of mind. So, what of the future?

Attenda’s Consulting, Advisory and Project Services (CAPS) services present a compelling proposition, to add further value, with a pick and mix of expertise at different levels. This provides the ability for Whistl to tap into and add to its team, with exactly the type of services required,

Our Hosting and Infrastructure Management services extend from the data centre to the desktop, facilitating the optimisation and transformation of existing systems and infrastructure, and the adoption of new technologies. Our services extend from highly available, highly secure hosting and infrastructure management services, to remote monitoring and management, and colocation services.

Our Cloud services, Hosting and Infrastructure services are all supported by a family of Cyber Security Services, for access control, cyber monitoring and response, threat management and communications security.

when they are required; and where a full time head would not be justified. Due to the agile nature of Whistl and the delivery mechanism, it sees real value in “Smart People as a Service.”

Whistl and Attenda continue to share a joint approach and relationship towards delivering a premium service to Whistl clients and their customers, by building upon the foundations already laid down, to work together on strategy and advice.

Whistl continue to look at the business opportunity for Hybrid IT and public cloud services and recognise that Attenda’s capability to deliver private, shared and hyper-scale pubic cloud managed services, all managed by a single integrated Hybrid IT service management platform, will ensure that the right choices can be made, and the right solutions delivered, when the time is right.

As Lieneke Happel concludes, “Our relationship with Attenda has gone from strength to strength over the last two years. We are very happy that we made the right choice for our strategic IT services partner.”

Whistl

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E ur o pe

The biggest complIment I can pay them is that I don’t have to worry about what they do. I just leave my service delivery guys to get on with it so I can focus on a strategic level. We can focus on business growth and delivery of quick change with the backing of our partners - this is exactly why having such good suppliers is so important.”

Rising to the challenge The most challenging aspect for Happel has been finding the right people for her team.

It is also the most rewarding part of the job, as Whistl’s engaged and motivated IT unit drives tangible change for end users.

“I don’t want people who buy into the tech, I want people who buy into the company,” she says. “I want people to have fun and to be passionate. I want people who have a variety of skills and are not limited by a job description. I like people who can communicate and the reality of our company is we are

changing fast and need to be agile.

“We very much embrace bimodal IT with multifunctional teams that succeed quickly and I recruit people who get this concept – building the plane while we’re flying. You don’t know how the end product is going to look at the start, but you keep improving while learning what the customer really wants.”

It is this strategic, agile approach while always keeping the wider business ambition in mind which has allowed Happel to drive innovation through IT, leveraging the expertise of partners to deliver the best possible experience for customers.

Now, however, is not a time to stand still. Happel concludes: “We must keep learning, keep challenging and keep delivering, and have a lot of fun on the way. I can’t predict the future but what I believe in is if you keep pushing yourself and have fun it doesn’t matter where you end up, because it will be the right place.”

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All aboard Arriva Group an the road to suc

nd ccess

Written by Dale Benton Produced by Richard Durrant

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A R R I VA G R O U P

Arriva Group is fast becoming one of Europe’s leading transport providers, and following a recent award of one of the largest train franchise agreements in the UK, it shows no signs of slowing down

A

rriva Group is a market leader in the European public transportation sector, with successful operations across 14 different European countries.

The company operates over 20,000 buses and around 1,000 train sets, which is a cross platform system that accommodates both cars and/or driving units and trams, as well as up to 600 trains.

Needless to say, since Deutsche Bahn acquired Arriva Group in 2010, the company has grown exponentially. This domination is particularly evident in the UK, one of the biggest markets for Arriva.

“Most people probably aren’t

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aware that we operate a third of the London Buses, and when you consider the amount of buses that run across the whole of London, we do go silently unnoticed,” says David Loseby, Asset Management Director of Arriva UK. Strength in numbers Arriva is a company on the up.

The number of assets Loseby and the company operate with is ever changing.

“Going unnoticed is part and parcel of our operations and in each country it will vary from only a handful of depots to here in the UK where we have over 250,” he adds.

EUROPE

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A R R I VA G R O U P

“The country we are working in will Arriva functions in engineering, determine how large our operations fleet and procurement. This are. Because we are a growing approach places a virtual team company, the number of assets is in each country, and within each increasing with every quarter.” team there are people who are Loseby joined Arriva Group three dedicated resource managers that years ago with a focus on pooling work together to create a network together procurement across all of Arriva’s services. activity across all Since the start of the of the European year, Loseby has seen operations, his role evolve further, including the playing what he calls UK. As with the ‘architect’ in any growing group engineering, company, his role environmental Arriva’s annual has evolved over and sustainable revenue time. “I now work developments with the company on within the CSR and investing in resources and responsible/ethical procurement training, development, tools and aspects of the company. operation systems,” he explains.

“I am someone who sets out the One particular system that business requirements that we need Loseby has played an integral to follow to operate effectively,” role in developing is a matrix Loseby says. “This is achieved management structure across all through ‘inputs’ and ‘outputs’ into

£5.5 billion

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the system and how we can call upon that information to make effective management decisions.”

With such a large supply chain within the UK and across Europe, how does Arriva utilise its assets to maintain its commitment to providing the best customer experience for more than 2.2 billion passenger journeys each year and stay ahead of the game as industry leaders? By integrating all transportation services together to create a fully rationalised operator service.

“We operate across all transport forms,” Loseby states. “Arriva is more of a mobility provider as opposed to a bus provider, we connect the different modes of transport and try and find a more integrated solution.”

“We have a significant number of makes and variations of buses, within the context of supply chain

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A R R I VA G R O U P

“ Arriva is more of a mobility provider as opposed to a bus provider, we connect the different modes of transport and try and find a more integrated solution�

Your destination, our inspiration We are dedicated to developing vehicles and systems to meet mobility challenges of today and help building a sustainable future, with a full range of solutions and services.

Moving people. Changing minds.

S207593_Scania_annons_buss_196x137mm.indd 1

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2016-06-09 08:46

EUROPE

rationalisation – we can’t sustain this. Hence, we now have a core of bus manufacturers and what we are trying to do going forward is to make sure we only procure from our key supply chain partners.”

One aspect of Arriva Group’s supply chain is the provision of spare parts, maintenance, technical support and diagnostic equipment and Loseby believes that working with this core group of partners is what will keep Arriva at the top of the pile.

He explains: “It’s about trying to make sure we work with our supply chain partners in a more effective way, so they can access the right spare parts or the best diagnostic equipment across all of our garages and depots. By rationalising our supply chain, the fewer vehicles and variants we have the more effective and efficient we can be as an operator.”

Since Loseby has been with Arriva, he has helped integrate a code of conduct across all operations.

This is a mandatory requirement in the company’s approach towards responsible, sustainable and ethical trading. It is built upon the principles of the UN Global Compact agreement and Loseby has helped incorporate this into a code of conduct that marries neatly with the ambition of Arriva Group.

“We have very much embraced it and made it fit for purpose for our output,” he adds. “This is what our customers, our passengers and what the transport authorities expect and I believe that we should be championing it in the industry.”

Implementing the code of conduct has allowed Loseby to gain a better understanding of the suppliers and people he works with, with key bus and car manufacturers adopting this level of good practice for years.

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A R R I VA G R O U P

Technically speaking technologies, something that Technology dominates the Loseby stresses is hugely important modern world. In no industry to the future of the industry. is this more apparent than “As a business, in order transportation. Electronic cars to progress and continue to were once deemed the future offer the most effective and but it is clear to see that they are sustainable service, we have to very much right here and now! examine the impacts of different This huge boom technologies,” he says. in technological This is achieved advancement has not through an open gone unnoticed. dialogue with In January 2014, manufacturers.

Arriva buses Loseby trialled eight explains: “We battery-electronic hold discussions Number of employees buses in the UK, with key leading at Arriva exploring potential manufacturers on a savings of up to 600 regular basis and look at tonnes of CO2 emissions per the way in which the industry year. It doesn’t stop there either. is changing through technological There are also 250 hybrid buses advancements. We look at their operating throughout the UK. R&D pipeline and discuss how Arriva is committed to utilising to prioritise which developments more sustainable and efficient we can focus on first, which ones

61,500

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July 2016

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to bring to market first from a monopolising perspective and how to refine and improve these ideas/ designs to unlock the full potential.�

Standardising the industry Arriva is heavily focused on creating a modularity and standardisation

of designs – specifically on board technology. Through Controller Area Network (CAN) systems, Arriva is exploring how to utilise this system, which provides signals from different components from within the bus, allowing engineers to look at diagnostics to see how

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A R R I VA

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“This is what our customers, our passengers and what the transport authorities expect and I believe that we should be championing it in the industry” they can service and maintain the vehicle. The system also allows a clearer look at the performance of a vehicle, maximising the operator’s ‘vehicle up time’ potential.

Fuel efficiency is another key area for Arriva. “We are invested in companies who are at the forefront of fuel efficiency technology,” Loseby adds.

“Our suppliers recognise that we have working relationships with key manufacturers and it is very important for us to discuss and gauge what they are seeing as far as technology, as well as what we are seeing.”

Over the last three years there has been a significant increase in connection ports for charging electric vehicles and buses in

particular. With this increase Loseby feels that the industry is facing a situation where there will be too many different ports.

“This is simply not healthy for the industry,” he says. “Standardising this would present a connector that would bring interchangeability across all systems which will allow us to think more long term.”

To the future Arriva Group shows no signs of slowing down. In April 2016, Arriva Rail North, a subsidiary of Arriva Group, began operating Northern Rail train services following a successful bid in December 2015. Northern Rail is one of the largest service providers to the north of England, the largest

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A R R I VA G R O U P

train service outside of London, and through this franchise with Arriva, will see over £1 billion of investment to improve the service over the next nine years.

Arriva Rail North will look to invest £1.2 billion on 285 new trains, introduce new rolling stops and refurbish the existing fleet, a significant investment in the customer experience.

“The facts are that we are putting new rolling stock and significant investment into Northern Rail over the next nine years, which speaks to the way in which the Government wants to create the ‘Northern Powerhouse’ in the UK and it’s an affirmation of the investment needed to bring it [Northern Rail] where it needs to be,” adds Loseby.

Asset management on such a

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large scale will inevitably bring with it difficulties, challenges and obstacles which Arriva must overcome. Working across different localities, one of the things that Loseby finds most challenging is striking the right balance between the direction of the company and the direction of the localities.

“You have to have an open and listening dialogue with all of the operations, because if you don’t you’ll end up with a central function that doesn’t understand the local business,” Loseby adds.

It is this balance, between what the local passenger, the local transport authorities expect, and what Arriva can offer in terms of competitive advantage that will maintain Arriva’s status as Europe’s largest transport operator.

EUROPE

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Supplying growth and transformation

Written by Tom Wadlow Produced by Heykel Ouni 63

As plans to open another 60 restaurants by 2017 begin to materialise, Kudu Corp is having to transform and innovate fast to meet increasing customer demand, with supply chain operations playing a vital part

K

udu Corp is adopting change at a rapid pace. Fuelled by plans to expand in Saudi Arabia and the rest of the GCC, the quick service restaurant (QSR) operator is also refreshing the Kudu brand and evolving its product range in line with customer demand.

Kudu is already the largest restaurant chain in the country with 337 branches across the Kingdom serving 60 million people a year and employing 5,000 Saudi citizens and residents, and another 60 sites are scheduled to be open by 2017. The concept of quick, fresh, madeto-order meals which include sandwiches, fries and rice options, all made in front of the

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MIDDLE EAST

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NAPCO Group of Companies

Paper Products

Maxi Roll & Auto Cut Super Towel Napkins (Printed) Facial Tissues (Printed) Household Towel

Toilet Tissues Wet Napkins (Printed) Aluminum Foil & Trays Cling Film Garbage Bags

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S U P P LY C H A I N

customer, has proven to be a hit with the natives. Kudu Corp manages four other brands across Saudi Arabia: Al Khafeef, Aal Bal, Can CafĂŠ and Tea Garden.

Backed by supportive private equity investors TPG Capital and The Abraaj Group, innovation and adaptations are occurring right

across the business, with the supply chain team lying at the heart of the push for growth and improvement.

Murat Ungun has been in the QSR industry for more than 24 years and is now Senior Vice President of Supply Chain at Kudu Corp. His role is to lead the development and implementation of end to end supply chain strategy and solutions

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KUDU CORP

in every facet of business to support able to gain this experience and the company’s aims and growth. exposure, having the chance “I have worked mostly in the to work with the best suppliers, QSR industry and supply chain companies, teams and people.” field where I had the chance to work with many different local and Delivering for Kudu global supplier companies, gaining Kudu’s procurement setup currently experience and exposure comprises a mixture of in all segments of the long term supplier food, packaging, partnerships and inlogistics and house production service industries,” of fresh meat and Ungun explains. bakery products, “I have had which are also Number of employees the privilege of retailed in more than at KUDU reviewing and 1,000 stores. The contributing to company purchases companies I worked for, and distributes more than not from a pure supply chain point 2,000 skus to its restaurants via of view but from a holistic business its distribution system, made up perspective like from green of three main and four satellite field start- ups to acquisitions, warehouses. from menu management and Ungun’s responsibilities stretch marketing to sustainability. I far beyond the supply chain feel very fortunate to have been mechanics. He adds: “I am also

5,000

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July 2016

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With Sales & Distribution operations across the MENA region, along with local manufacturing, IFFCO Foodservice offers customers specific solutions to meet your needs.

IFFCO is a proud partner of Kudu and all major QSR’s 70

July 2016

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MIDDLE EAST

responsible for strategic sourcing, as well as quality assurance and food safety departments which are foundational and critical elements of a quick service restaurant chain.

“Assuring high quality, safe products in a consistent manner, at an affordable, fair cost to system responsibly and in a sustainable way is the core of what we are trying to achieve in the company.

It is not a destination and indeed is an ongoing journey that requires a huge set of efforts, commitment, determination, strategy, collaboration, long term thinking, resource allocation and talent.”

“Our objective is to provide our guests with fresh, healthy, food safe products to their expectations and taste, in a consistent and responsible manner

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KUDU CORP

within a friendly, enjoyable and convenient environment.”

Supply chain is also playing a vital role in pushing forward future expansion plans, shouldering the huge task of establishing fruitful partnerships in new territories and setting up new

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foundations and infrastructure.

Ungun comments: “As a 28-yearold but a very young-spirited company set for strong local and international growth, supply chain and the value that it creates for Kudu Company and its’ guests is one of the foundational drivers for

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MIDDLE EAST

“ We must fully understand who our outsourcing partners are and what value can be added from outsourcing, and weigh this up with what we are doing ourselves at the moment” long term and sustainable success.

“When you open a new market, supply chain is the first and foremost element of the equation to unlock the potential. Kudu sees selecting the right partners to work with and setting up a strong supply chain infrastructure as a key to success. To that end, supply chain is an integral part of the company growth, success and profitability.”

Internal transformation If Kudu is to successfully expand, optimisation of current supply chain processes is paramount.

To ensure that it makes the most out of internal capabilities and supplier expertise, Ungun is spearheading a massive ongoing

efficiency assessment to decide what is best kept in-house and what is best outsourced.

“We must fully understand who our outsourcing partners are and what value can be added from outsourcing, and weigh this up with what we are doing ourselves at the moment,” he adds. “It is very important who we select to work with in a long term partnership as the overall aim is to improve the quality of our products and services as well as the way we run.”

Improvements are already starting to be made. For example, a decision has been taken to outsource the supply of trucks rather than maintain its own fleet as it does currently. Working with an

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KUDU CORP

international truck rental partner, Kudu will be able to utilise the latest tracking technology to optimise routes and fuel consumption.

Another significant enhancement has been the implementation of a new ERP system which has integrated all business units into one overview, providing much clearer visibility of the whole business. Real time data can now be analysed

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quickly and accurately to maintain healthy stock levels and give management the information they need to keep control and make meaningful, long term decisions.

Customer-led transformation As well as adopting internally-driven initiatives, Kudu is also adapting in light of customer feedback. A rollout of restaurant refurbishments

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MIDDLE EAST

will be taking place and a new logo has already been developed, along with new packaging and uniform designs. The menu is also evolving to give customers a wider choice and will now be displayed on digital menu boards in restaurants.

“Our first step was to approach our guests and ask them for their thoughts on Kudu and what they expect from us in the future,” Ungun explains. “We showed them some new product concepts and packaging, uniform, restaurant designs and have taken their feedback on board. The transformation is now going at full speed.”

“We have recently launched rice meals which are doing fantastically well, and have also launched gourmet fries with a cheese sauce, and I can say that these are the best gourmet fries in the region, not only the country! Gourmet

burgers will also be an addition to our menu very soon. We are known as a company that serves fresh and healthy products and are working with our customers to produce even fresher and healthier food up to their expectations.”

In terms of the impact on supply chain operations, new products have been carefully sourced and a brand new rice cooking platform has been rolled out across Kudu restaurants. To meet the logistical demand created by opening so many new sites, Ungun is planning to open a new warehouse in Jeddah next year to boost capacity. A mixture of new hubs and optimisation of current warehouse processes, the focus of Kudu’s ongoing assessment, will ensure the company is ready to deliver its products to more Saudi and other GCC customers.

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KUDU CORP

Staying competitive Continual innovation and enhancements of processes is how Ungun plans to differentiate from competition in the region and gain market share in the future.

“Innovation doesn’t happen by chance,” he says. “It is an outcome of structured and planned efforts and requires a total mind set

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change, a lot of collaboration, transparency and planned hard work. Periodic business reviews, innovation sessions, benchmarking are all foundational elements that we are applying to break complacency and move the bar up to the next level.”

Selecting partners with the same working ethos is equally as

KUDU CORP

“Our job is to further optimise our systems, maximising the value we are giving to our guests while preparing the company for a local, regional and international growth” Murat Ungun

Senior Vice President of Supply Chain Murat Ungun is a Food Engineer by education and started his career at Unilever followed by Coca Cola and McDonald’s at different management roles and geographies. Before joining to Kudu Corporation, he was the Supply Chain Director for McDonald’s Corporation responsible for the strategic sourcing, management and performance of key food, beverage and promotional product categories and suppliers for 38 markets in McDonald’s Asia Pacific Middle East and Africa region, with more than 10,000 stores.

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important for Ungun, as is honest and open communication between parties. “Whatever the success we achieve at the store level will be our mutual success so we are together in this,” he adds.

“Being transparent and open for sharing, mutual trust, being a team player committed to our business long term and doing their best to give us the best value are all the foundational components of our supplier selection process. We expect our suppliers to choose long-term benefit of the system over short-term individualistic gains and this is what longterm partnership and our supply chain philosophy requires.”

Looking ahead, Ungun sees supply chain as a crucial contributor to long term sustainability and competitive advantage, and the coming years

will provide an exciting test of Kudu’s expansion credentials.

Ungun concludes: “Our job is to further optimise our systems, maximising the value we are giving to our guests while preparing the company for a local, regional and international growth. That requires the best supply chain infrastructure, right talent and best in class supplier partners to work with.

“We need to work around a more agile supply chain structure that will react to rapidly changing consumer needs, market dynamics and risks.

Supply chain is a crucial contributor to most companies and creates long-term wealth and competitive advantage for the entire system.

The ‘value of supply chain’ will get more prominent and critical to every company every day.”

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Working sma

art

Written by Tom Wadlow Produced by Heykel Ouni

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DU

UAE telco du is providing services beyond traditional telecoms, taking the lead role in transforming Dubai into the world’s first truly smart city

I

n 2006, the thought of starting a new telco in the UAE - a country where mobile market penetration was already over 120 percent - and competing against a very strong incumbent player while growing to take almost 50 percent mobile market share may have seemed unthinkable.

Fast forward seven years and du has achieved precisely this.

With a mission to bring people and businesses together by offering mobile and fixed telephony, IPTV and broadband to homes and offices, du now conducts over AED 12 billion’s worth of vital communications work a year with a strong EBITA of AED 5.4 billion.

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This translates into 7.7 million mobile customers, with 674,000 fixed line subscribers on its books.

Mobile data exceeded 33 percent of its total Mobile revenues. Delivering its broad scope of services is a 1,700-strong workforce, comprising nationals of more than 60 countries from around the world – a global team of experts.

Now the company is embarking on its most ambitious project to date. Dubai Smart City will connect residents, business and government in ways never seen before, leveraging the power of the Internet of Things to enhance usability and efficiency of vital services spanning utilities, parking

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Accelerating

In a world filled with chaos, unleash the power of predictable IT. Hewlett Packard Enterprise Automation & Orchestration solutions combine advanced technology, expert consulting, and proven processes to empower your digital transformation. An HPE A&O solution lets you rein in your siloed, multigenerational environment and create a unified IT strategy that makes IT more predictable. Because when your IT is predictable, you can conquer chaos and accelerate what’s next.

Learn more about HPE’s Automation & Orchestration solutions at hpe.com/solutions/AutomateOrchestrate

predictability

DU

1.7k

The total number of employees working for du (2015)

and health. It will also contribute to achieve the vision of Dubai’s ruler and Vice President of the UAE, His Highness Sheikh Mohamed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, to transform Dubai into the smartest and happiest city in the world.

Lift off Playing a key strategic part in du’s journey from the beginning has been Anis Tabka, Senior Vice

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President – Sourcing, Contracts & Supply Chain Management. Vital areas that have been developed

by Tabka, allowing the company to grow so impressively, are its procurement and strategic sourcing strategy, end-to-end supply chain experience and positive attitude towards supporting the business to meet its needs while enforcing corporate governance.

Tabka, who has 21 years of

experience in the telecoms trade, mostly in the USA and Germany with Siemens on the commercial side, emphasises the importance that finding the right expertise to work with both internally and externally has had on business development.

“Traditionally the industry in the MENA area was not well-equipped in terms of expertise,” he explains.

“When I came in 2005 most of the

professionals I was sourcing in the region came from other functions.

One of the biggest challenges I faced was finding technical procurement professionals who are familiar with the telco world and having the business thinking on how it is important to look at the whole value chain whenever negotiating deals rather than just focusing on price negotiation.

“I was able to convince my

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management of the value of putting a strategic spend category strategy matching our corporate roadmap and also of the benefits of partnering with some strategic vendors can bring. We needed a proper procurement strategy and a Supplier Relationship Management (SRM) methodology put in place and Executive Management allowed us to run with it and make it happen.�

This has paid off and du was the first Telco in the Middle East to get awarded in 2010 the prestigious Chartered Institute of Procurement & Supply award from the UK. Going above and beyond the norm in corporate governance has also allowed du to stand out in what was an extremely saturated and monopolised telecoms market in the UAE. Three core values lay at the heart of du’s corporate governance

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system: friendly, honest and confident, with an emphasis on nurturing responsible practice and accountability which will result in sustainable business.

Underpinning this is a strong code of ethics set by the Board of Directors, with business objectives based on community and national development needs.

Dubai: smart city This is no better demonstrated

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than by du’s work to turn Dubai into a smart city. The UAE has one of the highest mobile penetration rates in the world, and Dubai is witnessing a steady population growth, making the need to be ‘smart’ all the more pressing.

Du has been selected as strategic partner to the government’s Smart Dubai Office, responsible for implementing and managing the smart city platform. “This will be the first of its kind in the world,”

Tabka says. “All services and applications will be connected and running together so the citizens of Dubai will be able to make better use of their data.

“For example, someone about to leave their home will be able to find out exactly where to park and the best route to get there before they get in the car. Many of the smart cities around the world have deployed separate IoT applications such as smart homes, smart metering and smart transport, but none have integrated as many used cases under one centralised digital platform as Dubai. Du will be hosting such a platform and managing it on behalf of the city.”

The project aims to establish collaboration in six ‘smart’ focus areas: smart life, smart transportation, smart society, smart economy, smart governance and smart environment, guided

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“All services and applications will be connected and running together so the citizens of Dubai will be able to make better use of their data” – Anis Tabka, Senior Vice President of Sourcing, Contracts & SCM, Corporate Affairs

Building A Better Connected World Huawei is a leading global information and communications technology (ICT) solutions provider.

Our aim is to improve efficiency through a better connected world. Driven by customer-centric innovation and open partnerships, Huawei has established endto-end ICT solutions portfolio that gives customers competitive advantages in telecom and enterprise networks, devices and cloud computing. www.huawei.com

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by principles of communication, core services are flattening; integration and cooperation. that’s why our management has Du will be responsible for creating decided to set up a new Digital one common infrastructure from Business Unit to boost our cloud which all smart services can products and complex Managed grow and interact, bringing the Services offerings in the market. city’s data into one place in a “Our Dubai Smart City project secure environment, is a perfect example introducing best-ofof this. This does not breed smart services, involve a traditional all designed to work sourcing strategy nor together and sharing the traditional large data that brings a proprietary software The amount of new level of insight to players we are used to. revenue in AED Dubai to benefit the The Big Data and IoT generated by du public, entrepreneurs worlds are challenging (2015) and government. our Modis Operandi: Such non-traditional it’s now all about telco work also Open Source software requires Tabka to realign vendors, SaaS (software as a his sourcing strategy.

Service) solutions, Cloud services Tabka explains: “Major Telcos are and strong systems integration. having to look into other revenue We worked very closely with our alternatives such as digital business technical colleagues to find the as revenues in their traditional best in class partners to meet

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Smart Dubai requirements and use our experience to integrate it all together and deliver a complex project such as this.

“There are far more joint ventures, partnerships, revenue shares and corporations working together to deliver this strategic project in the long term. We all drive to deliver the best services and evaluate each other much more closely and in much greater detail, as we are both taking risks. These are very close relationships that involve constant communication and flexibility from both sides and HPE [Hewlett-Packard Enterprises], our main partner and system

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integrator for the Dubai Smart City project, is a good example.”

Du’s smart city credentials are already in evidence, shown by its city-wide public WiFi provision and smart street lights, using motion sensors to increase visibility when vehicles approach. However, integration of app-based services on this scale presents a larger set of challenges to overcome.

“We need to be flexible on how we put this huge ecosystem in place, and my job is to help bring all the different component parts together in the best way,” Tabka adds. “How do we set up revenue sharing, who do we choose to partner with, how do we optimise costing for du and the City?

“We need to convince partners to invest in this as a long term partnership, and we also need to convince the providers of existing smart technology in the

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“Major telcos are having to look into other revenue alternatives such as digital business as revenues in their traditional core services are flattening; that’s why our management has decided to set up a new Digital Business Unit to boost our cloud products and complex Managed Services offerings in the market” – Anis Tabka, Senior Vice President of Sourcing, Contracts & SCM, Corporate Affairs

city that an integrated approach is the way forward. There will be changes, there will be challenges.

“For example, security is one of the biggest challenges facing us.

The hackers out there are only going to get smarter. We are going to be seeing all the traffic and data from all of these different government functions and services provided by private entities – electricity, parking, home consumptions, supermarket shopping. How do you secure this and not endanger the integrity of the customer’s

data we are integrating? It’s a big challenge and we are working with our main partners the Smart Dubai Office, Dubai Data Establishment and our community of selected technology partners to bring the best suited solutions to secure this.”

Track record Based on du’s recent track record in innovation and service delivery, the challenges presented by Dubai Smart City will no doubt be overcome.

In March, du won ‘Security Implementation of the Year’ at the

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2016 Network Middle East Innovation Awards for its Secure Web Hosting in the cloud. The company was also recognised for Best Enterprise Mobility Solutions and the Best Cloud Security Solutions at the inaugural Cloud MENA Awards 2016 in April.

In terms of delivering a value for money service, du announced earlier this year that it is reducing its GCC roaming charges, offering more affordable connectivity and communication for customers as they travel for business and leisure.

Customers can also benefit from a joint venture with Ticketmaster, receiving a 15 percent discount on some of the region’s biggest events.

These end user benefits would not be possible without the work of key partners in day-to-day activities, and Tabka is eager to emphasise the many positive working relations du has with other businesses, and how important these will be in the future.

He adds: “Aramex, for example, are our main logistics provider helping us from traditional warehouse operations to distribution channels, fulfilment and end-to-end customer activation. They are going through their own digital transformation and are embracing the concept of crowd sourcing more and more. We are very happy to be working with innovative companies such as Aramex.

Our other key partners include HPE, Huawei, Atos and Cisco.

“As for the future, we will be growing more and more and we will need new technology partners embracing the world of Open Source and innovations to add to the business. I would love to get involved with more exciting new projects like the Smart City, opening up new areas and opportunities for growth.”

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Tunisian Heights for Cancer Since 2004, du’s Anis Tabka has been raisingmoney for cancer charities. He started with running the Boston Marathon in support of the children’s cancer department Massachusetts Memorial Hospital and then started taking part in various mountain climbing charity fundraisers. In 2012, Tabka was inspired to set up his own charity and Tunisian Heights for Cancer was created.

He says: “I wanted to support my fellow Tunisian youth who are suffering from that disease but are not getting the same financial support as is the case in the West.”

The aim of the charity is to support young Tunisian kids from disadvantaged families who can’t afford proper cancer treatments and Tabka focuses on both raising awareness and funding during his mountain climbs. He adds: “The first Tunisian project I was involved in was in association with ATEL (Association Tunisienne des Enfants Atteints de

Leucemie) on the project of extending the paediatric wing of the Hospital Aziza Othmana in Tunis. This allowed more children to be treated in that facility.”

Tabka’s achievements include being the first Tunisian to climb to some of the world’s highest peaks. “I’ve climbed Kilimanjaro in Africa, Elbrus in Europe, Denali in North America, Aconcagua in South America - each time I am on an Expedition, I try to raise funding for the charity.”

His next expedition is scheduled inNovember to Mt. Vinson in Antartica.

To find out more, visit the charity’s Facebook page

Co-operative success Written by Wedaeli Chibelushi Produced by Dennis Morales

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FrieslandCampina

FrieslandCampina has been present in the Middle East for over 60 years and has found lasting success in the region. The Middle East division of this dairy multinational recognises localised challenges and opportunities, which drive the need for continuous innovation

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utch dairy co-operative FrieslandCampina is one of the leading dairy co-operatives in the world. It produces and sells consumer products (e.g. dairy-based beverages, infant nutrition, cheese and desserts) in Africa, Asia and many European countries. Dairy products are also exported worldwide from the Netherlands.

In addition, products are supplied to professional customers, including cream and butter products to bakeries and catering companies.

FrieslandCampina also sells ingredients and half-finished products to manufacturers of infant nutrition, the food industry and the pharmaceutical sector around the world.

FrieslandCampina was among the first multinational companies to enter the Middle East

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MIDDLE EAST

“Always striving for the best quality, where health and safety play a key role. For our cows, farmers, consumers, employees and partners, we are all about ‘nourishing by nature’” market in early 50s. Since then, the company has established a strong position in the market.

Its brands, such as Rainbow and Omela, have become household names in the region.

What is FrieslandCampina’s secret to Middle Eastern success?

“I think it is about consistently striving for the best quality,” explains Bas Roelofs, Managing Director for FrieslandCampina Middle East. “Being here for more than 60 years, allows us to have a strong heritage in the region.”

Before becoming Managing Director of the Middle East, Roelofs spent four years as a Director of Sales and Shopper Marketing for FrieslandCampina. Supply Chain

Digital speaks to him about how FrieslandCampina is building on the region’s positive economic and social changes, and how they plan to further expand and invest in Middle East.

Co-operative company FrieslandCampina is a proud dairy co-operative. “We have 19,000 member farmers who have from generation to generation owned this company, and that’s different than having a stockmarket listed company, of course,” Roelofs comments. He also insists that the firm’s cooperative status distinguishes it from competitors; that its farmers’ joint entrepreneurial mind-set

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separates FrieslandCampina from stock-market listed companies.

“When we started back in 1871 we had a small group of farmers forming a small company, now we are one of the top global dairy multinationals,” Roelofs asserts. This small group of farmers has expanded over the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany. Roelofs believes that FrieslandCampina’s success as a co-operative has allowed it to reach out to several foreign regions, including the Middle East.

Staying fresh The company has a unique ‘grass to glass’ business model, ensuring it adheres to the highest quality standards in the dairy industry. The model is anchored on FrieslandCampina’s ability to have full control of the whole chain: from the farms (grass) to the final product (glass). With more than 140

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years of knowledge on farming, food production, food safety, sustainability, health and nutrition as well as in depth knowledge of the market, FrieslandCampina believes it is well placed to be part of the fast growth of this region.

Roelofs describes the process: “That all starts with collecting the milk directly from the farms, where we keep them in a chilled truck to get it to the production facility. It all happens in a short time frame to make sure the milk is fully fresh when it reaches our facilities.”

From this point, different products follow different chains. “We have a supply chain where the finished product doesn’t have to be chilled, like with Rainbow evaporated milk. We also have products that need to be fully chilled all the way to delivery in store (like cheese), which has to be kept between four and seven degrees. We have our

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Friso brand (infant formula) that has to be kept at a very stable temperature as well,” Roelofs adds.

After production, the products are transported in chilled containers (on boats) to the receiving region.

FrieslandCampina tracks deviation in temperature throughout the journey, from harbor to store.

Progressive plans FrieslandCampina is determined to maintain a culture of innovation.

A newly opened state of the art R&D center in Wageningen Campus, the Netherlands, invests in unlocking maximum potential in dairy and creating new concepts.

FrieslandCampina Middle East

realises that along with consulting its Dutch R&D center, it must carry out its local consumer research in the Middle East.

“In order to reflect the local needs, our consumer research is done locally. We listen to insights from key stakeholders, or it could even be government requirements or consumers calling our consumer care line,” says Roelofs. “We link that back to our R&D center and make the maximum use out of that so we can always be close to consumers’ needs”.

FrieslandCampina Middle East also focuses on what Roelofs calls “commercial innovation”. Current engagement with stakeholders

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“In order to reflect the local needs our consumer research is done locally. We try to listen to research done by key stakeholders, or it could even be government requirements or consumers calling our consumer care line” and consumers is different from the company’s strategy two or three decades ago. For instance, FrieslandCampina is currently running a big digital campaign for its Frico cheese brand – this would not have been possible five or ten years ago.

Neither would it have been possible for FrieslandCampina to produce a widespread media campaign with celebrity chef Sanjeev Kapoor. Kapoor is the protagonist of Rainbow evaporated milk brand communication running across major UAE TV and radio networks. Kapoor promotes Rainbow’s capacity to enhance the taste of traditional Asian karak tea.

Another commercial innovation

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centres around the activation of Rainbow flavoured milk, a product produced in FrieslandCampina’s Jeddah factory. “We recently won the Guinness Book of World Records in the Jeddah Red Sea Mall, where we had the world’s largest gathering of kids dressed as Ben Ten,” Roelofs comments. Ben 10 is a much loved character from Cartoon Network EMEA, who partnered with FrieslandCampina Middle East.

Opportunities and challenges Roelofs acknowledges current conflicts in the Middle East: “Of course, often covered in the news lately are the wars in Iraq, Syria and Yemen. That gives a completely new

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and different challenge”. Roelofs growth. Roelofs ultimately also recognizes the instability of recognizes that it’s a privilege for oil prices and the geographical FrieslandCampina to operate in complexity of the region. However, the region, despite its challenges. he ultimately believes that the benefits of operating in the Middle Expansion and investment East far outweigh the risks. Roelofs The firm has big plans for the sees the Middle East as vibrant, and future. Firstly, it is investing in feels FrieslandCampina its Jeddah factory, where can learn from and it produces Rainbow contribute to the ready to drink milk. region. We have Sustainability is a lot to offer the another area which The year diverse nationalities is seeing heavy FrieslandCampina and cultures. investment. “One of was founded Roelofs adds: the things that we’ve “This region has a recently announced is population which is growing, our commitment to massively notably a young and educated invest in biogas equipment, demographic with high investment meaning that our farmers will be both in the public and private sector. able to use the manure to get Personally that gives me energy.” electricity for the farms. As such He believes that in the coming we know that we can get more decade the region will see milk, more growth and a lower strong economic and personal carbon footprint,” Roelofs notes.

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FrieslandCampina Middle East is also reducing wastage of energy and water in its Jeddah factory.

Roelofs believes that FrieslandCampina Middle East will maintain its success over the coming years. “Aim for the stars while keeping your feet on the ground” he states, a motto that aptly summarises the cooperative’s future plans.

FrieslandCampina wants to

continue serving its millions of Middle Eastern consumers. It wants to continue sourcing inspiration, continue growth and introduce new products. Roelofs concludes: “It makes me very proud to see the historic result that we have delivered here, and I want to continue humbly serving the millions of consumers in the Middle East, with our organisation across the region and backed by our farmers in Europe.”

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Kuwaiti triumph Written by Nell Walker Produced by Dennis Morales

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Noor Al-Qatami, CEO of Kuwait’s number one supermarket, describes her team’s tireless work in creating the best possible shopping experience for its valued clients

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aveco, Kuwait’s biggest and most successful supermarket, is a true success story. Founded

by Noor Al-Qatami, the company’s CEO, just two years ago, the store’s popularity has proven astronomical in an impressively short amount of time. Al-Qatami was determined to develop the brand quickly as a reaction to customer needs, and marry the twin ideals of highquality with accessible produce.

Customer relations Organic, vegan, gluten-free, and many luxury items that are not readily available to the average Kuwaiti citizen can be found at Saveco, to the point where shoppers are able to dictate what Saveco sells.

“We decided to develop a system where customers can come in and request an item; we then order it for the store, and it is then put on the shelf for other customers as well,” says AlQatami. “It’s a more specialised service for the

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customer, where they feel they are being treated like a VIP. This is not just a supermarket, it is their own store; a store that they have a say in.”

This special treatment of customers is key to the company’s success. Saveco has an unusually large social media presence, and the CEO herself handles the accounts, allowing customers to speak to somebody who is multi-lingual and enabling Al-Qatami to connect with them on a more personal level than

most bosses would.

“The reason I wanted it to do it this way was because when I looked at social media accounts in Kuwait, they were always neglecting the customer,” she explains. “I wanted to have a relationship with our customers. I can answer people back in their own language or dialect, and they go away feeling extremely content. It’s satisfying for everybody involved, and ensures that the customer returns to us.”

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Saveco also offers a delivery middle of the store which allows system that can be used via customers to learn new skills in the WhatsApp; Al-Qatami says that kitchen. Young school children can people in Kuwait generally prefer book sessions of cooking or cake messenger services as they dislike decoration, but the system is aimed talking, either on the telephone very much at adults. or face-to-face, when it comes to “In Kuwait, most people don’t ordering from stores. cook as they have chefs in Customers have the their homes,” Al-Qatami option of simply sending explains. “They wouldn’t an image of what they know what to do with want to Saveco staff, quinoa, for example. We or even asking to see decided that if they wanted what range of a certain to get on the bandwagon product the shop has, and eat quinoa, why not at which point images teach them? They are Number of would be sent to them in coming in and buying the Employees at order to let them choose product, so they really Saveco the item they desire. The should learn different ways messenger service is of incorporating it into free, as is the delivery itself. their meals. Kuwait has the highest obesity rate per capita; we have a The Food Academy responsibility of helping people eat One of Saveco’s most impressive healthier meals.” features is The Food Academy, Al-Qatami identified gaps in the a cooking school located in the food market and filled them, for

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example by conferring with a coeliac organisation to develop a gluten-free section. The Saveco team even went so far as to re-organise the aisles to bring the glutenfree products closer to the door, allowing coeliac children to choose a snack quickly rather than being faced with all of the food they can’t eat. The shop then also offers a kids’ area on the top floor so that they can play while parents shop in peace.

Building a family Al-Qatami admits that finding staff was difficult at the beginning, because nobody knew how successful the business would be.

Two years later, Saveco has become a family, and Al-Qatami believes this to be one of the most important elements of the company:

“They are not merely employees,” she states. “Once they pass their three month probation, we take care of them, not just through work but everything else as well. For example, when one of our employees passed away, our COO flew with the body to the man’s homeland to be at the burial. We made sure the burial and reception fees were covered, and continued to pay his salary to ensure his kids are supported. We try to go above and beyond for our staff.”

A man’s world?

Al-Qatami has by no means achieved what she wants. Her vision of what she wishes to accomplish is not even five percent there, she says; she plans to make Saveco international, and develop into the retail business.

She is among the top 100 most powerful Arab women, and attributes this to attitudes instilled in her by her parents.

Her father, a successful

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businessman himself, never told her to come to me. Things are she was different because of her changing here; women aren’t gender, and encouraged her in her having to fight as hard, and they ventures – whether they failed or are part of every element of the succeeded. Al-Qatami conducted working world. The CEO of the a TEDx Talk last year during which top bank in the Middle East is a she described her woman. background and “Some parents triumphant career, and in Kuwait treat she showed enormous females differently good humour in the face to males; they will of those who judged her open doors for for her gender. their sons that “Women often put they wouldn’t barriers in front of open for their The year themselves simply by daughters. My saveco was thinking of themselves dad taught founded as different from me that if you men,” she says. “If work for it, you acknowledge that there is no you will get what you difference, then there is no barrier. It want. He believes in doesn’t make a difference to me if me, and that was someone realises I’m the boss or one of the most vital not, because the bottom line is if elements to my they want to do business, they have success.”

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THAILAND’S wine innovators Written by: Nye Longman Produced by: Charlotte Clarke

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Archie Gracie, Supply Chain Director

Firmly committing to its ambitious goal to become a regional wine and lifestyle beverage leader, Siam Winery is transforming its supply chain operations and developing a forward-looking business model

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iam Winery appointed capabilities. It’s very much an end Archie Gracie as its Supply to end continuous improvement Chain Director three years journey in order to have the right ago. Since then he has set about capabilities to support the growth.” transforming the company’s supply chain to support its goal Operations of doubling revenues and profits, As South East Asia’s largest while becoming an international winery, the company has an annual wine retailer through expansion production capacity of 80 million into both Asian and global litres, which amounts to markets. The niche wineroughly a million units maker has faced off a on a daily basis. Siam variety of challenges Winery’s operations to reach this point, cover every aspect from government of winemaking legislation to – from growing geographical and harvesting, Number of Employees stresses. Business through to at Siam Winery Review Asia finds ageing, bottling, out how the company and distribution. It has been able to shrug has two warehouses in these aside and develop a Bangkok, giving it a total storage strong plan for the future. area of 7,600 square meters, “We need to have the capabilities which are supported by its own in terms of innovation,” he says, logistics and distribution system “And also to build capabilities in covering its entire supply chain. terms of driving our performance These assets are crucial to so that we can grow without overthe company’s future strategy, stretching the business – in our as Gracie explains: “In our production and supply chain strategy to the market we want capabilities and in our suppliers’

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“The work of Archie Gracie and others a is an example for all businesses that h that they are demanding the impo

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at Siam Winery ave been told ossible�

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The Site Pond, last stage of water treatment

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to offer our customers a full portfolio of choice - we want wines from entry level to real wine connoisseurs. Our strategy is to be international purveyors of wine across all of Asia.”

Siam Winery’s award-winning grapes are grown at three vineyards across the country.

These consist of: Hua Hin Hills Vineyard, home to Monsoon Valley Wine, where its Shiraz, Chenin Blanc and Colombard grape varietals are grown; Tab Kwang, north of Bangkok; and Chang Mai Hills in the far north of Thailand.

Alongside its own wines, the company also imports globally-recognised wine brands and produces a range of non-alcoholic beverages.

Gracie explains that the company is driving continuous improvement across its operations: “We have embraced world class manufacturing tools and techniques such as kaizen and lean, and we are setting a balanced scorecard of KPIs which are driving performance evaluation across the business.

“These are customer service, quality, safety – what I call effectiveness and efficiency. It is also about people metrics – both in terms of happiness and capabilities. We have asset care which is looking after and maintaining the performance of our mainly German and European assets. We are benchmarking our performance with leaders in the market, against people like Diageo, Coca Cola, Heineken, and Pepsi, so we

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Oak Cellar for aging wine

understand who is best in class in the beverages segment.”

Supply chain transformation Ensuring that the company’s supply chain is fit for purpose is understandably central to expanding into Asian and international markets. But, as Gracie points out, its transformation is also an opportunity to drive innovation and value across the board.

He says: “We had a tax change which put a 25 percent increase in our duties. We had to find ways to reduce our costs to try and

mitigate that increase. We didn’t want to – as our competitors do – pass on that tax to the consumer.

We managed to sustain growth whereas many other categories and competitors lost volume and lost profit and revenue as a result.”

Siam Winery is ensuring that its supply chain retains this resilience while driving innovation in the long term like never before. It is achieving this using a multifaceted approach which consists of implementing new technology, reworking its forecasting approach, and ensuring that its operations adhere to strict

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“As South East Asia’s largest winery, the company has an annual production capacity of 80 million litres, which amounts to roughly a million units on a daily basis”

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national and international standards.

“That’s a key part of our current strategy – how we cope with double the volume in a way that drives efficiency and reduces complexity,” Gracie explains. “That includes a lot of working with the world-class partners like Krones and Gebo Cermex in terms of our packaging processes, and with some of our wine partners to benchmark against Australian Vintage (McGuigan wines), E&J Gallo, and Accolade who are leaders in the field. We can learn a lot from how their businesses – which are much larger in scale – perform versus ours.

“Driving efficiencies in the conversion process is a key part but the prime driver is looking at alternative materials. Moving from cork closures to roll on screw caps has been a big way of mitigating cost increases.”

A crucial part of the company’s supply chain evolution has focused on ensuring that its operations are performed inline with international standards, which is why it has endeavoured to work in accordance with ISO

Building the team

9000 and ISO 14000 guidelines.

Keen to take advantage of the snowballing importance of data, Siam Winery implemented SAP systems last year in order to take a detailed look at its historical data.

Forward thinking The niche varieties that Siam Winery produces are well soughtafter by connoisseurs across the world. By making these brands more accessible both regionally and globally, the company is putting Thailand’s viticulture sector on the map. While alcohol advertising is practically forbidden in Thailand, it is certainly not on the continent, which is why the company is dedicating serious resources to the creation of an w w w . s i a m w i n e r y. c o m

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international e-commerce website.

Gracie adds: “If you really want to have an impact in other Asian markets – particularly China – you need to be online to reach the customer. As we build our export business I see that the opportunities for ebusiness have high potential.”

Due to climatic conditions, Thai viticulture by necessity requires year-round attention and intensive labour processes. While Gracie

ASIA

cannot yet control the weather, he can certainly influence how the company’s daily operations impact the local environment and community.

Which is why he has a long-term goal to make all operations carbon neutral and is currently engaging with local officials to build a tri-generation boiler. These recent efforts add to the company’s years of work raising money for local schools through a number of initiatives.

The work of Archie Gracie and others at Siam Winery is an example for all businesses that have been told that they are demanding the impossible. Its founder was told that good wine could never be produced in Thailand – 20 years on, and with Asia and the wider world firmly in its sights, the company is still proving that the impossible can be achieved with the right strategy.

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Supply chain success Written by Nell Walker Produced by Charlotte Clarke

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MON LOGISTICS GROUP

MON Logistics Group’s CEO, Karsten Thrane, discusses the challenges of sustainability in the supply chain industry and how his company is overcoming them

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ON Logistics Group began as a refuelling station company, and from there, a need for transportation was identified. Now, Transport is the best known of MON’s businesses, and it covers haulage of fuel, hazardous goods, container haulage, FMCG, factory transfers, milk runs and JIT/ JIS, and cold chain distribution.

Alongside this, MON has a container yard operation – currently it runs three yards in Thailand, which handle around 26,000 containers per month – warehouse services including a dry and cold chain warehouses, and a fourth element which offers brokerage in-house as an extension of the transport

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and warehousing services.

Karsten Thrane is the CEO of MON Logistics Group, and was brought into the company to find a way to integrate these four elements of the business.

He oversees all operations, reporting back to the family which owns MON Logistics Group.

“This is very much a family business and will remain a family business,” Thrane says. “They are still very much involved, but my charge was to go in, develop synergies, and put structures into place that will make the business more sustainable. We also wanted to start creating a more professional environment

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for our people, ensuring a career path for them. There are many more development opportunities now.”

Thanks to the owners of the company remaining the same, integration proved less difficult than for many other companies. The family owned the land, built property upon it, and the business – and client base – grew around that. The development of the business came from customer demand; if a valued customer requested something that MON Logistics didn’t previously offer, the company simply added a new branch of the business.

“For example, clients were supportive of the idea of us introducing a container yard, and consequently, we did that,” explains Thrane. “Same thing with the warehouse business. We

were asked if we had property in a specific place that a customer wanted to build a warehouse on, we said yes, and it grew from there.

“The only element that was truly planned is the brokerage business, which was a necessary go-between for full integration.

Offering that service now as an integrated part of an asset-based provider opens up the opportunity for us to have less waste and create a greater client experience.”

Thrane’s company operates under the core values-acronym SAFE – Safety, Accountability, Focus, and Excellence. It has been running beneath this banner since 2011, but relaunched this year with a more defined interpretation of those values.

MON has around 1,000 lorries on the road at any given time, making

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“There used to be a lot of rules and regulations, but now we’re going with the angle that safety is a guideline of care”

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safety a priority, and the contentment of the drivers is key to that. The company now conducts pre and post-drive interviews with drivers, both to find out how they feel about their work, and to ensure that they have complied with regulations.

MON has around 1,000 drivers, making it difficult to maintain standards, but Thrane and his company work hard to retain its good name: “There’s a certain amount of natural turnover and our drivers get poached by other companies. It’s difficult to achieve loyalty on a large scale, but we’re trying to accomplish that by changing how we communicate with them. There used to be a lot of rules and regulations, but now we’re going with the angle that safety is a guideline of care. It’s an expression

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of our best wishes; taking this different approach will hopefully lead to better, stronger results, and so far the indicators are very promising.”

One of the difficulties for any Transport company in Thailand is the hypocritical nature of the country’s pollution and safety standards. Thailand is developing its economy, and while an industrial lorry in Europe will have a common set of minimum standards to adhere to within the country, a Thai lorry may not have the same consistent application of the rules throughout Thailand. Thus, substandard vehicles can be allowed to run regardless of its effect on the environment and road safety based on local authorities’ decisions and interpretations of the standards.

“Trucks like these have

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“We’re trying to show a very direct link between what our employees do on a daily basis and how it impacts their lives. We do this because we care rather than because it’s a set rule”

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depreciated so much in value because of their age and condition that they’re seen as a compelling commodity,” says Thrane. “The driver will only be looking to cover fuel costs and a little for themselves. When times are tough, everybody is looking to save where they can. As long as you keep showing a transport bill to the management office, most people won’t question it.

“That kind of behaviour has lingered here for a long time. We still see our trucks being pulled over for pollution and weight testing, and at the same time, another truck might pass by where they are overloaded or you can’t see the back end for smoke, but the authorities – for whatever reason – choose to not stop them. These issues are problematic, but as more and more multinationals are starting to honour their claims about standards,

we’re slowly seeing improvement.”

MON Logistics took on board the concept of sustainability as a matter of necessity driven by client demand; when fuel prices reached a high and customers were concerned that they would never drop, natural gas vehicles became an appealing alternative, even though that technology wasn’t a fully tested and confirmed greener alternative. Thrane looks upon green issues as being linked to safety, not just for employees but as an environmental concern: “We’re trying to show a very direct link between what our employees do on a daily basis and how it impacts their lives. We do this because we care rather than because it’s a set rule.”

As MON Logistics continues to expand, especially in regard to its cold chain, it faces challenges head-on with Thrane’s leadership, rising ever more in its rank as one of Thailand’s top logistics groups.

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A NEW WAY

TO SEE

Vision Australia, a leading national organisation for services to people who are blind or have low vision, has been undergoing transformational change to give it greater relevance, agility and customer focus as it prepares for a more commercially focused role Written by: John O’Hanlon Produced by: Vince Kielty 155

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reated in 2004 through the merger of four smaller organisations Vision Australia later amalgamated with another three organisations including Seeing Eye Dogs Australia (SEDA). It emerged as a truly national organisation to reach each of Australia’s eight states and territories and support the needs of many of Australians who are blind or have low vision through 800 paid staff and more than 4,000 volunteers.

Like any business formed by mergers, it had much to do in the way of integration and finding a viable identity for its clients and staff. It also faced dramatic changes in the way it was funded. The Vision Australia board recognised that moving from receiving large amounts of money to provide services to assist blind and partially sighted clients was a very different matter from the government giving the money to individuals to select and purchase the services they wanted.

In January 2013 Vision Australia appointed a new CEO with the 156

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brief of delivering transformational strategic change. Ron Hooton had 20 years of board level experience behind him much of it as a CIO in the banking and government sectors, and latterly as CEO of a large primary healthcare provider in his native New Zealand.

An orientation and mobility specialist, Luke, works with 12-year-old Dominic who has low vision

AUSTRALIA & ASIA

A ROA DM A P TO ENGAG EM ENT He found an organisation that was challenged by a very different future funding model from block funding to individualised funding under the NDIS and My Aged Care. At the time, it had a mindset that focused on the way things had been done in the past. Staff engagement, and support for the organisation and its leadership were low, he says.

Staff were grappling with how they would fit in to the new world of competitive funding, and while there was commercial awareness and

a focus on productivity in some areas across the organisation, this needed to become the norm.

For Australia’s 330,000 so people who are blind, it is good news that at least $50 million of government funds will be available annually for services, but it does demand a huge cultural change among the service providers, he stresses. Cultural change was at the top of his agenda from day one. “To assess the organisation we talked to people at the sharp end.” So he focussed on talking to the 550 staff, clients and

“We made it clear to staff that they were welcome to go out there and innovate if it works for clients”

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SUPPLIER PROFILE

Interview with new CoTé CEO, Cameron Smith. He discusses the company’s new smart technology platform, virsaic™.

Why should companies be paying more attention to the customer experience?

A superior customer journey is the key to financial success and brand survival because customers are in charge and have very high expectations. What we are seeing is a shift in the balance of power and its being driven by a digital revolution. Technology can deliver so much more for companies wanting a slice of the pie. It’s not about if a company should be investing in building superior customer engagement tools and strategies, it’s about when and how quickly.

What is this new reality all about?

Well as we see it, because we are in the trenches every day, trust in cloud technology and all things digital is accelerating. It’s a great wave to ride. For companies seeking a competitive edge, quality customer engagement is crucial. So everyone in an organisation must reinvent and reimagine the richest, most efficient and engaging way of satisfying shifting customer needs. That means designing and delivering an outstanding experience.

What do companies need to do?

This is about relevancy, immediacy, personalisation and convenience. Maximising meaningful touchpoints and connections, and optimising the engagement with smart technology. Companies today cannot afford to fall behind so leaders need to have a clear vision, organisational support, speed and agility to leverage the opportunity.

Companies need a technological “single pane of glass” for their staff to provide an engaging customer experience. This is why virsaic™ is the ideal solution and an effective alternative. It’s already proven to achieve results and is deployed very easily via the cloud, and it integrates with anything. We see it as a game changer for our customers.

What is the payoff?

Integrating virsaic™ can help transform an enterprise because without loyal and satisfied customers a business simply cannot survive. It’s a critical source of competitive advantage. If you look at today’s best and brightest companies they are the one’s unlocking powerful and new approaches to customer engagement. Quality, relevant Omni-channel communications is front and centre for business leaders because they know that when brand loyalty is amplified, profitability can surge. It’s about challenging the status quo.

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volunteers. “My first three months were fascinating. I needed to know what was happening so I spent a lot of time on the front line and visited almost every centre.” The point of contact between the client and the organisation is critical, he says: “We had to focus back on that point of contact to find out what we needed to do better.”

A group of front line staff wrote a document that set out the current state of the organisation and how it might be changed. This was refined, placed before the board, and at a conference for 100 leaders within Vision Australia held at Geelong in 2014 launched as the Strategic Plan from 2014 to 2018. “I wanted our staff to look forward. At the Geelong conference I made a point of telling

them I was drawing a line in the sand at that moment. From that point we did not look back.”

The Strategic Plan outlines Vision Australia’s New Way and was a collaboration involving our Board, a refreshed leadership team, staff and clients. Communication, fairness, flexibility, collaboration – and financial responsibility are among the principles it enshrines, and it identifies three strong core elements for service provision: • Accessible information Access to increasing amounts of information, faster, and in the client’s format of choice.

• Advocacy - Advocating for social reform, particularly the removal of barriers to participation in education and employment.

“GROWING LEADERSHIP WITHIN THE ORGANISATION IS A KEY ELEMENT OF MY STRATEGY.” – Ron Hooton, Chief Executive Officer

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• Personalised services Organised around three recognised life stage segments to provide professional support and training for clients and their family and close networks.

VA LU E S W ITH M E A N I N G In the same vein, he asked staff to help rethink the organisation’s values. “We wanted values that mean something to us. They needed to link to the strategy and give people in professional practice a 162

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licence to operate in a way that is worth something to the client. They came up with Person Centred; Collaborative; Accountable; Agile; and Commercially Focused. The last of these was a real culture shift, Ron Hooton points out. “To tell people who had been working for a charity for years that we want you to understand where the money comes from, where it is going, and the value the clients are getting from that expenditure was a really big step.” These values represent three

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levels of commitment, he adds, to the clients, to one another, and the organisation’s commitment to its people.

A top down readjustment of corporate culture can take a long time to embed, so Hooton was delighted to find within months signs that the new front line-generated values were being adopted by staff. “We had provided them with a licence that released them from the old shackles,” he says. “Instead of having to do something in a way the client might not quite want just because it was the way we had always done things, staff were able to adjust their action to suit the client. Result - more satisfaction for both clients and staff!”

Staff engagement and culture change needed to be supported by structural change. With 800 staff, communication lines could be long. “We had up to five levels of management: I insisted that there should at no point be more than two tiers between myself and the front line worker,” he emphasises. 128 managers within the organisation came down to 65. “We reshaped

the management to create a direct line between the CEO and the front line.” At the same time, he moved to replace 23 local team managers with regional managers, hired for their leadership qualities and adherence to the New Way. “Growing leadership within the organisation is a key element of my strategy.”

Andrew Moffat BCom, LLB, Chair

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VISION AUSTRALIA Vision Australia’s Seeing Eye Dogs’ centre is state-of-theart and includes a rehabilitation pool

TEC H N O LOGY I N TH E SERVICE OF PEOPLE Given Ron Hooton’s background in technology, it’s significant that his first instinct was to address cultural issues rather than tools.

Nevertheless he remains acutely aware of the opportunity that technology affords to make the services to clients and the processes within Vision Australia, more effective. “The staff assessed our information systems as very poor, so we provided all the 164

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front line service workers with MS Surface Pro computers and mobile phones. And this year we are launching a new app we have developed through SalesForce which will revolutionise their working lives. We are solving the technology issue by building a client-focused system aligned to the goals of the organisation.”

New technologies, including smart phones, have offered people with low vision access to exciting new ways to improve the ways they

CONSTRUCTION

Seeing Eye Dogs Australia volunteer puppy carer, Kate Harry, and puppy Archie who is the 20th puppy she has cared for

“I WANT TO REDEVELOP OUR SERVICE AROUND FOUR PILLARS: EDUCATION, EMPLOYMENT, INDEPENDENCE AND SOCIAL INCLUSION” – Ron Hooton, Chief Executive Officer

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deal with the challenges of daily life, he says. With the impending appointment of a new Chief Digital and Information Officer (CDIO) he is throwing the full weight of the organisation behind leveraging technology that supports and improves the lives of clients. An example is the increasing use of Telelink conferencing, which provides regular group programmes offering social, peer support, special interest and recreation

AUSTRALIA & ASIA

activities to people who are socially isolated or live some distance from a Vision Australia centre. It offers a group-style conference call connection made by a volunteer who facilitates the discussion or delivers the subject matter via telephone – all from the comfort of their own home.

It also saves Vision Australia a lot of money and time. “We have taken videoconferencing technology and installed it across the organisation,”

explains Hooton. “The original goal was to cut travel costs and time but what our staff have done using their mobiles and mobile technology on their laptops is to introduce service delivery across videoconferencing, rather like a telemedicine concept.

Staff in Sydney are delivering services in Western Australia!”

He cites the example of an occupational therapist who, finding herself in Tamworth, linked up her laptop to her phone and had w w w. v i s i o n a u s t r a l i a . o r g

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someone in Sydney teach a seven year old how to manage her iPad. A remarkable piece of intuitive working. “We made it clear to staff that they were welcome to go out there and innovate if it works for clients.”

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implementation currently being undertaken, NetSuite enterprise software, did not. 15 percent of Vision Australia’s workforce are themselves blind or have low vision, so the software had to be made accessible – an investment that was justified in two ways.

One is that it allowed all the staff to work with the latest enterprise

AUSTRALIA & ASIA

system: the other is that since Vision Australia is a major advocate for employers across Australia to employ disabled workers it needed to demonstrate best practice internally.

T H E R O A D T O 2 0 18 This is proving a crucial year for Vision Australia, with two major

software implementations under way in support of more and better client engagement. At the same time, it is time to develop a more recognisable consumer brand, attractive to the client community and the wider population in Australia, to reflect the new commercial focus. “We want to be as recognisable as Oxfam or w w w. v i s i o n a u s t r a l i a . o r g

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Fred Hollows, and we are very keen to rebuild our brand round stakeholder groups including the people who refer clients to us like ophthalmologists, optometrists and general medical practitioners.”

Looking forward, by 2018 he hopes to refine the product portfolio. “I want to redevelop our service around four pillars: education, employment, independence and social inclusion.”

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People who are blind or have low vision would probably say that employment is the biggest issue, closely followed by social inclusion in the general community, but education has to come first because it’s an essential precursor to the others, he says.

For Ron Hooton, leadership of Vision Australia is an especially fulfilling job. He experienced his own father’s and grandfather’s loss

AUSTRALIA & ASIA

Company Information NAME

Vision Australia INDUSTRY

NFP EMPLOYEES

800 E S TA B L I S H E D

2005 MANAGEMENT

CEO: Ron Hooton

of sight, and deplores the slowness of the NFP sector to embrace cultural and technological change. “I don’t think they have understood the power of data and of information. The potential for organisations to mine information is very significant. So few have any understanding of how to do it and regard CIOs as an expensive luxury. I don’t think there is the insight in our sector to deploy the significant change that is needed.” If that is the case, at least Vision Australia can now be a benchmark for other service organisations.

BCom, LLB, Chair: Andrew Moffat

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