DIGITAL PROCUREMENT
“ Automation freed-up time for our people to focus on more strategic and valueadded tasks , which helped to further our mission to create a centralised , best-in-class procurement function ,” states DeCandia .
He adds : “ We created a matrix that focused on what we believe to be the three critical areas of excellence : category management , supplier relationship management , and business engagement . This approach has allowed our procurement professionals to become better businesspeople .”
Maintaining resilience during the pandemic healthcare crisis During the height of the COVID-19 pandemic “ failure was not an option ”, according to DeCandia . Johnson & Johnson needed to keep its suppliers and sites operational due to the life-saving nature of its devices and pharmaceuticals .
But how do you keep a business up and running when it has over 50,000 suppliers and a workforce of over 100,000 ?
DeCandia explains : “ It has certainly been an interesting journey , to say the least . We were fortunate to have already started our transformation ahead of the pandemic , so we were poised for full deployment . Our centralised procurement system was essential to our resilience .
“ We had ‘ future-ready procurement ’. We were fortunate to have the foresight to digitally enable our operations and were agile enough to scale up around the world .”
Being the largest healthcare company in the world , and faced with the challenge of navigating the first global pandemic in more than 100 years , DeCandia explains that having a well-defined and harmonised approach to supplier relationships was “ an incredible enabler of resiliency ”.
He adds : “ Through this pandemic , we have seen supplier relationship management elevated in importance . We started to see procurement as having the ability to elevate supplier practices across the entire brand .
“ Through digital enablement , we wanted to go beyond digital literacy to create procurement and sourcing literacy . Prepandemic , procurement ’ s role was to achieve the best costs . Today , it is much more sophisticated . It is about getting the best value , driving resilience , and reframing the critical role of suppliers .”
92 May 2022