When you work for a really long time with an event it becomes a part of you and when it is over you are somewhat left in a void. That void is however quickly filled with impressions and ideas for the future, just like it is for us at EBG after Source 2 Pay Summit.
We came together, bigger and better than ever and it seem most had one or two really valuable days. On April 20th we held two workshops with two seemingly different topics however with one common denominator – the need for change within sourcing and procurement.
On April 21st the main conference kicked off with David Frydlinger at Lindahl law firm who shared their view on finding best fit sourcing business models. Lindahl has been a part of Source 2 Pay Summit the past three years and each year they leave the audience with a lot to take in and new ways to view the buyer-suppler relationship.
Following the David Frydlinger at Lindahl key note came Silvio Vanzo and Paul Mol at Electrolux with their story about how they re-started a huge tranformation of indirect procurement. Consisting of many different brands such as AEG, Zanussi, Westinghouse and many more and a history going back to 1919, Electrolux has developed via innovations, acquisitions and strong brands.
As many manufacturing companies the main focus has been on direct material and as in many large, global organizations historically Electrolux come from a culture with sector and function autonomy. The decision was made to centralize indirect procurement on a global basis with a global framework and local execution.
One of their recommendations were to not take a top-down approach another to make sure you “speak the same language”, i.e making sure stakeholders trust you and understand what your role is and that you understand their needs. Other recommendations were to ensure early involvement, aligning competences, creating cross functional teams and align KPIs.
Collaboration seem to be a common denominator through out most reflections during the day, together with the need to understand change management from a structured perspective.
Some of the key take away perspectives sent in by participants after the summit:
“Electrolux , their journey and recover from failure , Top Down does not work, instead increase value close interaction /common goals to stakeholder.”
“To continue focusing on breaking down the silos in a company and work on common KPI’s”
“What does the line need in order to sell more rather than what we as a support function force them to use.”
“Collaboration finance it and procurement and end to end perspectives are crucial”
“Great understanding from other global corporations – we have the same actions and improvement potentials.”
After two times 40 minutes of in-depth Theme Discussions where moderators decided what within the scope they wanted to discuss with peers came two Focus Sessions. Focus Sessions are meant to – as one can guess – focus in on specific topics and each delegate decide what to join.
This year Mats Billermark at BillerudKornäs and Anders Arverud at Life Europe came and shared two different topics although with a common goal – to enable the organization to go where it was supposed to go. Mats focusing on how hard organizations and management tend to make processes and ways to map up processes (i.e making them impossible to both understand and follow) and Anders focusing on the power of gathering data from across functions and entities.
Lessons learned; make it easy to follow a process and start gathering real time data.
By now during the day people are very focused and have really started talking to each other. Another two times 40 minutes of Theme Discussions are held before the final key note presentation.
Finishing Source 2 Pay Summit were Ericsson and Lotta Carlsson, Jenny Sundell and Dennis Meyers. Last year Lotta attended Source 2 Pay Summit and since then they have embarked on a global journey towards spend control and end-to-end visibility. One initial realization was that accounts payable got the blame for many problems that in the end turned out to exist due to lack of control and accuracy in the front end of the source to pay process. 
Ericsson finished the summit with both a poll question to the audience and great insights and whenever you hear someone stress the fact how important it is to both take an down and up perspective as well as an end-to-end perspective if you are serious about reaching set strategies – it make our hearts extra warm. We understand how hard it is or can be. Thousands of employees, numerous languages and cultures, dozens of systems, old processes and habits and not enough time and support.
“Not many organizations are prepared or preparing for change, given the digital disruption that has already happened, and very likely will accelerate soon”
“Electrolux , their journey and recover from failure , Top Down does not work, instead increase value close interaction /common goals to stakeholder.”
“What does the line need in order to sell more rather than what we as a support function force them to use.”
“New angles on how to successfully implement source to pay in an organization, on all levels”
“Got some interesting feedback regarding supply chain risk mitigation that I will discuss in our leadership team”
Ending a summit you have worked really hard to perfect leaves a void but also new energy. Extra so when the idea being to let the delegates dictate what to discuss and realizing they too stress collaboration, trust and sustainability. Thank you! If you want you can read more about what happened and was said during Source 2 Pay Summit here in the Post Summit Report. 
In the autumn EBG | Network welcome you to join a two day seminar focusing on Practical Change Management & Transformation in September and October 2016. Based on recurring statements that even though most seem to perceive there is a clear strategy and mandate and an understanding how and who to inform and communicate with – most don’t feel they have the support and resource to enable that communication. So how will you succeed?
The 2-day seminar focuses on:
- Why do change and transformation initiatives fail to deliver value?
- How can you work practically to secure sustainable and real change?
- How can you ensure real benefits realization?
In 2017 Source 2 Pay Summit is back in Stockholm on March 29th & 30th and in the autumn of 2017 EBG launch an on demand in-depth summit focusing on the front end of source to pay – sourcing. Welcome to invite in your sourcing, procurement, category and commodity managers to join Sourcing Outlook 2017.
Photo credit: Christian Elfstrom