Fives
"With Axiscope, we have found a functionally and rich solution that can be adapted to our needs and specificities."
Stakes and Goals
- To provide to the different entities of the group a unique supplier database to collaborate and to share information
- To qualify and to evaluate suppliers to anticipate risks and better manage its panel
1. How do you see the evolution of purchases, the evolution of the systems at their disposal, the interaction, the role of the ISD in the global performance ?
We are an engineering group that works in different sectors and build factories, production lines, equipment in different sectors (steel, cement, aluminum, logistics, etc.). Our group is very focused on engineering with the common part of managing large projects.
Today, for projects like all IT or IS projects to run properly, it is necessary to have a real partnership between the IT department and the business departments. First of all, by integrating into the IT teams, project managers who have real expertise and background in the business. This is necessary in order to fully understand the challenges faced by the business departments they will be supporting and who have control over the cost of the IT project.
"It's one thing to implement solutions, but you have to ensure continuity and proper use of the solution as well as provide to users the support they need."
For the IT department, it is essential that it can support the business departments, whatever they are : purchasing, sales, the design office, etc. We intervene from the definition phase of the need, the choice of solution to the support phase. The IT Department has a real support role: the roadmap is built by the purchasing department and then carried by the IT Department on these different subjects. At the level of our project managers, they will be able to support the deployment of the solutions and the users as well as provide support for a proper use of the solution.
2. What are the advantages of building a supplier base management system and controlling it ?
In a group such as ours, there is a significant disparity in terms of activities and companies that are geographically spread arround the world.
This tool allows us to carry out the supplier qualification process, to evaluate suppliers and to have a database that can be shared by all users to start a sourcing process through the database. Behind the SRM, we can also automatically feed the ERP that will carry the purchasing operational processes.
"It is important to have a database that can be shared with all buyers and that will allow us to have up to date data to make available."
The objective is to have a SRM that is upstream of the operational purchasing processes in which we will :
Today, SRM makes it possible to have a single database for all buyers and subsidiaries, regardless of their sector of activity, to share a common vision. This vision was built with the purchasing department to allow us to compare the useful information that we will put into the tool from one subsidiary to another, and then to provide to purchases an operational tool.
3. Who did you do this project with ?
We are doing this with Axiscope. Today we have set up the supplier qualification and supplier evaluation part, but also the management of electronic calls for tender and the charge back part. Our project roadmap will depend on the business sectors and the needs of the subsidiaries. The needs of subsidiaries that manage factory implementations or equipment manufacturing are not the same in terms of business purchasing needs, but we still have the possibility of sharing this common base. And then we deploy the modules according to the needs of each one and the roadmap that is given by the group's purchasing department.
"With Axiscope, we were able to set up a project in different phases that would quickly bring added value to the FIVES group rather than a deployment project that would take a very long time."
