Daniel W. Bartel joined Schneider Electric as its Chief Procurement Officer in 2019 where he manages £16bn in annual procurement spend. His team of approximately 1,500 Procurement members support around 200 factories and 100 distribution centres in 44 countries.
Partnering with business leadership, Dan drives the development and deployment of processes, tools, systems, and organisational competence to manage Schneider Electric’s supply base. Procurement in Schneider Electric enables growth through supplier quality and innovation, drives breakthrough impact on the bottom line through cost and cash improvement, and supports the organisation’s sustainability agenda via responsible sourcing and product compliance.
Prior to joining Schneider Electric, Dan held several roles in procurement and logistics at ABB, ultimately serving as the group SVP, Head of Procurement and Logistics. Overall, Dan has 27 years of global experience in procurement and supply chain management, primarily in the energy and automation industries.
What do you love about Procurement?
There are many things to love about procurement, but the standout for me is that no matter what problem the business is facing, procurement can contribute towards the solution.
For example, are high costs an issue? Tap into your buyer network because driving down costs is the most natural to them. Are supply shortages constraining business growth? Turn to your procurement team to strengthen your supplier relationships. This will ensure that your organization is positioned as the customer of choice and is first in line for supply. At the same time, procurement can ensure future growth is secured via contracts and multi-sourcing, so you don’t run into the same issue again. The same goes for problems with cash, your procurement team can step in with strategic negotiations on payment terms and consignment inventory while implementing a supply chain finance program. And finally, a roadblock in R&D can be resolved by co-innovating with suppliers. Your procurement team are perfectly positioned to leverage your supply base to capitalise on growth opportunities together.
Procurement isn’t just there to help solve traditional business problems, we also have visibility across sustainability, business resiliency, risk management and diversity, equity and inclusion.
As you can see, procurement is there in the thick of it. We have a real opportunity to contribute and create value. We’re a strategic partner to the business, and we have a seat at the table. That’s what I really love about procurement.
How has procurement and the expectations placed upon it changed over time?
I’ve been in procurement for the last 27 years, and I have certainly seen a shift in business expectations. In the past, the focus was really on cost and cash. Sometimes, it would also include quality, inventory, and lead times. All these topics are now critical to how we operate. On top of this, the best performing companies are also demanding procurement to deliver:
Innovation
As I mentioned before, co-innovating with your supply base represents one of the largest opportunities for growth and it’s up to procurement to tap into this resource. The best procurement teams today are highly effective in onboarding the right suppliers with the right technology to enable R&D functions to develop the next generation of offers that are faster, cheaper, and better than the competition.
Risk Management
The unprecedented events of the past few years have placed a spotlight on the value of effective supply risk management. And this should not only be across Tier 1 suppliers, but also down to Tier X upstream suppliers. Organisations rely on procurement to map out and proactively manage risks that are further upstream than in previous years.
Sustainability
Sustainability is not a fad and is now expected and demanded by our customers and investors. I’m proud to work for an organisation like Schneider Electric, which has sustainability at its core and looks beyond its own operations when calculating its impact on people and planet. In procurement, this means looking at the impact your suppliers have. More than 70% of the carbon emissions Schneider Electric emits is not from our own factories but are within our supplier ecosystem. Tackling scope 3 emissions is challenging, but necessary to support the world’s transition to a low carbon future. With The Zero Carbon Project, we’re working closely with our top 1,000 suppliers to ensure a 50% reduction in our supplier operations emissions (scope 1 and 2) by 2025.
The pandemic appears to have raised people’s awareness of procurement. There is a significant opportunity for procurement to move away from the back-office support function label and move towards the role of commercial facilitator. Does procurement need to rebrand or reinvigorate its processes and culture to make the most of this opportunity?
Yes, and I couldn’t agree with this more. It’s vital for Procurement to focus its energy on the activities that are going to create real value.
In a technology company like Schneider Electric, there are only two areas where Procurement can do this. This is a) R&D and product development and b) category management, especially relating to supplier relationship management. I’m not saying that everything else is not important, but it should fall outside of procurement’s core role and where possible needs to be standardized, digitized, and automated. This is key to driving efficiency in procurement as it allows the teams to dedicate more energy into creating that business value.
Do you need to be a qualified procurement practitioner to be a successful member of a procurement team?
The short answer is no. Like any other role, everyone is expected to bring something to the table in terms of experience and competence. However, it’s not necessary to have the qualifications of a negotiation or supplier management expert to have a successful and meaningful career within procurement. These skills can be learnt if you have the right energy and willingness to do so. In an organisation like Schneider Electric, it’s very important to have a desire to learn and development yourself as there are many opportunities to do so. I’m also a firm believer in exchanging talent between procurement and other business functions so that we have cross functional collaboration and a stronger understanding of our goals. This leads to faster adoption and acceptance of our practices. People that come from outside of procurement also provide our teams with an expanded perspective into the needs of our various stakeholders. By moving our people in and out of procurement, our function becomes more engaged and effective across the whole business.