BRO_G4S_Feb2021

G4S PLC’s Global Procurement and Supply Chain Transformation IN ASSOCIATION WITH

G4S PLC

DIGITAL REPORT 2021

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G4S PLC’s

GLOBAL PROCUREMENT AND SUPPLY CHAIN

TRANSFORMATION 03

www.g 4 s . com

G4S PLC

Robert Copeland, G4S PLC’s Group Procurement Director (CPO) discusses running procurement for the leading global technology-enabled security solutions provider

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The British firm G4S – known for being one of the world’s leading security services providers – recently found time for senior

leader Robert Copeland to sit down with Supply Chain Digital to discuss the organisation’s experi04

ences of a year plagued by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Robert Copeland is G4S’s Group Procurement & Supply Chain Director, and has over 20 years in Procurement and Supply Chain.

To start our discussion, we addressed the elephant in the room, COVID-19. The global virus has cast shade over almost every aspect of the supply chain process, and it only seemed fitting to ask Robert about its effect on G4S activity.

“COVID-19 has impacted all organisations, some for the better, and others sadly for the worse. However, G4S has been incredibly resilient during the Pandemic.

In several regions especially in the US, demand for G4S security services increased to ensure customer properties and facilities were fully protected during the pandemic. In the UK G4S has played an important part in supporting national efforts by successfully

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Award winning company with over 70 years textile expertise at your disposal

Contract quality, business sector compliant (EN ISO, IMO, BS, ASTM), Bed Linens, Bath Linens, Fire Retardant Textiles, Curtaining FOR RESIDENTIAL ACCOMMODATION in: Prisons, Army Barracks, Immigration Centres, Council Housing, Shipping, Oil and Gas platforms,

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“ I also want people to get away from their desks and truly understand why things are the way they are, and to pinpoint the problems we are trying to solve” — Robert Copeland, Group Procurement & Supply Chain Director (CPO), G4S Plc

07 team adapted and worked hard during the first few weeks of the crisis to source and expedite over 10 million items of PPE, helping keep over 500,000 employees and our customers safe.

We teamed up with the G4S subsidiary

mobilising testing facilities across the

Hill & Associates Consultants Limited

country, including 18 regional, 92

one of Asia’s leading provider of special-

local & 65 mobile sites, requiring G4S

ist risk mitigation to rapidly go on site in

to rapidly recruit thousands of addi-

China to screen PPE manufacturers who

tional staff.

had never supplied G4S before, giving

With all of these programmes around

us greater visibility of the product qual-

the world in addition to day-to-day activi-

ity and business standards.

ties, the Procurement function has been

Beyond that, we had to ensure G4S

thoroughly challenged. The procurement

supply chains were responsive and agile www.g 4 s . com

G4S PLC

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Trusted Partner: Thomas Kneale “Thomas Kneale has been G4S’ preferred supplier for contract quality, fire retardant bedding and bathroom textiles and prisoner clothing for nearly 20 years, providing sector compliant textile solutions for end users with differing needs and requirements across multiple business segments, primarily custodial,” says Thomas Kneale director Richard J. Manville. “Having invested in a specialist digital stock forecast system which permeates the whole of TK’s supply chain, the G4S/TK partnership has grown to now include Thomas Kneale operating an end-to-end,

vendor-managed G4S stock holding, ordering and replenishment business model. This system operates on a fully accredited and audited supply chain evidenced by the Gold medal award to TK on the EcoVadis Sustainability platform. G4S is rightly vigilant and uncompromising that it’s supply chain is transparent, auditable and compliant to its sustainable objectives. Thomas Kneale fulfils these obligations meticulously operating only with fully regulated and audited factories in China and the Sub Continent.”

EX EC UTIV E PROFILE:

Robert Copeland Title: Group Procurement & Supply Chain Director (CPO) Company: G4S PLC Industry: Security Location: London, UK Robert Copeland is an experienced supply chain professional with over 20 years’ experience in multinational organisations both in the UK and abroad.

Having studied in the UK and France, he started his career at Peugeot Citroen (PSA) in Paris, returning to the UK to work at Danone and the Post Office before joining G4S in 2015.

Robert has built his reputation reshaping Procurement and Supply Chain functions in a digital age, allowing the supply chain to become a business competitive advantage.

www.g 4 s . com

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“ In a lean business like G4S, our stakeholders are won over by delivery – conversely, reputations can quickly be tarnished if change outcomes fall short of promises made”

At the same time, the business was preparing for Brexit, the divestment of its conventional cash business in 40 countries and the mobilisation of new major contracts won in 2020, including a new 10-year contract to operate the UK’s first resettlement prison, HMP Five Wells in Wellingborough.

The pressure has been with us at every step; however, I am immensely proud of the way our teams around the world rose

— Robert Copeland, Group Procurement & Supply Chain Director (CPO), G4S Plc

to every challenge.

to adapt to customers’ requirements,

mation programme to enable operational

which in some cases changed overnight.

excellence and cost leadership.

Given the on-going refocusing at G4S in a competitive market place, Copeland talks about a major supply chain transfor-

In parallel, the procurement team led

When I visited the G4S Procurement

the development and implementation of

teams around the world, I spent time

infrastructure to enable the rapid recruit-

with the operational teams to get a direct

ment of thousands of staff to run the Covid

understanding of how the businesses

Test Centres across the UK, using the

operated. I noticed the work-wear supply

latest digital workforce management

chains were highly decentralised and

platform and recruitment partners such

often suffering from range proliferation

as HR Go. The cloud based workforce

(i.e. 60 variants of white shirts used in

management platform gives G4S real-

just 6 European countries) and large

time visibility and reporting, ensuring

amounts of stock obsolescence clut-

the entire recruitment process is com-

tering up storage areas.)

pliant, transparent, and controlled from end to end.

Work-wear is a major spend area for G4S with an annual spend of $50M www.g 4 s . com

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G4S PLC

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2004

Year founded

£7,758 m+ Revenue in GBP (2019)

570,000+ Number of employees

supporting over 500,000 employees.

Anyone who has been involved in the transformation of corporate work-wear will attest to the fact that it is deceptively complex.

Work-wear is also an emotional subject and understandably so. The saying goes, ‘if you dress well, you feel well’ and this meant that any changes were scrutinised and challenged by many, from works councils to Managing Directors.

The business was interested in improving how they managed work-wear and reducing costs, but the countries often lacked the capability to implement sustainable change.

The competing dynamics of works councils, customer standards, staff churn, uniform customisations, bulk manufacturing lead times, mobilisation of new business (typically 30-day go-live from contract signature), seasonality, special events, quality and cost vs. garment design life, create a rather complex algorithm when blended together.

Since 1996 G4S has owned a garment manufacturer in India called IBG, which currently supplies 15% of G4S’s uniforms globally. IBG had a difficult relationship www.g 4 s . com

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As we developed the operating model, we identified 3PL as an option and one that had the potential to solve many of our problems. We evaluated the merits of both a fully outsourced 3PL solution alongside maintaining a direct relationship with a panel of manufacturers/ distributors. What we found during the detailed evaluation was that for a tight margin business such as G4S, a direct relationship with a uniform distributor, in terms of technical and service support along with a TCO price, outweighed the benefits of a 3PL solution.

In a lean business like G4S, our stakeholders are won over by delivery - con-

“ The digitisation of procurement at G4S has allowed my teams to focus more time on front-line projects and business growth and allowing us to accelerate our important supply chain ESG agenda.”

— Robert Copeland, Group Procurement & Supply Chain Director (CPO), G4S Plc

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versely, reputations can quickly be tarnished if change outcomes fall short of promises made, so a robust operating model was critical to withstand the operational pressures and demands exerted through the lifecycle of managing customer expectations.

Given that work-wear covers six continents, it was important to divide this programme into manageable phases, with the first phase being the UK & Europe in 2018. The first element was to develop the right operating model, which critically would allow G4S www.g 4 s . com

with G4S as an in-house supplier. Each

G4S, like many companies, over time

local country operation demands a high

can find itself becoming overly reliant

touch and responsive distribution service,

on and beholden to suppliers where the

and frankly, the demands are often

knowledge sits firmly with the supplier

unreasonable but this is driven by the

base. It can be a real struggle to get hold

needs of our customers. Whilst IBG was

of robust management information, per-

renowned for the quality of its products,

formance KPIs, accurate stock liabilities,

it simply could not compete on service

and in the case of work-wear a clear

with strong local distributors (200 sup-

understanding of the specifications and

pliers in Europe alone). This truly had

cost per wearer. Past attempts made by

become an existential threat to IBG

local business units had limited success.

and so the opportunity for the procure-

This presented a great opportunity for

ment team to help IBG pivot it’s business

the Group Procurement team to show-

model and to focus on its core strengths

case its ability to re-imagine the way the

was timely.

business thought about work-wear.

G4S Integrated Security CLICK TO WATCH

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17 to retain control, scale the solution and

audit our work-wear supply lines for mod-

leverage volumes with flexibility for any

ern slavery risks and ethical standards.

local and national requirements.

We also partnered with a boutique

The solution had to conquer key iss-

Dutch software house, EC Manage,

ues including the build-up of obsoles-

which developed a digital work-wear

cence stock, wearer level management

management system for distributors,

(including start and end of life), zero

able to give wearer level allocations and

based budgeting, cost per user track-

controls, the trick being to create flex-

ing, garment performance in the field

ibility without excessive working capital.

tracking, order vs user requirements,

Customer contracts often require G4S

working capital optimisation and

to mobilise a workforce numbering in the

inventory management.

1000s with 30 days’ notice.

To ensure the new operating model

The Procurement team ran several

met stringent business ethics, we collab-

complex prequalification tenders and

orated with EcoVadis to independently

e-auctions during 2018 to ensure the best www.g 4 s . com

G4S PLC

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“ It is important to take the time to engage with the business and suppliers at all levels to find opportunities that are often known of, but not acted upon” — Robert Copeland, Group Procurement & Supply Chain Director (CPO), G4S Plc

partners were selected to deliver the right economic and operational blend.

We appointed the well-respected UK based workwear distributor Incorporatewear Ltd, to to supply the six largest European countries, consolidating over 200 suppliers into one contractual relationship.

The project team had to undertake a major user trial phase as agreed with the European Works Councils to ensure that the optimised range was exactly right, often with very

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positive feedback from the users,

Work-wear transformation has been

in parallel to the trials the supply chain

a challenging project, one that has seen

had to be fully Brexit proofed, able to

us navigate through some interesting

operate in all possible Brexit outcomes.

moments (including Brexit), but it has

The output of the programme in

also demonstrated the value of a truly

Europe delivered overall cost effi-

capable and trusted procurement func-

ciencies of 20%-25% (40% in some

tion, able to provide leadership and

countries), and a range rationalisa-

commercial credibility.

tion of around 60% across Europe.

This enabled G4S to reinvest some of the savings in targeted areas to improve the look and feel of the uniforms and the morale of our people. www.g 4 s . com

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