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Marcus Warensjö, Head of Group Indirect Procurement at GlobalConnect, has been tasked to accelerate synergy and to support building a one group company.
Written by Anna McMahon • Produced by Jennifer Davies
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GlobalConnect aims at being northern Eur provider of network infrastructure, born merger between GlobalConnect and IP-Onl place at the beginning of 2020.
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arcus Warensjö, Head of Group Indirect Procurement at GlobalConnect, says, “We see ourselves as a global end-to-end connectivity provider, offering everything from infrastructure as a service and telecommunications services bundled together for B2B clients, to open infrastructure ‘FTTH’ (fiberto-the-home) for private customers.” The company has a presence in Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland and northern Germany, with Marcus working out of its Stockholm office, and his indirect team being spread across these countries. As Head of Group Indirect Procurement, Marcus is responsible for all indirect areas supporting mainly the central functions within the business. This includes sourcing related to, for example, IT and HR projects, as well as handling all professional services. Marcus explains, “The focus of myself and the rest of procurement has been on building one group company. We have a lot of mergers and acquisitions 5
in our history. We refer to the idea of an expedition towards becoming one company and enjoying the related benefits. It is about having similarities around our strategy and way of working.” Marcus has much expertise in the area of Sourcing & Procurement, with an international profile and management consultancy experience. He says his background has helped enormously in bringing harmonisation to GlobalConnect. Marcus adds, “In order for us to accelerate the move to becoming one company, we had to revisit its processes. With my background, amongst others in the company, I have seen the way different companies do things and can therefore pick out the best and make them fit for purpose.” In terms of GlobalConnect’s procurement and supporting technology strategy, Marcus says the aim is to be an agile sourcing organisation. He explains, “We need to support the business in a quick and efficient way whilst following both internal and external processes, and policies. Along 6
this road, you sometimes discover you need help to create the right processes. You can either choose, for example, a partner or a system that will bring in the processes, or you can start from scratch yourself. When it comes to the partnering, we have two examples in Ahlsell and Ework Group, which handle two large portions today of our daily business.” With hundreds of business and consumer projects in place, Ahlsell is looking after the supply and delivery of passive material, while Ework Group is now handling the process around all temporary staff and consultants. Marcus adds, “Besides their network and knowledge, Ework also brings in a digitalised system we can use. So, sometimes you can work on the processes yourself, i.e. how to do things internally, but a lack of best practices or the need for change due to a merger, for example, can often make it a good idea to look for partners, such as Ahlsell and Ework, to help you solve these problems.” The procurement function at GlobalConnect is designed to make processes as quick and 7
Your partner on the consultant market By establishing a procurement program handled by Ework Group as Managed Service Provider (MSP), along with our Vendor Management System (VMS), Verama, our clients can access the best possible support to assist their internal customers and suppliers. Many clients have selected us as the MSP for their procurement and entrusted us with the management of their entire consultancy life cycle. In doing so, they have achieved cost savings, business efficiency and regulatory control. As an MSP, we support our clients with one point of contact for all their consultancy needs.
The MSP aims to: reduce administration by lifting tasks from hiring managers and procurement. create control and visibility by managing the contracts, onboarding, extensions and offboarding of the entire consultant base. empower the client with market knowledge of rates, spend, competence categories and levels, legislation etc.
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meet the need for the right level of competence by offering an efficient supply of consultants with low lead times.
www.eworkgroup.com 8
“Besides their network and knowledge, eWork also brings in a digitalised system we can use”
as easy as possible, utilising the available technology to support the core business. Marcus explains, “We piloted a purchase order process, and coming into 2021, we will be doing a lot of work on scaling it. We also have digital contract signing across the group, and are working on an integration towards our digital
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archiving, so when documents have been signed, the contract will be stored and data will be automatically populated, enabling deeper analysis, or to support us in helping with triggers for the renewal of contract agreements, for instance. Procurement, in this sense, is using the technology to work more proactively rather than reactively.” The role of Category Management has been a key factor in bringing synergy to the company. Marcus says, “From a team building perspective, to fully utilise the expertise of managers in each country, we moved to an organisation with categories rather than countries. By having a few managers with teams in different countries working with each of the specific categories, we have become more centralised. By working with categories in this way, we have been able to utilise IT expertise to support the full group, rather than IT projects in a specific country where there might be lack of deep competence in the specific field. This provides a broad picture of what is happening within the group and we can act accordingly.” 10
“From a team building perspective, to fully utilise the expertise of managers in each country, we moved to an organisation with categories rather than countries”
GlobalConnects’s fiber network consists of a backbone connecting local networks to the major cities in Sweden, Norway, Finland, Denmark and Germany and wavelengths in several European cities, allowing you to reach almost any destination in the Nordics. The entire network is managed, operated and monitored 24/7 by highly skilled technicians. 11
GlobalConnect employs a fi Category Management fu
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Mobilisation
Category Analysis
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Categ Strat
ive-step process for its unction, as follows:
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gory ategy
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Implementation
Follow Up
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Marcus adds, “Each of the steps is equally important, but I would personally put an emphasis on the latter two because it is one thing to come up with great ideas provided by a great analysis, but it is a totally different thing to be able to implement and follow up in an ideal way.” Marcus believes that by making procurement close to the business with the added benefit of early involvement, he and his team can really make a difference. Reflecting on the events of the last year, he says,
Ahlsell the leading technical wholesaler in the Nordics.
You will find everything you need for FTTX and telecom solutions. 14
“With hundreds of business and consumer projects in place, Ahlsell is looking after the supply and delivery of passive material”
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“We have made a lot of changes to t operate with different systems and so we now need to scale this to all to reap the benefits, as well as con deliver end-to-end solutions for ou
Marcus Warensjö, Head of Group Indirect Procurement at Glob
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the way we d processes, low the group ntinuing to ur customers”
balConnect
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“Communication and connectivity are now community services, so everyone should be able to have them at their disposal”
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“Our biggest achievement has been our continued project investment. When people work from home, companies and consumers have an increased demand in our services. Communication and connectivity are now community services, so everyone should be able to have them at their disposal. It is therefore really important for us to be close to the business, and to know the market, to be able to act in an agile way.” The coming year will see a focus on saving and scaling for Marcus and his team. He concludes, “We will continue to build up on the synergies whose foundations we have laid. We have made a lot of changes to the way we operate with different systems and processes, so we now need to scale this to allow the group to reap the benefits, as well as continuing to deliver end-to-end solutions for our customers.” For further information, visit www.globalconnect.se or www.globalconnect.net
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www.globalconnect.se www.globalconnect.net