TRANSFORMATION

Ahlsell CPO, Karolina Chinell, reveals its digitalisation journey at IvaluaNow EMEA, emphasising supplier engagement, master data and procurement rethinking

WRITTEN BY: ILKHAN OZSEVIM

Things fall apart – that’s the law of entropy; it’s woven into the very fabric that makes everything up. In 1958, Chinua Achebe entitled his debut novel, now a classic, with the phrase.

It’s always been a serendipitous paradox that, as physics slouches towards disorder, it simultaneously throws up systems that organise in the most sophisticated ways, and procurement and supply chains are a striking example of these optimising processes.

Think of it, the world falls into disarray through pandemic, war – unwanted and unforeseeable vicissitudes – and procurement and supply chains rearrange their operations like mycelium reconfiguring their roots around collapsing structures, and somehow, they find a way.

It’s late March, and to get at this ‘somehow’, I’m at IvaluaNow EMEA in Paris, where procurement and supply chain leaders from across the region have gathered to understand how to digitally transform their organisations in such tumultuous times.

As the brightly fuschia-lit stage booms its bass at the attendees, Karolina Hagberg Chinell, CPO of Ahlsell, steps out and announces that she’s going to share Ahlsell’s transformation journey with the audience. She establishes that a key element of it revolves around how they engage closely