UPM Sourcing –becoming the customer of choice

As a front runner in the forestry industry, UPM provides renewable solutions for various end uses from its 6 business areas. A seeker and investor in sustainable growth, and innovator for a future beyond fossils, UPM’s ethos is built around responsibility. Nina Kivioja UPM’s VP Sourcing, Indirect Materials & Services discusses how sourcing & procurement has been transforming, how it embodies the ethics and ambitions of the business, and why becoming the customer of choice is important to the organisation’s ambitions.

Hi Nina, UPM is a significant business in size and scale and also diverse in respect of business units. What does Indirect Material & Services cover within UPM and how is your role (function) structured?

Indirect Category Sourcing supports globally all our businesses with a group wide platform, having a responsibility for strategic sourcing across indirect materials and services, capex, major maintenance, outsourcing spend & supplier innovations.

We aim to leverage and identify synergies across business units and geographies, with a mission to improve UPM business performance through excellence in spend management.

In our sourcing and procurement community we have a systematic roadmap and steps to increase and protect UPM’s values. We work as a “one team” according to our renewed Source-to-Pay taxonomy: category sourcing, tactical sourcing, procurement, and invoice to pay teams, supported by source to pay development. We have a matrix organisation including our regional BA specific sourcing and procurement teams as well as sourcing operations teams in the business hubs.

What complexity does the geographic footprint and also diverse nature of the business units create for procurement?

UPM has a diverse business portfolio under strong rotation towards bioeconomy driven business with sustainability as a central unifying theme. The positioning of