{"id":2828,"date":"2021-12-06T19:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-12-06T18:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sw.fst.com\/magazine\/?p=2828"},"modified":"2022-03-15T14:57:44","modified_gmt":"2022-03-15T13:57:44","slug":"turning-two-into-one","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sw.fst.com\/magazine\/en\/2021\/12\/turning-two-into-one\/","title":{"rendered":"Turning Two into One"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As an internal provider of services, Strategic Sourcing and Trading (SST) is rarely in the limelight. That\u2018s unfortunate. With just twelve employees, it is responsible for a purchasing volume of more than 119 million euros. Currently, in view of the scarcity of resources, interrupted supply chains, and delivery fluctuations and delays, the work is truly a Herculean task.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

\"Rob
Rob Martell (left), Josh Swartz and their teams recently began handling trade ware for both the Freudenberg and Dichtomatik brands \u2013 globally and from a single entity.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

SST was first created in 2014 and has been part of the Industrial Services Division since 2015. What are its tasks? SST sources the seals that FST Lead Centers do not produce themselves, even handling the price negotiations for them. Strategic supplier management is the foundation of its work. With the help of audits and other tools, SST checks and ensures product quality as well as the performance and reliability of FST\u2018s suppliers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

SST was repositioned on August 1, 2021. Until now, this was all organized regionally. Furthermore, the work took place separately for Freudenberg and Dichtomatik, which in some cases led to overlapping functions and redundant measures. The key phrase here is \u201cdouble the work.\u201d That is precisely what the new lean structure avoids. The processes are uniform, and synergies are systematically exploited.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The biggest change: Strategic sourcing now takes place from a single source for both product brands \u2013 and with a clear differentiation of roles based on tasks. This is accomplished efficiently and with higher quality since individual employees specialize in \u2013 and are experts on \u2013 individual product groups. \u201cWith these improvements in efficiency and those that have been initiated since 2018, we will have reduced organizational costs by 35 percent by 2022 \u2013 with improving performance,\u201d said Rob Martell, Director Global Strategic Sourcing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A presence for two brands<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

With FST\u2019s market positioning and by acting on behalf of both the Freudenberg and Dichtomatik product brands, the company is handling larger purchasing volumes and strengthening its negotiating position and effectiveness. This especially reflects the gradual organizational and legal integration of all the former Dichtomatik locations into FST. People talk about the \u201ccustomer centricity\u201d resulting from a complete FST portfolio from a single source. But the approach is just as valid for sourcing within the internal customer-supplier relationship between \u201cservice provider\u201d SST and its customers, the Lead Centers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The unit\u2019s organization would likely have been inconceivable before the Covid-19 epidemic. Josh Swartz, Manager, Supply Strategy, offered a practical example of digitalization in the workplace that played into the changes. \u201cFrom the United States, I manage a cross-regional team whose three members are all in Germany,\u201d he said. International cooperation has led to a new distribution of roles across all of strategic sourcing after just a few months. \u201cIt worked out tremendously. The team did a great job,\u201d Martell said.<\/p>\n

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As an internal provider of services, Strategic Sourcing and Trading (SST) is rarely in the limelight. That\u2018s unfortunate. With just twelve employees, it is responsible for a purchasing volume of…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2598,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[102,91],"tags":[278],"powerkit_post_featured":[],"class_list":["post-2828","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-global-en","category-strategy","tag-edition-01_2022-en"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sw.fst.com\/magazine\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2828","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sw.fst.com\/magazine\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sw.fst.com\/magazine\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sw.fst.com\/magazine\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sw.fst.com\/magazine\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2828"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/sw.fst.com\/magazine\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2828\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2860,"href":"https:\/\/sw.fst.com\/magazine\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2828\/revisions\/2860"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sw.fst.com\/magazine\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2598"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sw.fst.com\/magazine\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sw.fst.com\/magazine\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sw.fst.com\/magazine\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2828"},{"taxonomy":"powerkit_post_featured","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sw.fst.com\/magazine\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/powerkit_post_featured?post=2828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}