Sourcing Champions partners with Cirtuo

Roberto Cioni

Dutch consulting firm Sourcing Champions has teamed up with Austria-based technology provider Cirtuo with the aim of helping procurement leaders better define and validate their category strategy and roadmap.

Based in Amsterdam and Munich, Sourcing Champions is a consultancy that specialises in sourcing strategy, procurement transformations and digitalisation. Austria based Cirtuo – founded by former Kearney consultant Drasko Jelavic – is a provider of software that helps companies professionalise their category and supplier management.

“We recently launched our ‘Category Strategy Development Program’,” kicks off Robert Waalder, Managing Partner of Sourcing Champions. “This is a boost program that helps procurement leaders develop more robust procurement category strategies and plans, and build a more sustainable approach on risks, costs, working capital, innovation and digitalisation.

“In our experience, strategy is the fundament for procurement in order to achieve competitive advantage. Yet many companies still spend too much time on executing without a well underpinned and validated category strategy and initiatives plan,” Waalder added, providing the background as to why the Dutch consultancy developed its boost program.

To provide an end-to-end experience backed by a digital backbone, Sourcing Champions scanned the market for “a champions league level solution that can facilitate procurement decision-making”. This search led to Cirtuo, which is currently used by procurement managers and their teams in 40+ countries around the world.

“Companies that fail to successfully execute their procurement strategies waste resources and lose sight and focus on what is important for the business. Our unique AI-powered technology platform solves this by creating full insight in category strategy development and execution,” said Jelavic.

On top of improving the procurement value chain, the tool enables procurement managers to operate as a closer business partner, “positioning the function as a more strategic function”.

The partnership comes at a time of major disruption to procurement functions. Facing a need to optimise costs amid competition and to restructure supplier networks in order to meet changing demands and sustainability pressures, as well as build resilience for future events, CEOs are increasingly turning to their Chief Procurement Officer to add strategic value.

“Leaders are seizing the current environment to reshape their procurement strategy,” said Waalder. “We look forward to contributing to this goal through our new program and partnership with Cirtuo. All our consultants have been trained intensively over the past half year and have been successfully certified by Cirtuo!”

The ‘Category Strategy Development Program’ spans an intensive 12-weeks with 15 workshops. Waalder: “It covers a full implementation rollout on all categories, with training and coaching on Cirtuo for all category leads.”

Looking ahead, the two firms also aim to expand their relationship into a more advisory capacity. Jelavic: “Sourcing Champions has a strong presence in the Dutch, German and other European markets and fits to our growth objectives and vision. We have a shared passion for this cooperation and our goal of professionalising the world of procurement.”

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