The story: I have been working ever since I finished high school in the late 1990s, and I have had my fair share of professions from being a construction worker to working for the local radio station and even as an unqualified worker for a company that recycled metals.
My first contact with logistics was at a company where for 5 years, I learned everything there is to know about this field and where I discovered that logistics is not limited to clearly defined actions and that each participant in the process has an impact on the result and on the production area. After moving to Timișoara in 2005, I changed several jobs, all supply chain related, and in 2008 I started my career in Continental and I have been part of the team for more than 12 years.
The first 9 years I worked in Continental Automotive Romania, having different roles in the Supply Chain department, first as a customer manager, later taking on the responsibility of project coordinator locally and as part of the global Supply Chain Management Automotive projects.
After 5 years, I took over as Supply Chain Manager, which got me out of my comfort zone; I was no longer responsible for one project but for the performance of a team of about 100 people. And three and a half years ago, I accepted a new challenge: within ContiTech Romania as head of Purchasing.
Being Head of Purchasing for Contitech: Like any role of a department manager, this one also targets 2 directions: the first one in team development and standardization of internal processes and the second one is a strategic direction of business development. Each of these two areas presents its challenges. The strategic one influences the development and standardization area of the internal processes, whereas the team development area directly influences the results of the strategic actions. In Contitech Romania, I worked with two highly experienced teams.
2020 …. The challenges
2020 was the year I worked in conditions that I did not see being compatible with my day-to-day responsibilities. Negotiations with our partners involve face-to-face meetings, and you could use all your negotiation skills. It was a challenge to adjust our negotiation methods and adapt our strategies to the new situation, but we succeeded. Having digital processes implemented in the company long before COVID-19 helped us tremendously. In the year’s second half, we had to find alternative solutions for logistics services, raw materials, and services. Lack of capacity on the market, suppliers impacted by government decisions or even COVID-19 directly, ships with goods in transit that could not be unloaded, and we had the microchip crisis on the horizon…. 2020 was a continuous challenge and every day brought new elements that had to be analyzed, and that impacted the final result. Unfortunately, 2021 turned up to be similar to 2020 from a market perspective, if not even more complicated.
The future of purchasing departments
Industry 4.0 is not a concept that transforms production processes solely. It is a new way of doing business that requires rethinking all related processes, and the procurement process must also be realigned to the new reality. If 10-15 years ago, 70% of the time needed for negotiation was dedicated to analyzing market information, volumes, price trends, monitoring specific KPIs, and analyzing the portfolio of potential suppliers, today AI technology supports the purchasing process through these analyzes and reduces the time needed to define the negotiation strategy. With new approaches in the procurement processes, new skills will be required and will lean more towards using analytical data compared to current negotiation skills. All this, together with the development of integrated Contract Management and electronic signature (QES) solutions, will change how purchasing departments act.
The objective for 2021 and beyond
Although 2021 has not been a typical year for the automotive industry due to disruptions generated by global crises, for the Purchasing Department of ContiTech Romania was a year with many complex projects. In addition to the day-to-day operations, we also participate in local and global projects. Within the Global Purchasing structure, we work together with colleagues from corporate functions to define the necessary new processes and strategies, to optimize the procurement activity and to standardize the global processes.
