Ciaran Owens from Imperial Brands on procurement being commercially minded, sustainability and navigating Germany’s Supply Chain Due Diligence Act

Procurement leaders are striving to make their departments more commercially minded, adding value to their departments through innovative solutions.

As a result, chief procurement officers, procurement directors, chief purchasing officers and other senior figures are more frequently taking a seat at the decision-making table.

One of those leading figures is Ciaran Owens, Procurement Business Process Lead - Digital Core Transformation programme at Imperial Brands. He was kind enough to sit down with us and explain his thoughts on adding value while meeting the many challenges the industry faces.

How are you making procurement more commercially minded?

We always set ourselves up to be value-driven. You need to set up your organisation with the right connections in mind in terms of your sales and marketing functions, factories and central functions, ensuring you understand the end-to-end process.

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In many ways, that is what procurement professionals are great at doing. We are process minded, commercially driven individuals. The challenge is ensuring you change your mindset to think like a sales and marketing professional to understand the top line challenges they have.

One way to do that is through supply partnerships. It is no longer appropriate or right to have an internal-looking supplier management methodology. We need to become far more collaborative from an internal point of view, bringing stakeholders along with you to understand the suppliers who matter to accelerate innovation.

With that in mind, what are your big areas of focus right now?

Sustainability is a big thing for us. Not just how it relates to our own business but in the supply chain as well. Part of the work I’m doing at the moment is thinking about how business processes designed for the future can be rippled across factories and markets.

I’m also working on how we can simplify the data gathering part of our job because procurement professionals do not need to be spending time trying to work this out. They need to be front of house which goes back to my point about being commercially driven.

We should be networking and sharing business programmes that can drive value to the business. To my mind, we should be showing real, tangible value – not just sitting there and reporting out certain data or ticking boxes.

How are you able meet your sustainability goals and do you have any advice for your peers in the industry?

We do positive work all the way down our supply chain - as do all of our peers in the industry. We do a lot of collaboration, so we have some really high areas of maturity when it comes to sustainable practices at Imperial.

But no matter what we do, it’s down to governments. We’re all trying to work out how to become more sustainable. But some of the research I've done is looking at how you drive change – and it highlights the fact that regulation is just not strong enough in some cases.

Governmental structures and commitments are not quite there. A good example of that in contrast can be seen in the United States where things like things like diversity and inclusion are embedded in governmental and regulatory practices.

So, the industry is fully set up for a sustainable future. It makes you realise how easy it becomes when that is the case. Without those embedded practices, for us, it’s about establishing programmes internally and driving good examples.

There are some great initiatives and people who have the right mindsets. But until you have stronger regulation it can be a little more challenging. Industry must take the lead to make this a reality.

Speaking of challenges, how are Imperial Brands being affected by Germany’s new German Supply Chain Due Diligence act?

It is a challenge – but the regulation is well overdue.

As I said, it is always regulation that needs to drive change. We are investing a lot in our technologies in order to ensure that we can track everything successfully.

But like anyone else, when you get down to tier six and below in the supply chain it is challenging. As a business, you need to be thinking about the future, not just delivering for now. You need to be thinking about what is soon to be regulation what is beyond the right now.

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Successful companies will be taking the lead like us and driving change throughout their supply chains. We will not only be looking to meet the standards but to surpass them by planning ahead for what is to come next. It is always a challenge when you are at the top of the supply chain and asking those who might be five chains down to make changes.

Some organisations might not have the same level of maturity as others but that comes back to your own sourcing strategy and considering where best to source from to meet regulations. It might impact what you're doing and where you are buying from. But that’s the whole pint of it and procurement leaders need to take ownership of that.

I’m sure there are some industries who have never even looked into where things really come from.

Are there ways to pre-empt what regulation might be coming down the line in future?

Yes, I think there are. We all have corporate legal functions within our organisations and you need to be working closely with them and regulators as they are always steps ahead of you.

That’s the simplest way of doing it. But you also need to be innovative yourself, take responsibility and take the lead. By supporting and working in collaboration with suppliers and other interested parties, you can help shape what regulation might look like and be prepared for it.

Attracting and keeping the best talent appears to be a challenge for everyone. What advice could you offer to businesses?

We’ve been relatively lucky on that front. We have a great team and we are good at retaining talent.

I think I actually have an interesting view on the so-called ‘war for talent’. And that’s that I think we need to be educating our children to be strong, have the right attitudes and to be setting them up for the future.

In terms of procurement specifically, it is a very interesting space for people with the right mindset. To be successful in the industry, you need to be a go-getter, be process driven and inquisitive in your nature.

Theoretically, you can gain qualifications in any industry but we try and create environments that allow people to learn and develop specific skills.