Building procurement together

The starting point of the Traffic Management Finland Group, which was established in early 2019, was delicious: the management of the Group’s procurement and procurement practices could be prepared from the very beginning. Kalle Pinni, the head of Hansel’s Development Unit, was selected as the expert for this project.

The Group’s procurement mainly consists of ICT systems for traffic management, consulting services and construction services and supplies related to control units. Almost all of the procurement processes are of a large scale. Hence, a strong procurement function was to be included as part of the Group administration.

The project was started with the preparation of a top-level package of procurement principles, management and organisation. It was included in the Group’s Corporate Governance instructions.

“Once the organisation and the required personnel had been specified, we were able to begin recruiting the required procurement experts during the summer,” shares Mirva Hannukainen, Legal Counsel, who is the head of the procurement team.

Procurement training for all employees

The Group’s shared procurement processes were determined in workshops. Daily assistance is provided by a team consisting of three procurement experts. Together with the procurement contact persons of the subsidiaries, they form the Group’s Procurement Coordination Team, which meets once a month to exchange information on current and future procurement projects and find joint procurement opportunities to achieve optimal efficiency. Procurement matters are reviewed once per quarter with the companies’ managing directors.

“It is important to have agreed processes that everybody follows. However, teaching each step of the procurement process to people who will only rarely be involved in procurement would not be wise; instead, we emphasise the support provided by the in-house procurement experts,” Mirva Hannukainen explains.

A development project was launched to prepare the Group’s own training materials. Hannukainen and her team publish monthly procurement service announcements that focus on subject matters such as procurement planning, the preparation of an invitation to tender, the comparison of offers, the agreement period and the role of the person responsible for the agreement. The key target group are people who will have procurement duties in the near future.

“We have been praised for our systematic procurement and functional systems. We can achieve larger savings by means of well-managed procurement,” Hannukainen says.

In addition to the development of the organisation’s own operating models, instructions on supplier cooperation have been prepared. Hannukainen praises Hansel’s Kalle Pinni for his good ideas and advice along the way. A host of practical policies, instructions and tools have been created.

“The collaboration will continue as we start to consider how we can promote innovation in our procurement, for example.”