Transformation: Amcor Wins World Procurement Award

In 2012, we started a transformation of our global procurement organisation, tools and systems. On 17 May 2017, Amcor was recognised at the World Procurement Awards, winning the "Internal Transformation" category. Read the story of how Amcor transformed procurement to be a strategic, value adding function, providing value to customers, suppliers and shareholders.

Our procurement journey has taken us a long way in the last few years. The transformation began in 2013, when we identified that, with some work and foresight, we could create an even more efficient, value led, and world-class procurement organisation that would offer huge benefits for Amcor, our suppliers, customers, and our shareholders through enhanced performance.

We recognised that our organisation, technological tools and supplier relationships had great potential to become stronger and more effective. So, to achieve greater value and stronger links along the procurement process, we embarked on an intense period of planning and execution.

Today, we credit Procure Plus, Amcor’s three-and-a-half year program with helping us along the journey to achieve world-class procurement standards.

Introducing Procure Plus: bringing value to customers

We knew it was time to leverage our global expertise to help us drive continuous improvement and continue our journey to excellence.

The program touched many different areas of Amcor and was focused on pulling together the resources we already had, sourcing more experts, and creating consistent processes that worked in all of our different locations and business groups across the globe.

We knew that improving our sourcing would have benefits for our customers. Through effective procurement, we provide the best value for customers – and that means more than just about passing through the lowest cost.

Good procurement is a big part of our value proposition to customers. True value comes with innovation and continuous improvement, which helps us – in partnership with suppliers – to create better products and outcomes for our customers.Creating a framework and key recognitions for team members

We put together a framework of Amcor capabilities to build a strong team with clear accountabilities, and a standardised approach on engaging and working with suppliers and internal stakeholders. This gave our teams a robust framework to support them as they worked to achieve their best.

Recognition was also a key part of the program. We realised that before Procure Plus, we didn’t recognise procurement as a strategic, value adding function. Now, we show our teams that their skills and competencies are valued and that they are crucial contributors to customer satisfaction and Amcor’s performance. We’ve also introduced new training opportunities across the globe to continually allow our teams to grow and develop.

As well as recruiting internally, we opened the doors: through the program we have brought around 80 procurement professionals and cross functional team members into our procurement organisation. It’s been a wonderful opportunity for us to grow our talent pool and we will continue to focus on attracting top talent to Amcor.

Synergising procurement relationships with suppliers

Alongside efforts to engage and grow our team, we invested in technology and systems to improve visibility on our active contracts, global spend and supplier relationships. We created databases and tools to make it possible for all of our procurement professionals to access the information they need – making it easier to talk about potential needs, both internally and externally.

We also put some serious thought into helping our teams communicate successfully with suppliers. Previously, suppliers had to interact with a number of contact points in Amcor, from business groups to plants. This led to inefficiency; for suppliers and for Amcor.

Now, we increasingly have one voice to communicate with suppliers whilst still having intimacy at a business group level. We believe we are easier to work with on a daily level and more geared towards innovation in the bigger picture. We are a demanding customer but only in the sense that we want our suppliers to develop and grow alongside us. By sharing our research-and-development and our operational needs and plans with suppliers, we facilitate solutions and new innovations and add value for all our stakeholders.Procure Plus brings lasting changes for Amcor

Amcor definitely changed its view around the value and strategic nature of procurement through the program. We’ve changed the way we do business internally and externally. We are more focused, better educated, more knowledgeable, and more collaborative. We are able to advise on industry trends and help the organisation manage and reduce risks for our customers.

Our commitment to transformation continues. In fact the program out-performed targets so successfully that we’ve begun the next multi-year horizon of Procure Plus to generate even more value for Amcor, our customers and suppliers, and our shareholders. Our procurement organisation will be a driving force in maintaining industry leadership for Amcor.

Connect today by following Amcor on LinkedIn and see where our next transformation takes us or find out more about the World Procurements Awards and our fellow shortlistees and winners.

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