Heinz looks to top talent to spice up procurement's image

19 Oct 2010

Source:  Procurement LeadersJohn Hans, VP of procurement, Heinz Europe told a hall of leading CPOs of his function's plans to "become a leading importer and exporter of talent at Heinz".??Speaking at the Procurement Leaders Forum 2010 in Amsterdam, Hans, who moved from sales to head up the function in August 2009, described the challenge that procurement is up against."From the outside, my initial thoughts before joining procurement were that there was a lack of talent," he said, "however, I realise it's completely different now I'm on the inside.

It's a very strong, but often misunderstood part of companies.""You often see that the only time procurement is discussed in the board is when it's a problem," he warned. "We need to have people in the function that are better at getting our message across." In response, Hans explained how he has introduced a procurement integration manager to formalise how the function communicates with the rest of the business.

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