One of the key functions enabling British multinational semiconductor and software design company Arm’s success is the supply chain. Alisa Bornstein is Group Procurement Senior Director at the company, with 25 years’ experience in procurement at companies including Ericsson, BT, Telia, Millicom and now Arm. “I have experience of procurement start-ups, green-field and significant transformations, as well as leading teams in multicultural, complex and fast moving environments and mature and emerging markets. At the places I’ve been I’ve professionalised and digitalised procurement and brought in innovative, agile, lean and efficient service and solutions to the business.”
Of her decision to join Arm, Bornstein says: “Arm stood out for its unique people, culture of collaboration and brilliant minds. Almost two years in, and after 18 months of the transformation program, I am proud to say that procurement at Arm today is recognised as a value-creating, responsible and effective function supporting Arm objectives and future plans.“
That transformation program was undertaken with the aim of digitalising core procurement processes to enable efficiencies, boost controls, minimise risks, and improve the experience for end-users. “Procurement digitalisation has exploded across the entire business environment, and its entire value proposition to the overall organisation has changed tremendously,” says Bornstein. “Digitalisation influences all areas of procurement, from category management, strategic sourcing, supplier and risk management, to transactional purchase-to-pay operations.”
Naturally, the project has resulted in a ground-up overhaul. “We started our digital journey by fixing the basics, standardising and redesigning the whole source-to-pay (S2P) process and deployment of Ariba,” says Bornstien. “This required a significant change in our ways of working and the company culture.” The project hasn’t been without complexities, however. “We were operating for 18 months before we engaged an external implementation partner. With them, a schedule was developed to review the design, make configuration changes and deploy all the solutions. We set separate workstreams for supplier and content enablement, and change management. The plan was rigorously monitored by external and internal teams. Advice and support from the implementation partner in the design phase, during configuration, testing and during go live was absolutely a crucial success factor.”
Having been live with Ariba for one year, Bornstein is satisfied that the digital strategy has delivered and continued to create significant value for the company, for instance by offering a one-stop shop, with everything you need in one place, and standard source-to-contract process that ensures that purchase-to-pay works seamlessly. Nevertheless, Bornstein is looking to the future for continued improvement. “We are in the time of technology disruption,” she says. “Why not combine best-of-breed systems and integrate them to work together to deliver a great experience to internal customers and suppliers?”
To this end, she emphasises that procurement is about much more than buying. “There are many other areas where procurement adds value and where technology enables data-driven intelligence and efficiencies. Innovation in Procurement is crucial for professional and forward thinking procurement functions.”
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