Global Sourcing Workshop

At Beginning of June 2024 the Cicor Global Sourcing team met again for three days, this time in the lovely city of Eisenach for the Second Global Sourcing Workshop. The event was very professionally hosted by our colleagues in Cicor Digital Elektronik GmbH and was led by Gabriella Scherrer, VP Strategic Sourcing, and Marco Kechele, EVP Operations.

Since our last Global Sourcing meeting in Arad, the Cicor family has expanded and in Eisenach we had the chance to meet also the purchasing representatives of the newly merged companies. Not at all surprising, it was like we had known each other for ages; therefore, the connections and fruitful discussions were immediately established.

If the first workshop was about goals, strategic initiatives and roles that purchasing has to play in order to make a significant contribution to the overall success of Cicor, the second one went a little bit more in depth, allowing us to share different - but so similar - purchasing experiences influenced by the markets and industries each company covers. The ideas start to grow about how we can use our different experiences, energies and abilities to increase the Cicor purchasing power. We really started feeling like a Cicor family!

The frame of the discussion was brought to us by Marco Kechele who shared with us the Cicor Group strategy for the next 5 years and the vision of the Cicor management team, which helped us better shape our sourcing discussions and strategies.

After having the roles and tasks established during our first workshop in Arad, the Global Category Managers for Passives and PCBs presented their activities and their first results, discussing also the next steps of their strategies. This was closely followed by the China-Sourcing strategy. The discussion defined the first actions which would help us bring value to the supply chain by involving our colleagues in the Dongguan factory.

The agenda continued with updates regarding the digitalization of processes, including the LUMINOVO quotation tool, which is used more and more in the RFQ process by the Cicor sites.

We did not forget about Supplier Compliance which has become part of our day-by-day purchasing process. Michele Veraguth, Group Compliance Officer, brought us the latest news about the Supply Chain Act and the updates to the Integrity Next platform. The platform enables us to successfully implement the Supply Chain Act provisions.

Arrow Electronics- the biggest electronic supplier of the Cicor Group - was invited to the meeting, to present solutions, programs and opportunities which should potentially help us be more competitive in front of our customers.

This Workshop could not have been complete without the visit of the two Cicor Digital Elektronik GmbH factories, one in Wutha-Farnroda and the second one in Buttlar. Each of them had their own specific and impressive performances and the visit enlarged our understanding about the potential of the German Cicor factories.

After a 3-days Workshop, sharing important feedback contoured the event into ideas about what best practices to implement. It has made us understand that together we are stronger. Moving forward, reaching our goals will make the Cicor Group more competitive.

Simona Ciobanu
Purchasing Manager