Fives

Fives

Estelle Bodin Purchasing IS Project Manager
Fives is an international industrial engineering group that designs and builds machines, equipment, processes and production lines for the world's leading industrial players.
8500 employees
more then 100 sites
present in 30 countries

"We chose Axiscope not only for the quality and the numerous functionalities provided by the S2P and supplier quality management solution, but also for its ability to support us and respond to our requests for evolution."

Estelle Bodin, Purchasing IS Project Manager

Stakes and Goals

  • To have a SRM that is upstream of the operational purchasing processes
  • To provide all subsidiaries and buyers a common base

1 - Missions as a purchasing IS project manager at FIVES

Since 2020, I am project manager at FIVES and I am in charge of implementing the new SRM (Supplier Relationship Management) tool. This corresponds to supplier relationship management, and I do this job to support 12 subsidiaries of the group. We chose the Axiscope solution to cover all of our S2P (Sourcing to Procure) needs in terms of both purchases and quality process management.

On a daily basis, my mission consists of :
Analyzing the needs of Purchases users
Ensuring the implementation of purchasing procedures within the solution
Supporting the change with users to encourage the adoption of the new tool
Managing the activity and taking charge of the assistance to key users in the use of the platform
Gathering evolution requests, prioritizing them and making them realized within the SRM application

2. The qualities of a project manager to deploy such a tool

I think that a project manager must be a good listener and have good interpersonal skills because he/she is in contact with the business users and the IT departments. He has to communicate with a large number of people to identify areas for development (but also important elements related to his project). The essential skill is therefore to know how to interact in all of these different environments.
For example, my role is to inform the management and the different subsidiaries of the progress of the projects, but also to support the users during the design workshops or by training them on the solution.

3. The difficulties to face

My job is exciting but it is true that my daily life is made of multiple pressures from both users and my management. This is linked to the fact that a project of this scale is a real human and financial investment for the company.

"A project is always coupled with a change management phase."

 

Indeed, it is not always easy to federate employees who do not always have time to devote to the project : they have a significant operational burden related to their job, we come to shake up their work habits, which can be disruptive. Thanks to the involvement of management and sponsors, we were able to involve key users in each of the subsidiaries right from the start of the project.

Once a division has been deployed, my job doesn't stop there. I have to motivate and guide them by organizing monthly meetings. By posting video tutorials and communications in a dedicated team, I manage to keep the link with them and collect their evolutions that I analyze directly with the editor who has a primary role in the success of such a project.

 

4. The expectations of a software editor in the support of this project

The main quality factors of a software solution are conformity to needs, reliability, ergonomics (including ease of use), flexibility, and maintainability.

 

"In terms of support, we expect the provider to have a good understanding of our needs, to share deployment experience with similar customers, and to be flexible enough to adapt to our current and future evolutions, while offering us new features that we can choose whether or not to deploy."

 


We chose Axiscope not only for the quality and the numerous functionalities provided by the S2P and supplier quality management solution, but also for its ability to support us and respond to our requests for evolution.

 

5. Current topics at FIVES in the context of this project

To name a few
          - The deployment to several other subsidiaries worldwide
          - The deployment of e-Procurement as a new module which is currently being tested

We are currently in the testing phase and are very excited to be able to offer it to our entities soon.