Interview with Patrick Esselborn, Kloepfel Services, the service center for purchasing processes
What are the current challenges in purchasing?
The challenges posed by the Corona pandemic in procurement and supply chain management are enormous. Repeatedly rising prices, supply bottlenecks, employees in quarantine but also advancing digitalization and increasing legal requirements require highly qualified purchasing and supply chain teams to lead their areas safely into the future. Most purchasing departments are currently working at the edge of their capacities and skilled employees are hard to find. On the other hand, external factors such as political framework conditions, economic developments and climate catastrophes make it difficult for companies to plan, and thus also for HR policies.
How can Kloepfel Services support medium-sized companies?
Even before the Corona pandemic, Kloepfel Services was on a very good growth path; now demand has really exploded. But where until then we had to overcome reservations about an external service with remote access, the Corona crisis has allowed our customers to experience the benefits of outsourcing in real time. At the same time, we are experiencing purchasing processes and employees who are being pushed to the brink. Increasing orders require more ordering, constantly changing prices and delivery delays produce new order confirmations that must be maintained and tracked in the system. A self-reinforcing process. We have customers whose operational workload has increased tenfold. The only thing that helps here is additional capacity, which can be activated quickly and easily through outsourcing.
What exactly does something like this look like in practice?
First, we agree with the customer on the exact requirements and the process of cooperation. This can be, for example, the complete purchase to pay process, which is to be outsourced in the long term. Or it may only be temporary support in processing order confirmations or following up on delivery dates. Basically, we can handle all facets of operational purchasing. In the case of more complex processes, our employees or at least the team management are trained directly at the customer’s site. This is not about training from scratch, as our employees have many years of purchasing experience and user experience in various ERP systems. Rather, it is about learning the customer-specific processes.
As temporary colleagues, it is also important for us to get to know each other personally. After the training phase, the colleagues work in the customer system via a remote connection from our Slovakia location.
What are the greatest advantages for the customer?
First of all, in our purchasing experience. Both in terms of processes and diverse systems. We are ready to go for the customer very quickly without much effort. This allows for maximum flexibility. Theoretically, the customer can add or subtract our support multiple times – just as he needs it.
In addition, the customer retains full control thanks to complete transparency, as every transaction is documented in his system in a traceable manner.
Furthermore, we have a wide range of language skills in our team. All employees speak at least German at a high level. Most of them also speak English. In addition, we have colleagues with business-fluent knowledge of French, Czech, Hungarian, Polish or Russian available on request.
And finally, we are significantly cheaper. Compared to a full-time employee or freelancer in Germany, we offer interesting cost advantages in Slovakia. In addition, we ensure full availability of our employees, therefore our customers do not have to deal with vacation plans or replacement in case of illness.
Make a web meeting appointment
Inquire about your options for outsourcing operational and strategic purchasing activities and schedule a web meeting with us.
Contact:
Christopher Willson
Kloepfel Group
Tel: 0211 875 45323
Pempelforter Str. 50
40211 Duesseldorf
Mail: rendite@kloepfel-consulting.com