THE BUSINESS REVIEW FOR PROCUREMENT LEADERS
An interview with Patrick
Le Laouenan
In August 2004, Sanofi-Synthélabo took over Aventis to become the world’s third-largest pharmaceutical group and top in Europe. A year on, its Paris-based CPO, Patrick Le Laouenan, talks about the different purchasing philosophies and practices in the two companies and the steps that have been taken to fuse them together.
While Sanofi was decentralised and "upstream" orientated - with a big emphasis on early involvement in sourcing projects - Aventis, he says, was more centralised and focused "downstream" on processes and systems, such as e- procurement. This manifested itself in different definitions of purchasing’s spend coverage.
Simplifying Aventis’s structure and organisation has been an early priority, with multi- functional "spend teams" abolished and "zone managers" appointed to help translate head- office policies into action by buyers locally. The primary objectives are achieving synergy savings of around €400 million by 2006 and increasing coverage by 10 percentage points, primarily in clinical trials and marketing.
Post-merger, says Le Laouenan, the most important things are acting quickly to sustain momentum and accepting that you do not have a monopoly on best practice.
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