CEO Today Global Awards

CEO Today Global Awards 2020 USA 29 www.ceotodaymagazine.com Acquisitions of suitable supply chain solutions are also part of expanding our supply chain portfolio. We recently acquired Eyefreight which will allow Elemica to offer our clients a top-tier Level 5 networked Transportation Management System. We will continue to look at other possibilities in the future as we see fit. Partners are a key part of expanding the footprint of the portfolio into new vertical markets and desired functionality. Industry- specific application add-ons through partners broaden the portfolio, the domain expertise we can capitalize on, and expands our network growth reach. • Ingrain client success more broadly into the company: Elemica is committed to helping clients achieve the visibility and control they need to succeed in the global marketplace. For this reason, we have created and will be expanding our client success division. This division is committed to ensuring our clients are getting the value they expect from our platform and applications. We are also committed to testing, piloting and integrating cutting edge technologies into our platform. To be a long-term technology partner, our platform and applications need to be flexible enough to solve our clients’ supply chain needs of today and tomorrow. Processes change continuously within their supply chains and it’s imperative we have the ability and agility to adapt with them. For example, we are working with several clients to integrate Blockchain at different points on the platform. What have you been working on in the first few months in your new role? I continue to advance work that will support our three primary goals. Currently, I am reviewing long-range planning to support the needs of our clients, the requirements of new markets, and the continual investments in the product portfolio needed for sustainable growth. Additionally, we are working closely with our owners on ways to ensure that our products can help our clients to improve their social responsibility; especially when it comes to ESG-initiatives. What is the best way to achieve these goals? And who is supporting you the most? The first step is to, identify the challenges clearly. Afterwards, it is important to ensure that there is a plan to tackle those challenges. That plan certainly has to be backed up with proper budget and funding. I receive support from various directions. First, our clients should be mentioned. Especially those clients with whom we already have a long-term relationship. It is the clients who enable us to develop our solutions further. Then, of course, our employees. We are a 20-year-old young company and we have many employees who have been with us for 15 years or more. Without their experience and commitment, a development like ours is impossible. And of course, our new owners, Eurazeo, have an important role to play. As a listed investment company, Eurazeo has the necessary resources to plan and develop software such as ours. What is your vision for the future of Elemica? Our vision is to be the digital backbone for the industrial supply chain and the manufacturing industry. We want to make it easy for our clients to digitize every interaction they have within their supply chain-ecosystem. From our point of view, it is only possible to manage the business and the entire supply chain if companies can react on interactions in real-time. Many organizations lack this level of visibility as it takes data and integration on a network to create this transparency. We are trying to help here. How far have you already come with that vision? How far are you away from reaching that goal? I think we’ve built the foundation: our first ten years of experience went into building the platform and to help with the idea of digitizing the supply chain completely. That’s half the battle. That is why we believe in executing and accelerating all the digitization channels, that our clients are rolling out. One step in that direction is that we are incorporating machine learning for the digitization across all suppliers, clients, and logistics service providers relationships and communications they utilize to transact business. We understand the complexity and the needs our clients have as well as the necessary technical background. What do you think are the benefits of appointing an internal candidate as the company CEO vs. an outsider? We are a supply chain network and we have many long-term relationships with our clients. They have very complex global supply chains for which the most important prerequisite is that we know their requirements and wishes. I have worked with these clients for about 16 years and I understand their needs and their challenges. That puts me, compared to an outsider, in a better position to manage the company and to really make sure that we are leading our clients into the future. Have you always wanted to be a CEO? What excites you about your new role? No, I did not always want to be a CEO. What excites me about my new role is the fact that I always liked to define challenges and overcome them. And my position as CEO ensures that the vision that both myself and the company have, has thus become achievable. As CEO I am able to do everything that is necessary to meet that vision and to execute on it.