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The traditional CLAAS Purchasers’ Day was held for the first time in virtual format in mid-November, with around 200 international purchasers from the CLAAS Group participating via Skype.

Purchasing looks back on an extraordinary year

In this extraordinary year, the key talking points of the event were the Coronavirus and risk-prevention measures in the supplier base.

Rüdiger Mohr, Senior Vice president Corporate Purchasing of the CLAAS Group, welcomed everyone to the event. "Strategic purchasing work to improve the supplier base is the best risk-prevention measure, even in Coronavirus times."

Hans Lampert gave an insight into the latest business developments and added: "The deep commitment shown by purchasing has made an important contribution to our crisis and cost management efforts at CLAAS, which have proven to be very effective. The work that we have performed in recent months gives me confidence as we move into 2021 and I am sure that we can achieve our ambitious objectives."

The international participants exchanged views on central topics: Patrick Frings (Head of PRM) together with Uwe Oltmanns (System Analyst & Controller Corp. Purchasing) presented the new approach to creating the goods group strategy. This has been successfully developed and implemented over recent months together with the Lead Buyers. Björn Miele (Contract Management Corp. Purchasing) presented the implementation of the new authority catalogue before going on to present the status of the Purchasing Strategy 2030 together with Rüdiger Mohr. Aadil Belgriri (Head of Building Projects and Purchasing CLAAS France) gave full insight into the construction process for the new French Sales and Distribution Centre in Ymeray, which was opened in 2020.

The highlight of the event was the award ceremony for "Purchaser of the Year". This time, the usual round of applause took the form of digital congratulations with a stream of emojis in the comments field.

The second half of the event was dedicated to other projects and topics: Michael Potthast (Head of Product Cost Optimisation Corp. Purchasing) talked about the upgrade of the resources available to cost engineers. Professor Bode (University of Mannheim) together with Dr. Antonia Kappel (Head of Supplier Management Corp. Purchasing) introduced the new supplier survey that will be carried out for the first time in 2021. Roland Sobisch (Head of Service Function Purchasing CSE) presented the "4P Programme" (Products, Plants, People and Profitability) of the Business Unit Grain, which is aiming to improve the profitability in the medium term.

Guest speaker Alexander Reinhardt (Head of Product Unit Small Tractor) presented the "Small Tractor" product area and new product developments together with Nicolas Pommier (Head of Purchasing CT). Finally, David Knorr (Head of Sales & Service Solutions, Corp. IT) provided insights into various IT-related topics, which have interfaces to the purchasing department. This included the use of Tableau, a piece of software used for data visualisation and reporting.

"I am delighted that we were still able to hold the event this year and that it worked so well digitally. Nevertheless, I hope we can see each other in person again soon", concluded Rüdiger Mohr at the end of the event.