It's difficult to fly a plane blindfolded

When Eric Beylier took over the procurement function at oil and gas chemical manufacturers TETRA Technologies five years ago he had his work cut out for him: a series of acquisitions had left the procurement processes highly fragmented, subject to the egos and personalities of the team leaders, and a legacy culture where different business units did not really cooperate. Worse, management could not get a complete picture of total spend analysis because of all the silos.

Since then, Beylier, who is Vice President, Head of Global Supply Chain & Procurement at the companies, has completely transformed the company’s approach to procurement and supply chain management. He has automated and redesigned processes, built up the team’s skills and capabilities and even sparked an organizational redesign so that he was reporting direct to the company’s CEO. In this Process Perspectives podcast, Beylier talks about what he did, why he did it, and some of lessons he learnt along the way.

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