Two speaking engagements in Northern Italy in the last two months and each time I have had the pleasure of preceding Mario Mosca, Head of Procurement, Processes and Systems, Business Unit, Enel Energy in Rome onto the stage. Mario’s very sharp and energetic. He’s also an experienced hand when it comes to aligning systems and processes (which is one universal procurement challenge, discussed here and here last week as a prelude to this CPO Case Study), working for a decade as a leader in KPMG’s Systems Integration (“SI”) practice before joining Enel. A booster of procurement best practices and knowledge-sharing, Mario, now an official “friend of the site,” was very willing to be interviewed and profiled by CPO Rising. We thank him for his time and effort on this case study.

Mario Mosca – CPO Case Study, Part 1

We begin with a quick overview of Enel which is Italy’s largest power company and Europe’s second largest utility (based on capacity). Enel operates in 23 countries and serves roughly 61 million power and gas customers. In doing so, it generated 😉 more than 64 billion Euros in revenue in 2009 and had an EBITDA of more than 16 billion Euros and reported a net income of 5.4 billion Euros. This is a big operation…. 81,000 employee-big. It operates in hydroelectric, thermoelectric, nuclear, geothermal, wind-power, photovoltaic and other renewables’ plants and considers itself a leader in sustainable and renewable energy.

In April 2008, Mario joined Enel as its Head of Procurement, Systems and Processes and he hasn’t looked back. With his team, Mario is charged with overseeing all supply management solutions (process automation systems) and ensuring that Enel optimizes the value of these solutions. As his title suggests, Mario is focused on making sure that the right processes and mapped to the right systems and that the company employs them to drive maximum savings, efficiency, and overall value. Mario’s team mission is to “(1) Manage and assure supplies, contracts, and services for the entire company by taking advantage of new technological solutions; and (2) Define, develop, and blend “l’organizzazione della Direzione Acquisti’s” (the procurement department’s) purchasing processes with technology solutions to help improve supplier relationship management.”

Like the procurement departments at most large Italian companies, Enel began an initiative to centralize the procurement department pulling in smaller teams that were operating separately within the different business units. The Direzione Aquisiti (Director or Head of Global Procurement, the CPO – Mario reports into him) now reports directly to the CEO.

Systems Approach

Mario says that his department has a few characteristics or principles that it employs in its daily operations:

• It has been deliberate in taking a ‘best of breed’ approach to the deployment of its supply management solution infrastructure
• The best of breed solutions it deploys must be complementary to the SAP back-end systems and be able to support local needs
• It works to attain maximum flexibility to the requirements of the business
• It pays great attention to buyer activities

Mario thinks there are several keys to their success in aligning systems and processes. As Mario explained, “We always take the same approach to process automation so our staff is familiar with the methodology. We focus first on the process design and involve all of our buyers in the discussion to make sure we have it right. We work to make sure that the systems we select can support our design. Finally, we encourage adoption by stressing that it is for the good of the company. I feel this strategy has been very effective.”

In Part 2 of this CPO Case Study, we will look at the Enel’s SIA initiative and the supply management solutions it has in place today; Part 3 will walk through the process that Mario led in the selection and deployment of one specific application.

Tagged in: Case Study, Chief Procurement Officer, CPO, EMEA, Process