Talent at National Grid
Jon Carlton
Global Procurement Director
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Jon Carlton
Global Procurement Director
The importance of procurement. I suppose a simple statistic is that National Grid plans over the next few years to spend around three billion pounds per year on investment. So the procurement organisation - how we buy our goods and services, making sure we do it the most effective and efficient way - is really important.
Procurement in National Grid has been built up through the fact that National Grid grew through acquiring a number of businesses, so each of them bought products in different ways - not only across the UK but in different parts of the US. So, what we're doing is building a Global Procurement organisation and we're asking ourselves, first of all, if there is a best way of doing things. But we're also being sympathetic to the fact that some things do need to be slightly different - because the US and UK aren't identical and also where you need to be close to the requirements of our different business customers - so we need to adapt our approach accordingly.
Because we're buying so much over the next few years we need to really ensure that we are getting the best prices and dealing with the best suppliers, and really pushing the boundaries of excellence in procurement. We really need a different structure to the old one we had, but also higher capability - more intellectual power in how we buy things. That doesn't just mean procurement specialism - although procurement specialism is really important - we need people with a good intellectual capability, as well as the ability to show leadership, the ability to engage and collaborate with other people and to be comfortable with relying on other people to complement your own skills and capabilities.
In terms of the team we need to build - and how important that is -we've done quite a bit of work, in our transformation project, working out what is the right organisational structure and what capabilities we need within that team. So there is a great deal of opportunity - and we just want people to go for it!