Dutch construction firm Heijmans places great emphasis on its position as a creator to all of its projects. It imagines, advises, develops and designs with the aim of creating something special. Heijmans centres around four key business areas; property development, residential building, non-residential and infrastructure.
But the company’s story actually begins with a road builder. In 1923, Jan Heijmans started a company which has continued to evolve over the years into something extraordinary. The Brabant-based company has developed from a family firm paving and building roads, to constructing homes, shops and company premises and to developing residential areas, shopping centres and business parks. Throughout its history, creating and building has continued to be part of its DNA.
Fast forward to today and Job Verkerke sits as the Chief Procurement Officer with the organisation. In his role, he leads complex negotiations and contracted large complex outsourcing deals. This results in increased business value; quality, time to market, supplier innovations and cost efficiencies.
The journey to best-in-class procurement
Upon his arrival at the organisation almost two years ago, Verkerke created a roadmap for his vision for the future of procurement within Heijmans. He established four key pillars which he bases his procurement strategy around – quality, time to market, driving innovation and cost efficiencies. “Within Heijmans we now live by those four pillars and that’s what we sell to the organisation,” he explains. “We also ask our suppliers to think around those four pillars because we expect them to deliver the right quality and to deliver it quickly. We want their innovation power and they also need to be competitive. That’s vital to me.”
Although he arrived with a vision, Verkerke explains that his plan is structured around the skillset of his organisation. He says that in every pillar, there are initiatives where change is underway to implement better processes into operations. “In many organisations, the procurement footprint and adherence to policies is always a thing to consider,” he explains. “From a strategic procurement perspective, we’re on our way to conducting procurement from a horizontal way in combination with forward bundling demands which means overarching the business, initiating, forecasting and funnel management. “We are transitioning our year-long contract renegotiation cycle into longer term engagements.”
