Interview

Andrea Tedesco, Purchase Manager at FPS, talks about the role of the purchasing department

March 10, 2021
  • What is the role of the purchasing department in FPS?

I like to imagine a modern purchasing department as a key component in the larger, more complex “corporate machine”. Our aim is to work in sync with all other departments, in order to maintain a pool of reliable and flexible supplier-partners able to provide quality goods and services at the best possible economic conditions; in this way our company can always offer excellent solutions at the right price to its customers. This is the purchasing-department model we have in mind every day, constantly working to improve internal processes, purchasing methodologies, and research and selection of our suppliers.

  • How is important the innovation of the purchasing support tools for the company competitiveness?

In our opinion, keeping up with the times in the supply-chain management is fundamental for a modern company. Thanks to the recent investments made by FPS, today we have the support of an advanced management software: on one hand it’s helping us to constantly improve the information flow among different company functions, on the other hand it is helping us to monitor our suppliers performances in detail, identify critical issues and develop appropriate strategies for our improvement. But having a good working tool, a “good race car “, is not enough: it is also necessary to have good “car drivers” not only able to “forsee” critical issues but also able to work in team in order to find solutions. In this sense, FPS has always supported its employees’ professional growth, promoting both internal training opportunities and investing in specific courses.

  • What are our customers’ current market demands?

As our commercial colleagues teach us, our customers are always looking for reliable partners, not only able to follow them 360 degrees, but also able to propose innovative solutions to their specific needs. For this reason, the FPS purchasing team supports its commercial and technical colleagues every day in the continuous search of new partners, in order to ensure the company access to new technologies. Moreover it works to improve the quality of its actual suppliers, so as to allow the company to be always competitive on the market.