Eurofiber, a digital infrastructure company based in the Netherlands, has been undergoing a serious transformation in recent years. It’s a fast-growing organisation with fibre coverage in four countries, connecting thousands of companies and organisations and over 160 data centres, meaning it needs strong hands on the tiller, leading the business to success as it evolves. One such hand belongs to Norian Wasch, Director Procurement.
Wasch has worked at Eurofiber for over eight years and is still doing so, in his words, “with great pleasure and energy”. It’s an organisation that’s thriving, which makes it easy to gain a great deal of enjoyment from it day-to-day. Within the business, Wasch is responsible for procurement – and there’s plenty to look after, since Eurofiber is a major player in its field, owning over 61,000 kilometres of network and 11 data centres.
Value-add procurement
Wasch says: “Of course, looking at how we can get maximum value out of every euro we spend is a main focus of what procurement does, but it’s no longer the only topic. We’ve changed the terminology and the mindset of what procurement at Eurofiber does and how we can make the most of this function.”
When it comes to the value-add nature of Eurofiber’s modern procurement function, there are three pillars Wasch focuses on: procurement creating value, procurement enabling collaboration, and procurement enabling innovation. The latter is particularly important as Eurofiber continues to evolve. “People tend to think about huge innovations, like new cables or new ways of connecting infrastructure,” Wasch says.
“That’s part of it, but these are major, long-term innovations that don’t happen very regularly. When we talk about innovations, we also mean the relatively small things that simplify, standardise, and automate processes, making Eurofiber a company suppliers want to work with because we’re following economic trends, we’re growing, and we have opportunities.”
