The Purchasing Function

How to become an approved supplier?

A supplier is approved through a call for bids or the renewal of a master agreement.

In the event of a call for bids, the Purchasing department, assisted by the ordering party, takes the following steps:

• Mapping and definition of present and future needs,
• Extent of approval (e.g. Greater Paris, France, Europe, world),
• RFI (Request For Information),
• Call for bids,
• Selection,
• Approval.

If you wish to provide us with information on your company, please e-mail us on:

natixis-achats@natixis.com

What obligations does approval entail?

Approved suppliers sign a master agreement with the Purchasing department that applies to all the businesses of Natixis in France and/or abroad.

 Approval:

• allows suppliers to respond to calls for bids in their lines of business and to be directly contacted by ordering parties with a view to providing services or supplying goods;
•  involves measuring the performance of approved suppliers. Performance is assessed by the Purchasing department on the basis of questionnaires completed by purchasers.

The Purchasing department examines conformity with the master agreement and presents its findings to the Approval Monitoring Committee.

As part of a policy of ongoing improvement, the Purchasing department audits approved suppliers from the standpoint of financial health and dependency. It also assesses the extent to which they take account of their Social and Environmental Responsibility (SER).

Supplier performance

The Purchasing department measures two areas of performance :

• compliance with master agreements (rate of use of approved suppliers, rate of application of the master agreement, rate of compliance with contractual obligations),
• supplier performance by category of purchase.

By the end of 2010, the Purchasing department had conducted 22 surveys of over 200 suppliers.

The results of the performance surveys carried out among ordering parties are conveyed to suppliers and action plans are implemented.

Purchasing performance

A quarterly report is sent to the Executive Committee; the main indicators tracked are :

• the involvement of Purchasing relative to the total amounts invoiced by suppliers,
• the added value obtained during the period.

Natixis'Purchasing department is independent of the business lines and provides a company-wide service.

The Purchasing departement's goal is to significantly optimize costs across all business lines.

Its challenge is to ensure performance, quality and efficiency in the following ways :

• by monitoring the supplier market,

• through a policy of control of purchasing costs via the launch of multi-entity projects by product category and the realization of economies of scale,

• by optimizing purchasing processes and collaboration with the business lines through the dissemination of a general purchasing procedure and the setting up of partnership agreements with the business lines,

• by managing purchasing performance via the development of tools for collecting and providing information on purchasing costs and trends in supplier markets,

• by ensuring secure relationships with suppliers.

Regulatory constraints and the new environmental challenges require the Purchasing department to play an essential role in ensuring secure relationships with strategic suppliers.

The Purchasing department is organized into major purchasing categories.

A multi-disciplinary team manages communications, tools and performance management.