French American Chamber Of Commerce
The FACC recently welcomed Erwan Clorennec as a member. Formerly based in Levallois-Perret, a suburb of Paris, Erwan relocated to New York City in August to launch the Axbility Consulting subsidiary of Axys Consultants. His experience of over 22 years with the company has uniquely prepared him for expansion in the North American market.
FACC : Axbility Consulting advises clients in matters of procurement, operational efficiency and digital strategy. Can you tell us more about the recurring challenges you are called to solve, do you have any brief examples of a success story?
EC: Axbility Consulting supports major companies in their transformation projects and provides a high value-added expertise to ensure a sustainable performance to our clients. Axbility Consulting customers require our support as they are facing strong challenges in defining a clear roadmap to digitalize their procurement processes. In many projects, we are defining a digitalization strategy with a ROI calculation while performing business processes re-engineering and change management. Most of our clients are complex organizations and one key objective is to harmonize their practices and processes often associated with an ambitious worldwide roll out.
A leader in the transportation sector wished to set up a procurement Information System to strengthen its worldwide position while professionalizing the external purchase of goods and services, enforce use of negotiated terms and automate the “procure to pay” process to increase operational efficiency. As a result, we successfully rolled out a first affiliate integrating the new procurement tool to the local ERP. Ultimately, we achieved to set up a procurement process on all categories fully managed in the new procurement tool from “sourcing to pay”, through the management of contracts, suppliers and budgets.
A leader on the property and liability insurance market wanted to develop synergies and economies of scale through their three brands and to build its new organization around solutions, services and skills centers allowing to manage the risk of illegal subcontracting for long-term IT services. We successfully implemented across all brands a new procurement tool securing the use of technical assistance services and implementing new sourcing methods.
EC: We are providing high value-added expertise with an international mindset. We do approach our assignments with the same requirements when working with French based global companies or their American counterparts. In our field of business, projects are essentially global with design and build of an international core model before waves of roll out in the US and Europe or either Asia. However, we aim to set up an international team that will allow cross-fertilization between local and French consultants to share feedbacks and to better understand US business rules. With this objective, we are hiring US and French high experienced and skilled resources for management consulting services for procurement departments.
FACC: When working with a French vs. American client, do you remark different ways of approaching business or structuring the company internally?
EC: We are providing high value-added expertise with an international mindset. We do approach our assignments with the same requirements when working with French based global companies or their American counterparts. In our field of business, projects are essentially global with design and build of an international core model before waves of roll out in the US and Europe or either Asia. However, we aim to set up an international team that will allow cross-fertilization between local and French consultants to share feedbacks and to better understand US business rules. With this objective, we are hiring US and French high experienced and skilled resources for management consulting services for procurement departments.
FACC: The Axbility subsidiary was created in 2018 for the North American market. What company DNA or values do you maintain from the Axys Consultants division and what have you adapted to suit the needs of the American market?
EC: Our core values in Axbility Consulting are fidelity, empathy, sincerity and commitment to allow our customers success. These values are part of our DNA. This DNA is also what structure our hiring plan. We strongly believe that these values can suit the American market.
FACC: What piece of advice would you give to French professionals launching a new or subsidiary business in the United States?
EC: To succeed in this business creation, I will invite them to be strongly accompanied. No offense but as in France, administrative procedures are difficult in the United States: business creation, taxation, Visa, …, the use of advisory and lawyers on these topics is essential to stay focused on business development.
FACC: What is your specific area of expertise that you are most passionate about sharing with the FACC community?
EC: If you have any questions about the main software providers for Procurement departments, do not hesitate to get in touch with me. It will be a pleasure for me to share our benchmarks and to help you understanding the pros and cons and the trends of each solution in the market.
Content first published on the FACC website