Shot In the Arm For Local Procurement Industry/Capabilities

South Africa’s logistics and procurement capabilities have been given a shot in the arm with the announcement that one of the largest global consultancies specialising in procurement optimisation will invest in the country. This investment, which will take the form of a partnership, is being made by Kerkhoff Consulting GmbH, which has annual revenues of about €28m and 215 employees. Kerkhoff has its headquarters in Düsseldorf, Germany, and offices in eight other countries from which it advises industrial companies in mass and made-to-order production, trade and service companies as well as public sector organisations.

Unlike many others in its field worldwide, Kerkhoff focuses exclusively on procurement ensuring its customers profit from experienced procurement experts with a sound know-how. Measurable savings in procurement with immediate impact on profit are the added value of its consultancy work. Qualitative improvements arise through efficient organisational structures, individual employee training and a controlling system above and beyond the project work itself.

In addition to providing local customers with direct access to these services, the partnership will also avail South African companies of a global knowledge base containing, for example, the learning’s arising from a survey into sustainable procurement as well as tried and tested contingency plans covering several scenarios.

Kerkhoff’s local partner bringing these methodologies and this expertise to South Africa is Rethink Management Consulting, an independent company that provides a set of integrated services aimed at solving operational problems, improving process control and bringing down costs.

As a result of the partnership, Kerkhoff has established an office in Sandton from which Rethink will source local opportunities for procurement optimisation. These will be undertaken under Kerkhoff’s lead but using mainly Rethink resources.

“As a matter of principle, Kerkhoff Consulting always implements the project goals together with its clients. We therefore always look to work with partners that can bring value-added opportunities for us in a particular market and share similar core values to ourselves,” commented Kerkhoff founder, Gerd Kerkhoff. “We believe Rethink more than fulfils these criteria and thus look forward to a mutually beneficial partnership with them going forward.”

“Rethink works closely with its clients to help identify and design business change initiatives, as well as with the management and execution thereof,” added Rethink managing director, Kem Tissiman.

“Its end objective is to help its clients achieve improvements in the areas of financial performance and customer service. The capabilities offered by Kerkhoff – which was recently voted the best German consultancy company in terms of procurement optimisation – complement many of our other activities and therefore we are delighted to be part of this new initiative,” he said.

One of Kerkhoff’s initiatives that Rethink looks forward to sharing with local companies is the results and learning’s from its recent survey into sustainable procurement.

Said Tissiman: “A study conducted by the Kerkhoff Competence Center of Supply Chain Management (KCC) at the University of St. Gallen together with the Institut für Demoskopie Allensbach highlighted recently that changing customer demands are forcing companies to also take into account the topics of ecology and social standards in company procurement.

"In the future, industrial buyers will evaluate products no longer only according to the triangle of price, quality and service but will expand it to a quadrangle in which sustainability will become an important factor in the evaluation. Purchasing managers will review the entire supply chain for sustainability; they will thus become environmental managers who must establish ratios as to which cost benefits will result due to sustainable action. Together, Rethink and Kerkhoff can assist local companies prepare for that scenario,” he said.

Gerd Kerkhoff will be in South Africa in June and will be hosting an afternoon procurement discussion on the 22^nd June 2010 in Johannesburg. For further details, contact Richard Aldous at  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .