Interview with colleagues Hossain El Hachhouchi and Erwin van Beveren
Enexis needs a staggering 76,000 kilometres of power cables for the energy transition in the coming years. After an invitation to tender, we selected eight suppliers. The process was anything but standard; our buyers travelled halfway around the world to convince suppliers to bid. In China, they asked: how many households does ‘this province of the Netherlands’ actually have?
It became clear in 2017 that the Netherlands is rapidly switching to green electricity and electric processes, machines and appliances. The pressure on the electricity grid was growing. Enexis was starting to expand its network, and the supply of low-voltage and medium-voltage cables was rapidly decreasing. ‘Our three suppliers really pulled out all the stops to help us,’ says procurement manager Hossain El Hachhouchi. ‘But it soon became clear that we needed far more cable than they could supply.’
A hundred potential suppliers
Reason enough to look for new suppliers. Hossain: ‘We wanted to go from three to eight suppliers, spread across Europe and preferably the world. We also thought it was important, from a diversification point of view, that these companies had different suppliers of raw materials.’ The study began with a list of all 125 cable suppliers in the world. ‘We analysed them’, says procurement officer Erwin van Beveren. ‘Many of them didn’t qualify because they only produced fibre optic cables, were based in countries like Russia or simply couldn’t supply the cables we needed.’
It was our largest product tender ever
A look inside cable operations
There are about 50 potential suppliers left. Enexis’ procurement team contacted them all by email or phone. ‘In the end, we held a Teams meeting with 25 suppliers,’ says Hossain. ‘We wanted to make sure they could supply exactly the cables we needed.’ After this consultation, 12 suppliers remained. Erwin: ‘They were mainly from European countries but also from China, for example. We visited all of them, not just to speak with directors and salespeople, but to see their processes and working methods firsthand. We wanted to know if they were willing and able to go along with our ambition to work in an increasingly circular way, using as few new raw materials as possible.’
Successful tender
The visits have an additional purpose. ‘When you put out a tender, you want the right parties to bid,’ says Hossain. ‘That doesn’t happen automatically. Our buyers really had to sell Enexis. We had to convince the parties that we were a serious and large client. After all, most of them had no clue.’ Erwin gives an example: ‘In China, they asked us how many households “the province of the Netherlands” has. I said: the same as this city. They thought that was fine. Then just bid for the contract, I said.’ The final tender was a success: by far the most companies visited took part. In addition to the three existing suppliers, Enexis chooses five new ones from the Czech Republic, Poland, Germany and Greece. No Chinese companies, in other words. ‘The price-quality ratio was the deciding factor,’ says Hossain.
No bumps in the road
Twelve-year contracts were signed with eight suppliers. ‘Normally, the term is eight years,’ says Hossain, ‘but these companies are making significant investments to meet our requirements, especially in the area of circularity. They now have more time to recover those costs.’ He looks back on the process with satisfaction. ‘It was our largest product tender ever. By selling ourselves well, we were able to attract the right partners. We will have enough power cables to last for years. At least cables won’t be a bump in the road for the energy transition!’