SARIA Global Newsletter February 2023

At Sinova we are working continuously towards a modern and lean organisation and a high-performance culture in which we can work together as ONE team across national borders.

In the past Microsoft Teams at Sinova was built up in a country-based structure. Working in Microsoft Teams across borders was very limited and often difficult.

Therefore, to efficiently work together in an international team like ours there is a need to established tools and platforms where colleagues can share their ideas, files and projects in a secured and protected environment.

The goal is to be able to work together on an easily accessible international platform as ONE team.

Together with the great support from our IT colleagues in the different countries, and a project team co-leaded by Kimberly Böving (German IT team) as technical expert and Jérémie Coste (France IT team) as digital manager in charge for the change management, the implementation of a Shared Channel solution has been successfully finalized to give our colleagues the opportunity and space to work together sharing Microsoft Teams channels across borders.

A Shared Channel is a collaborative environment on our Sinova Microsoft Teams platform, in which communication on an international level can take place much easier than before. To develop specific projects within team working groups we are now able to use the advantages Microsoft Teams brings us instead of sharing files via email, for example.

In order to get the most benefit out of these channels, the introduction in our team will be rolled out within specific training sessions and a special ambassador program step by step.

All in all, the shared channels are a big step forward for Sinova and offer a great possibility to achieve joint goals as ONE team, to collaborate easily and to continuously grow together.

Sustainability at Sinova is reflected in our daily actions, our thinking and the way we run our business.

Both the SARIA purpose “Together towards a sustainable world and healthier living” and the Sinova purpose of “making the most of the earth’s limited resources” underline our commitment to sustainability. In order to fulfill this commitment Sinova joined the Supplier Leadership on Climate Transition (S-LoCT) initiative.

S-LoCT is an industry-wide knowledge platform to collectively reach net zero emissions by 2050. The program was initiated by Mars, one of the world’s largest food and petfood manufacturers and also one of Sinova’s biggest customers, together with other food-and-beverage companies to help suppliers reduce their CO₂ emissions.

Our Sinova sustainability team is using the collaborative platform to expand the knowledge and work together across our division to improve the carbon footprint of our activities. Thanks to the collective efforts and good work of our Sinova team, we are pleased to have reached the first milestone of the S-LoCT journey.

This badge is a recognition of the development of a Scope 1 and 2 Greenhouse Gas (GHG) footprint that meets the GHG Protocol and Science-Based Targets initiative standards. However, this award is just the beginning. Together as ONE team, we at Sinova want to continue to move forward in terms of sustainability and reduction of CO₂ emissions and therefore come even closer to our goal of making the most of the earth’s limited resources.

Peter F. Drucker published numerous influential articles and books on the theory and practice of management and is considered a pioneer of modern management theory. One of his famous quotes is “What you can’t measure, you can’t manage.”

Of course, besides measuring, it is also important to keep track of all the available information and to have the right tools and instruments for evaluating the information. A company without data awareness and a well-functioning data infrastructure will rapidly lose competitiveness in the future. Therefore, building such a tool can bring a quick leap with a measurable impact on profitability and efficiency in our division.

These aspects are essential factors for the Sinova project called “SINAPS”. Up until now, our data has been stored in many, unconnected databases. For example, there was a system where the financial key figures could be accessed, another database with the logistics key figures, and various different platforms with data from the factories. However, in most cases the data was limited to one country and there were different systems in different countries, which made it difficult to access, use and benchmark data.

With the SINAPS project, a multitude of data is now combined in a single platform. SINAPS guarantees a very high level of data security, which is a top priority for us. It integrates easily with a lot of different IT systems in our Sinova regions and is not restricted by national borders. SINAPS is a flexible data management tool that can be quickly adapted to our business needs, allows us to have excellent data governance, and helps us to take the right decisions and adopt a benchmarking culture. With a single user interface, it is now possible for our one hundred Sinova leaders to access the most important Sinova data in the areas of finance, health and safety, quality, sales and logistics. Data on sustainability will also be available soon.

The information is presented in graphs and curves in different dashboards and there are a variety of filter options to work efficiently with the data on a daily basis. The Sinova teams now have the possibility to compile and combine information by country, product, customer, time period, etc. in a very simple and uncomplicated way.

A special thank you for making this project happen goes to the team of experts from different areas within our division. With their support and input it was possible to build the framework on which SINAPS is now based. Another big thank you also goes to the IT team in Spain. Jordi Esquius and Rodrigo Borella, with their team and together with an external project partner, did an excellent job and created the possibility to easily access a large amount of data. SINAPS is another significant step for our division on our way to creating an efficient and lean organisation and being able to run our business in a targeted way.

Now that we measure better, we will be able to manage our division even better. Just in the spirit of Peter F. Drucker.