Tuesday 2023-07-11

Under the FORVIA umbrella, there are many opportunities for HELLA and Faurecia to work together even more efficiently. Initial measures such as the introduction of a joint Forvia.com e-mail address or overarching access to important tools have already been successfully implemented. Now, the next step is to bring the IT and Indirect Purchasing (IdP) departments even closer together into one joint organizational unit each making them significantly more powerful in times of growth and optimally positioned to support the success of HELLA and Faurecia in the best possible way. All IT and IdP employees from HELLA and Faurecia will be part of the new organizations while at the same time continuing to be employed by HELLA or Faurecia respectively at the same workplace as before. Also contact persons for employees for IT and to a large extent for IdP matters will remain the same. The new organizational setup of the HELLA and Faurecia IT and IdP teams under the FORVIA umbrella became effective as of July 1, 2023.

FORVIA IT: Enable a whole new level of IT service excellence

The IT teams of HELLA and Faurecia are being brought together to standardize processes, leverage synergies and thus increase efficiency. All of the current 660 employees at HELLA and around 1,430 employees at Faurecia are involved, and their tasks and responsibilities will be combined in a new matrix organization. The matrix is divided into the areas IT Innovation and Global Operations as well as IT Strategy and Regional Operations. The new FORVIA IT matrix is managed by a duo: Felix Willing, previously CIO at HELLA, and Eric Godard, previously CIO at Faurecia, share responsibility and in turn report to a higher-level Board of Directors with two HELLA and two Faurecia members each. "IT processes and user service previously ran separately at HELLA and Faurecia," says Felix Willing. "Our new Global Information Technologies (GIT) organization will result in synergies and efficiency gains that will enable a whole new level of IT service excellence. In addition, we will be able to drive forward important future topics such as automation and digitalization more powerfully together and thus further improve company-wide process efficiency." Prior to the creation of the new joint IT organization, the migration of HELLA's and Faurecia's Microsoft 365 applications already began in May 2023 and is expected to be completed later this year. The goal is for all users at HELLA and Faurecia to be working in a shared FORVIA IT environment by then.

FORVIA Indirect Purchasing: Boost purchasing power with suppliers and deliver increased value to stakeholders

The Group’s indirect spend was more than €4bn in 2022, covering a large scope of diverse products and services worldwide. The new Indirect Purchasing organization is based on a matrix structured along 10 commodities and 5 main regions. Through this new organizational structure, the team is well-positioned to work across BGs and support both HELLA and Faurecia to deliver best-in-class service and results. "The IdP departments delivered already significant synergies. However, alignment as one single organization will further boost our purchasing power with suppliers and deliver increased value to our stakeholders," says Guillaume Clergue, who will lead the new FORVIA IdP unit. "We have a roadmap through 2025 of various alignment activities. Throughout the second half of 2023, we will focus on our processes and harmonizing our ways of working before going one step further in our digital integration in 2024. By 2025, we expect to deliver €80M in OPEX synergies and contribute to cash improvement by €40M.”