ESG, succession planning, and employee retention: XChange EMEA day 2 part 2
Channel members returned for the second day of CRN’s European partner conference to explore sustainability and addressing the multi-generational workforce
Day two of CRN's XChange EMEA event in The Hague, The Netherlands took a dive into the moral and strategic imperative of sustainability and understanding your workforce.
First, XChange attendees heard from Arthur Schneider, head of sustainability management at the Bechtle Group, who sat down with CRN editor Victoria Pavlova to explore how embracing ESG can drive revenue growth.
Schneider explained how sustainability efforts are becoming more of a requirement for the market.
"We recently did some M&A business in the Netherlands.
"We see several customers on the market here, such as government, universities, and even some commercial customers who wouldn't buy from us.
"They're splitting the market based on your ESG performance. So it's quite easy to tell that the market demands and requirements are changing heavily.
"Investors and legislation are big stakeholders, but really market demand is changing. That's a no brainer."
Making the supply chain sustainable
The issue with sustainability and the supply chain is coming from a legal perspective, with legislation such as the German Supply Chain Act heavily regulating enterprises in Germany, Schneider said.
"But we also see that the European directive will change a lot, so people start to look into the upstream supply chain.
"And it's not only changing the relationship you're having with your upstream suppliers.
"It's more than legislation because we've managed to discover some new opportunities working with our upstream supply chain from making it more resilient, route optimisation, modes of transportation, forecasting.
"So it really changed the way we are discussing the yearly strategic talks with suppliers.
"So it's really a different level of quality we established by asking questions on supply chain diligence."
Schneider warned of four letters companies need to prepare for - CSRD (Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive), which requires companies to report on the impact of corporate activities on the environment and society, and requires the audit of reported information.
"That's the game changer when it comes to reporting," Schneider told the audience.
Speaking on how SMEs specifically need to prepare, Schneider suggested turning to external consultancies.
"There are a lot of expensive consultancy companies giving advice on CSRD.
"But I can advise you to take some free of charge Ernst and Young webinars and CSRD.
"And then basically, we're looking at what the reports will be mainly consisting of its KPIs, its non-financial data.
"And this will get audited in a couple of years. So you will need a system. So look into some really low level solutions on software. There are a lot of software service solutions for tracking non-financials.
"You need to systemise the approach of getting data from your operations, but also from suppliers."
Best practices for increasing data availability
"Everything you procure you need to balance in scope three," Schneider said of the difficult indirect emissions category.
"So ask your suppliers for CO2 emissions. That's currently happening a lot.
"To be honest, getting the data is the hardest part, even from your top global tech suppliers. It's not automated yet.
"A lot of people are talking about AI. This will have serious issues with energy consumption for datacentres, but genAI is also helpful when it comes to supply chain management and really getting data into your system and working with it."
Investing in the right place
"The return on investment is quite easy to track. Simply seeing your customer base changing, and suddenly big corporates changing supplier criteria.
"There is this so-called trickle down effect. Everyone who's running supplier operations will, sooner or later, turn towards ecological and social criteria that's happening currently with all the big enterprises."
Continue reading to hear from Auxilion director Edel Creely on succession planning...
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ESG, succession planning, and employee retention: XChange EMEA day 2 part 2
Channel members returned for the second day of CRN’s European partner conference to explore sustainability and addressing the multi-generational workforce
Succession Planning: How to elevate the right people in your business?
Scaling and acquiring an MSP requires careful planning and attention to detail. Key aspects include hiring the right people, developing a clear organisational structure, and fostering a positive company culture
Auxilion director Edel Creely graced the stage to talk about her first-hand experience in doing just that.
"We got to a point in time in the business where we realised that in order to scale, we needed to take a clear look at how our organisation was structured.
"We could see that it's really important to have the right leaders in the right roles at the right time, particularly to support the business as it would scale further.
"I'm sure many of you have been in a situation where your business is growing and or somebody moves on from the business, and we feel under pressure to fill a role. And maybe sometimes you react to that pressure a little bit more quickly, rather than ensuring that you've got the role definition, right, you've got to make the right hire, because it's very difficult to come back from that."
Creely continued to talk about Auxilion's "analytical approach" to defining roles.
"We did very clear role definition around the positions that were necessary in the business and what we would need as it scales. We looked at our people very closely to define whether we had the right people in the right places, or if there were gaps in their skill sets, how could we help them grow them?"
She added Auxilion received outside support from an expert in this field.
"That helped us with a much clearer growth plan, if we also then put a management training programme in place, which was designed specifically for our business and the people in the business.
"So we helped people understand what their responsibilities were. Not just responsibility in the role, but other people in their team and the business as a whole. It made people understand and think about the business very differently. So that helped us in ensuring that we were building the business in the right way with the right people who could have that business scale"
Baseline necessities
Creely told XChange attendees they need to have a clear definition of the organisation structure, right down to the detail of the role definition, the responsibilities of people, how they all fit together, and how teams work together across the organisation as a baseline for when potential buyers come knocking.
"It's very important that the business doesn't develop in silos because it doesn't have a more engaged and developed business or an engaged workforce.
"Just be a bit more analytical about it."
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