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The SOMDIAA Group set up 4 functional departments focusing on the African affiliates and whose competencies and savoir-faire allow them to maintain high standards in terms of competitiveness as well as quality and efficiency.
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They include:
These departments put forward appropriate and fast solutions to meet the needs of the affiliates without infringing their management autonomy or the Group's strategic will to centralize managerial decisions.
In 2007 a fifth department, the Cotton department, came into being to strenghthen the synergies between the various food processing businesses of the Group ein French-speaking Africa.
IT Support
To harmonize management tools and foster communication, the SOMDIAA Group invested in a robust computer system supported by a cross-functional team knowledgeable in all aspects of computer science. The team's goal is to analyze and meet the various department needs, and to offer related training.
Consistent and standardized hardware equipment
With 27 computer engineers, 20 servers and 10 AS400's for approximately 550 users, the Information Services Department centralizes purchases and handles product access and standardization to provide quality hardware to affiliates at optimum cost.
A diversified, reliable, innovating and environment-friendly offering.
An interactive and user-friendly Intranet site
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The Intranet portal allows every employee to share his or her information with all team members in real time. Its user-friendliness encourages proactiveness, while bringing together teams scattered over different continents.
Thanks to an ongoing monitoring program, innovating solutions are regularly introduced to improve system performance.
User support
The Information Services Department offers training programs tailored to individual needs:
- A hotline accessible via instant messaging for fast servicing.
- Regular seminars to ensure continuing skill transfer. |
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Procurement
The purpose of the Procurement is to meet the supply needs expressed by subsidiaries of the SOMDIAA Group at the best possible price. Thanks to a high-performance computer tool, a small team of professionals handles this task from supplier sourcing - Purchasing Center - to site delivery - Logistic Center. In order to best complete its purchase offers, Procurement proposes integrated logistic solutions allowing delivery of each order at the industrial sites in Africa.
Efficient cohesion between departments
Machines, material, spare parts, fertilizer, raw materials, lubricants... whatever the needs, the purchasing departments of our local units benefit from Procurement skills and a computer department based in Paris. With instantaneous transmission of documentation and real-time communication with the different industrial sites, it is possible to operate immediately, even in the heart of Africa, while ensuring the best quality, price and timeframe conditions.
Suppliers from all horizons
The Procurement process, which has a long history on all continents, can submit a competitive bid to every request prepared by one of our companies in sub-Saharan Africa. |
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With more than 500 suppliers and a constant search for new contacts, Procurement can best meet the needs of internal clients by always seeking to contribute to lowering their production costs.
Consulting for plants
Procurement conducts an interactive buying policy and, in this spirit, distributes all of the information and documentation concerning the new products, materials and production machines, always proposing the best bid and alternatives.
PURCHASE of COMMODITIES - A trade specialty of the SOMDIAA Group.
The choice and purchase of cereals, closely related to market variations, are also managed by Procurement. The purchase of wheat, for flour production, is subject to special care and long know-how inherited from the Grands Moulins de Paris (Mills of Paris'company).
The results of the Group's mills depend in large part on a qualitative, homogenous and regular supply.
As needed and to complete our offer, this department also supplies certain markets with sugar (sourced directly from Brazil or any other producer country), in bulk or in containers, based on the international market.
A regular and optimized supply
With each new campaign, our technicians and millers prepare specifications, working closely with the cooperatives and collection and storage entities. In these areas, Procurement handles purchase and transport price negotiations, then takes care of ship reservations. The Department, strong with this expertise on the cereal supply market in Africa, uses its organization to help other miller operators on the continent.
Balance between operator needs and logistical constraints
In the service of a milling industry requiring regularity and stability, the department must also continuously listen to the markets so as to inform and advise operators, in real-time, on the quality and quantities to order.
Clear and efficient information
Each year, a milling seminar brings together technicians from the SOMDIAA Group, outside partners and suppliers to inform the subsidiaries about cereal campaigns, technical advances and new product developments in order to best adapt our mills to these evolutions.
Our teams also participate each year in Paris in the "milling technical days" of the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Meunerie et des Industries Céréalières (National Upper School of Milling and Cereal Industries).
Transport
Maritime and air transport are subject to annual contracts with companies, negotiated based on the group's overall volumes in order to benefit from the best prices and boarding priorities. Procurement thus also provides express breakdown services at reduced costs.
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Financial Engineering
The Financial Engineering Department offers consulting services to meet the financing needs of the SOMDIAA Group's affiliates by helping them control resources allocation.
Specific support for credit applications
Credit application preparation is only possible through a strong partnership between the SOMDIAA Group and the various French-African bank networks.
The Group's partners are key international donor agencies and the main French-African network banks.
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The Department's accomplishments
- Rehabilitating the Nkoteng plant
The Finance Department has been supporting the SOSUCAM's teams in Cameroon in order to structure the financing plan required for the privatization process, which helped boost production from 47,600 tons of sugar in 1999 to 124,410 tons in 2004 under partnership with BEI and PROPARCO.
- A 37-million-Euro investment program in Chad
A 14-year investment program initiated by CST in Chad. Apart from the term that made the program exceptional, support from COBAC and three donor agencies (BEI, DEG, PROPARCO) helped take out a loan from four local banks (SGBT, BICEC, CBT, AFB) with the Société Générale du Cameroun (SGBC) as key player of the initiative.
This program will help increase production and contribute to a significant improvement in irrigation water management, a critical challenge in this Sahelian country.
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