Sanmina

By Staff -- Purchasing, 2/22/2001

Name: Latchman Venkatesh

Title: Vice president, global supplier management

Company: Sanmina Corp.

Reports to: Hari Pillai, executive vice president, North American EMS Operations

Education: M.S. in contract management and B.S. in human development

Professional background: Venkatesh has held management positions in materials and operations for companies such as Read-Rite (Bangkok-Thailand) Microgenics, Compression Labs and Inmac Corp. He was also director of site procurement prior to joining Sanmina in March of 2000.

Current duties: Latchman manages the global supplier management department at Sanmina. His group manages all aspects of direct materials contract negotiations. Last year Sanmina spent several billion dollars in component purchases such as enclosures, power supplies, cable assemblies, magnetics, memory chips and microprocessors. This amount is expected to double in 2001.

Supplier management's role: "The organization is divided into commodity and channel management teams that have responsibility to develop global sourcing strategies and key supplier relationships. The teams focus on supplier cost contribution, supply assurance, transactional cost management and long-range visibility. The goal is a continual reduction in total cost of ownership and improvements in communication and use of technology."

New product development: "At Sanmina, purchasing becomes involved at the front end of product development. We work closely with customers and suppliers to make recommendations based upon technology, cost and availability. Purchasing remains involved all the way through the process. This ensures minimal time to market and a successful transition to volume production."

What it takes to succeed in purchasing: "To be successful one must understand and operate to the goals and objects of the organization and adopt and implement the sourcing strategy. One must also have the ability to develop excellent long-term supplier relationships."

What's challenging about purchasing: "Contract manufacturers are growing rapidly as more and more OEMs outsource. This has certainly created an imbalance in supply and demand for qualified people, especially in Silicon Valley. As a result, recruiting and retaining qualified people is definitely a challenge. At Sanmina, we look for commodity managers who have hands-on experience in commodities such as microcontrollers/processors, analog IC's, SRAM , DRAM , DSPs, connectors, power supplies, etc. These managers must know the market and the trend well and be able to manage the total business with responsibility for improving the total cost of acquisition, quality, continuity of supply as well as flexibility. They should also be able to drive suppliers to improve scorecard performance, identify opportunities and implement improvements for supply-chain optimization in addition to conducting quarterly business reviews."

Future of purchasing: "Purchasing is changing as we speak. The function of procurement is very different from what it was just a few years ago. Purchasing is becoming more tactical as organizations such as global supplier management, supply chain management and commodity management become more prevalent. Purchasing will execute to the strategies put in place by the above groups."