Since 12 November 2019, Stephan has been CEO of Transporeon. His professional focus has always been to use his wealth of experience to help organizations grow – and that is also his goal at Transporeon. Stephan spent 13 years working for SAP, including his role as managing director of SAP Switzerland and as Chief Operating Officer for the DACH region. After his time at SAP, Stephan successfully shaped the development of ERP provider Unit4 over a period of five years, three of which as CEO with responsibility for more than 4,000 employees. Stephan holds an MBA from the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto.
Listen to the full discussion here:
- Listen on Stitcher
Connect with the Guest:
Stephan Sieber: LinkedIn
Some of the highlights from the podcast:
- [04:52] Transporeon’s trucker heroes initiative
- [08:24] Tackling truck capacity issue – more than 150 million empty runs per year only in Germany
- [13:05] How Transporeon grew their Real-Time Visibility business by 300%
- [17:51] Efficient communication when working with more than 100,000 carriers from more than 30 countries
- [26:41] Managing 113 projects going live in 12 weeks with most of the workforce working remotely
- [38:16] Success as CEO for Stephan? The success and the satisfaction of his employees.
Show notes:
- [01:52] What are some of the main milestones of your career and what is the most exciting part of being the CEO of Transporeon?
- [03:07] It’s really fun to work at Transporen and all of this is tied together by a super-strong purpose of bringing transportation in sync with the world.
- [04:52] I saw an interesting initiative, #TruckerHeroes, curious to find out more about them, maybe you can share.
- [05:28] When this whole pandemic crisis evolved, we realized how tough it is for specifically the drivers, so the idea of this campaign is to express our gratitude to them and know how we can support them better.
- [07:06] In terms of the digitalization process, cutting waiting time, reducing empty mileage and sustainability, can share a bit on each and how does everything come together with Transporeon?
- [08:24] 25% to 35% of the truck capacity is idle. Just in Germany per year, there is more than 150 million empty runs and we feel that needs to be fixed. And a digital platform like ours can contribute to fixing that problem.
- [10:57] What are the supply chain and logistic trends that you see happening now and continuing to happen in the next few months?
- [12:56] A topic that is absolutely bothering all of us is the topic of transparency and visibility. In real-time, we have seen a tremendous increase in our visibility business. In H1 we grew our realtime visibility business by more than 300%.
- [16:08] Can you tell us a bit more about this role as a network operator? Does it require the element of education? How challenging is communication in all of this when trying to bring everybody to see the same picture?
- [19:11] One of our values at Transporeon is that we value differences. So we embrace the diversity this brings to us. You could say it’s complexity, but you can also say it’s an opportunity and I tend to look at it from that angle.
- [21:13s] Can you share a specific example of a client or a group of clients who have seen excellent results after implementing Transporeon?
- [24:22] So overall we do about 20% of our business in the retail industry, it’s our largest sector. When we look at the market share in brackets, we believe we do about 80% of retail in Germany because we have the largest players, but we also have quite a number of large retailers outside Germany.
- [26:41] In those 12 weeks where we were working from home, we had 113 projects going live all done remotely.
- [28:07] What’s next for Transporeon in general, maybe some expansion plans?
- [30:57] Our top three priorities are to make everything dynamic, to make everything real-time, and digitalize the whole supply chain, including all the different players involved.
- [32:44] How do you define a good company culture and what are you most proud of when it comes to Transporeon’s culture?
- [33:49] We’re 700 people across many different countries, but we share one thing in common and that is centered around the mission and the purpose and that is sort of what we always come back to.
- [35:21] What do you look for when interviewing for your leadership team?
- [36:05] I do focus a lot more on how that person compliments myself and the team. And I try to actively assemble a team that has diversity, not only gender and nationalities, and whatever you have but also cognitive diversity.
- [37:57] How do you know you’re a successful CEO?
- [38:27] When you’re the CEO, you realize you can only be as successful as all the people that are working for you or who are working in your organization. So most of them can be successful for themselves without the CEO being successful. But I, as a CEO, can only be successful if I make as many successful as possible.
- [40:30] What is one piece of advice that you could give for a successful career?
- [40:44] For me, it’s all about learning, contributing, and having fun. Not only for the professional part of our lives, but also how you spend your spare time, how you spend your family time, et cetera.
Quote from the Episode:
About the Host:
The host, Andrei Palamariu is the founder of Supplify where he and his team works on building a platform to connect the supply chain tech ecosystem. His most interesting discussions with the clients are focused on implementing the best technology, digital transformation, company growth and expansion, turnarounds, and product and business development.
Alcott Global connects and upgrades the supply chain ecosystem by finding the right talent through executive search, developing talent through learning solutions, and meeting supply chain technology needs through a comprehensive crunch base marketplace.
The supply chain executive search has been our focus since the very beginning, offering recruitment services for top-tier supply chain roles at every level of the end-to-end supply chain: plan, source / procure, make, and deliver. Our consultants have years of experience in placing top talent, in North America, LATAM, Europe, the Middle East & Africa, and APAC, and besides speed, one of our biggest strengths is our network within the supply chain industry, and we capitalize on it to find the best solutions.
Through the years, we have grown as an organization and our offerings with it. One of our initiatives, the learning solutions- training and supply chain academy, is focused on transforming leadership- self-leadership, executive presence, influence capital, and business acumen. Through Supplify, we aim to match corporations with the top technology companies to solve their supply chain and logistics challenges with a focus on innovation and digital transformation.
We are in constant touch with the leaders in supply chain, inviting them to inspire the supply chain professionals in thought-provoking podcast episodes and events, and showcasing what is possible at the yearly Leaders in Supply Chain Awards.
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