Enel Procurement School 3.0, all-round training for increasingly strategic business processes

Exploring Global procurement deeply and broadly. Ranging from specific skills – strategic governance and enhancement of supply chain and operations, sustainability and energy transition, just to name a few – to the soft skills needed in a rapidly changing context – developing leadership and the ability to influence, negotiation strategies, managing decision-making processes in times of crisis. These were the goals of the Enel Procurement School 3.0, the most recent part of a long and fruitful collaboration between Enel and SDA Bocconi. The training program was generated as an advanced track, and engaged higher-seniority Enel Procurement executives in a 14-days course (in addition to several other training sessions) over a one-year period. The track was just concluded by a ceremony attended by, among others, SDA Bocconi Associate Dean, Claudio Dematté Division for Custom Programs Giovanni Tomasi,  EPS 3.0 program director Giuseppe Stabilini,  and Francesca Di Carlo, Enel's Global Procurement Director.

In 2017, Enel's Global Procurement began promoting a strategy to maximize value creation in all its forms: safety, savings, time, quality, performance, revenue, flexibility, cash flow, and risk reduction. Today Global Procurement means sustainable supply chains, circular economy, digital innovation, and sharing values and goals with suppliers. These are strategic goals that coincide perfectly with the values of SDA Bocconi’s educational programs and gave rise to this high-impact shared project.

The course, which kicked off last September, was structured on 5 modules of 4 sessions each led by SDA Bocconi faculty – Finance & Accounting, Procurement & Digital, Operations & Supply Chain, Business Simulation and Sustainable Leadership at Enel – and 2 modules run by Enel –  Sustainability & Energy Transition and Innovation & Digital Evolution.

To ensure the training is fully effective, in addition to traditional classroom teaching, the program included a number of in-depth and hands-on experiences such as:

• “A Talk with,” three opportunities for participants, SDA Bocconi faculty and prominent guest speakers to discuss emerging issues and trends, with time at the end for Q&A and debate
• business simulation programs developed by SDA Bocconi, such as Rialto, a specific business game on the topics of Procurement, Global Operations and Supply Chain Management; E.L.P., to operationally manage the challenges of change; and John Red, to train skills in managing group dynamics, decision-making and story-telling
• project works to test learning in the field by involving participants in practical actions within Enel. Conducted under the guidance of SDA Bocconi faculty, the project works aimed to generate value for the company by promoting teamwork, diversity and project management skills but also the strategic value of participants within their function. The various projects were presented during the final ceremony.

“Today, procurement managers face a turbulent scenario and increasingly complex situations,” Program Director Giuseppe Stabilini commented. “Enel gave us a challenging task: structuring a training course that would provide the necessary tools to read and act at multiple levels in order to better manage procurement relationships. The result was this multidisciplinary training program, involving different skills and sharing its educational modules with high-profile Enel managers.”

SDA Bocconi School of Management