Connected to the chain #9 | Bas Vliegen

In his free time, Bas Vliegen enjoys playing padel tennis, watching football, often walks in nature with his dog "Sjaak" and has a weakness for good wines and fine food in relaxed company with friends and family. He works as Category Manager EU-300 Engineering & Spatial Services for Supply Chain Management-Grid Field Operations-NNC (SCM-GFO-NNC). In the new "Connected to the Chain" newsletter, he gives an insight into his daily work. Find out more here! ??

What is your role at SCM and what are you responsible for?

I am the Category Manager for EU-300 Engineering & Spatial Services. This means that I am the first contact person for this topic for TenneT internally, but also for external partners. My daily tasks also include implementing the framework agreement, managing supply and demand (in terms of capacity) for our portfolio and developing our partnerships and strategy.

What gives you energy for your job?

At #TenneT, it is the opportunities and responsibility given to young professionals (like me) that motivate me. When I started as an external at TenneT, I always felt as a part of the team and was given trust and responsibility. Over the years, I have had the opportunity to participate in large European tenders as a co-buyer and eventually even become category manager of one of our large framework agreements.

Besides that, I enjoy working with people, both internally an externally to overcome the challenges that we have and face. An example of this is for instance the partnership between TenneT and the engineering companies instead of the classic client and contractor relationship.

Who would you like to swap places with for a working day (inside or outside TenneT)?

That's quite a difficult question, I must say. I think I would like to swap places with Erik ten Hag (Manchester United coach) or John Heitinga (Ajax Amsterdam coach) because I would like to see what it takes to run these big football clubs, how their day is structured and how to deal with a group of alpha dogs. And since I support Ajax, of course I'd like to see how things are going there. At TenneT, I would love to swap places with our COO Maarten Abbenhuis for the same reasons I mentioned earlier, mainly curiosity about the challenges he faces in his daily business.

What is important to you for a good relationship with a supplier/service provider?

In my opinion, the two most important things for any good relationship are trust and transparency. Because if you don't trust each other, you may be suspicious of your contractual partner. Of course, trust is something that has to grow between the parties, but the intention to work together as equals and the focus on the challenges ahead, will help extremely to build this trust. Especially if both parties are transparent about their expectations, roles and responsibilities, but also about their weaknesses. Transparency not only in terms of shortcomings, but also in terms of capacities, workload and performance.

How do you manage risks for SCM in your role?

In my role, I have meetings with our EU 300 suppliers to discuss daily activities. In addition, we create a forecast for our portfolio to match supply and demand. In addition, the framework agreements we have concluded in recent years give TenneT the necessary security of supply when demand increases. 

How do you implement partnership in procurement?

We implement partnership by taking this into account in our framework agreements. To this end, the framework agreement includes an article that addresses the basic principles of cooperation. How to work together within the framework agreement, but also within the projects. Besides that we want to work together as equal partners who will take on challenges together and succeed them. But also who dare to hold each other accountable for mistakes and can learn from each other in order to take the next steps together. Using the expertise of the partners in combination with the expertise of our project teams helps to improve the outcome.

TenneT is quite a big organisation. How do you keep in touch with other employees?

By scheduling short talks with colleagues, being in the office two to three times a week and trying not to rush from one meeting to the next (still in progress). I also try to always make time for colleagues who have problems or difficulties. A quick chat on the way to the next meeting or over a cup of coffee works wonders.

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If you have any questions or would like to have more information, please leave your question as a comment below the article.