Building Supply Chain Excellence through Capability Development
Sulzer built a global Supply Chain Excellence programme with H&Z, strengthening capabilities and embedding strategic approaches across functions.
Building Supply Chain Capability
Sulzer set out to strengthen its global Supply Chain capabilities as a key enabler of its long-term strategy. The ambition: build a stronger, more connected Supply Chain community that combines strategic thinking with hands-on execution across functions and business units.
Together with H&Z, Sulzer developed a comprehensive Supply Chain Excellence training programme designed to systematically build skills, align ways of working and strengthen collaboration across the organisation.
Company
Sulzer is a global leader in fluid engineering, operating across energy, water and manufacturing with a strong focus on innovation and sustainability.
Scale
Over 13,000 employees worldwide. The programme targets around 430 Supply Chain professionals across multiple business units.
Why it mattered
Supply Chain capabilities needed to evolve from transactional excellence to strategic value creation — aligned with Sulzer’s Strategy 2028.
The challenge
Sulzer’s Supply Chain organisation spans multiple business units and functions. To support the company’s long-term strategy, capabilities across procurement and supply chain needed to evolve further — from transactional excellence to strategic value creation.
Key objectives included strengthening end-to-end Supply Chain capabilities, building shared knowledge and tools across teams, enabling closer collaboration between Procurement and business stakeholders, and preparing the organisation for Strategy 2028.
The challenge was not only to provide training, but to create a scalable capability-building programme that would deliver real impact in day-to-day operations.
The programme at a glance
Key figures from pilot to full-scale roll-out.
58participants
Pilot phase in 2024
430employees
Full roll-out in 2025
9formats
Learning modules
6topics
Strategic curriculum
The approach
Together with Sulzer, H&Z designed and implemented a modular Supply Chain Excellence curriculum combining fundamentals, lighthouse topics and deep-dive sessions.
Curriculum topics
- Supply Chain strategy and resilience
- Source-to-contract and negotiation excellence
- Contract and claim management
- Design-to-cost and should-costing
- Data analytics and procurement performance
- ESG fundamentals in supply chains
Training design
- Interactive learning formats with practical tools
- Real business cases for direct applicability
- Joint negotiation trainings with Procurement and Sales
- Cross-functional sessions to strengthen collaboration
- Scalable format from pilot to global roll-out
The impact
The programme has already delivered strong early results. Participants highlighted the high level of interactivity, practical relevance and applicability of the training formats. The initiative also strengthened cross-functional collaboration and created a stronger shared understanding of Supply Chain excellence across the organisation.
With the large-scale roll-out planned for 2025, the programme will further strengthen Sulzer’s capabilities and help embed Supply Chain Excellence as a core organisational competency.
The trainings are delivered with a perfect flow and high share of interactivity — the content is valuable and up to date; concepts and tools are both strategic and hands on, all of them can be applied directly in day-to-day operations to increase leverage and impact.
Client feedback — Sulzer
