The route to become a partner

The management of the procurement process ensures that companies applying to supply goods, works and services are aware that they must satisfy not only requirements of quality, price and reliability, but they must also share the commitment to adopt sustainability criteria, throughout the production chain, in order to reduce potential economic, environmental and social risks.

The evaluation of the suitability of the candidate suppliers takes place exclusively through a rigorous qualification process aimed at verifying the current capacities of the supplier and its future potential, in accordance to unbiased criteria. The evaluation takes place according to the nature and criticality of the works.

There are many factors subject to evaluation: technical and management skills, economic and financial reliability, ethical and reputational risk, commitment to anti-corruption, environmental protection, and promotion of healthy and safe working conditions, and the absence of forced labour and economic exploitation of underage labour. There are further requirements for more critical works categories such as the possession of certified management systems in accordance with international standards. Specifically, for the works category (criticality classes A and B) having Management Systems certified in accordance with international standards (ISO 9001, ISO14001, OHSAS 18001) is required. Snam has also set itself the goal of extending the environmental certification requirement to all suppliers of goods (criticality class A).

During the year, the objective set in 2017 was achieved and exceeded. Snam is committed to carrying out more awareness actions on the possession of ISO 14001 certification with regard to suppliers of Goods (criticality class A) in 2019 aimed at maintaining the results achieved.
The adoption in 2018 of new corporate rules made the entire qualification process simpler, quicker and more effective, with the total transparency and traceability of the system remaining unchanged. This was also possible thanks to the introduction of automated systems for recovering information (e.g. certifications) which reduced the burden of documents to be produced in terms of the private or public process.

In order to ensure that the list of approved suppliers is adequate to meet current and future procurement requirements, Snam constantly conducts market intelligence analyses and scouts for new suppliers: in 2018 more than 500 businesses were contacted, involving around sixty different works categories, and around 200 new applicant qualification processes were launched.

The number of spontaneous applications received from prospective suppliers amounted to approximately 1,300. The multi-year planned procurements, the consistency of the vendor list of already qualified suppliers and the numerous spontaneous applications sent by businesses ensure the presence of adequate entities to be asked to tender for contracts.

The strategic sourcing tool also contributes to the excellent management of the supply chain. It is a strong lever for successfully identifying future purchasing policies and working positively to cut costs. Starting with the collection of procurement requirements over a multi-year time horizon, strategic sourcing identifies the most strategic works categories to be focused on. The purchasing strategies that follow make it possible to mitigate procurement risks.