Today we have selected Anne Sophie Le Bloas to take her interview. She is the CEO at Ravacan.
First of all, how are you and your team doing in these COVID-19 times?
Our team is doing well, fortunately. We’ve grown from 2 to 7 people in less than a year. We see these strange times as an opportunity to find the best talents worldwide and be transparent and disciplined in documenting our journey and the communication between team members.
We have built a diverse team of highly efficient individuals by utilizing the latest web-based collaborative tools. This means we already have the skills and technology in place to support our global customers virtually too.
Tell us about you, your career, how you founded or joined this company?
I’ve created Ravacan to build the tools I wish I had during my career in procurement. As a digital native, making cost models and reports on spreadsheets was fun when I started my career. However, as you grow and get more responsibilities, spreadsheets and emails are slowing you down, and it’s hard to demonstrate your impact on the business. Ravacan exists to help sourcing managers of direct materials and components achieve more and show how strategic they are within their organization by reducing costs and managing capacity, increasing efficiency, and speeding up budgeting cycles.
How does your company innovate?
We innovate by doing four simple things:
- hiring brilliant people
- listening to our customers
- being creative and thinking outside the box
- keep eyes on the big picture
How the Coronavirus pandemic affects your business, and how are you coping?
People told us it was impossible to raise when the pandemic hit, but we made it!
On the sales side, we work with industry leaders recognized as innovators. Given that we are early stage, we need to go after the highly successful companies who have been investing in new technologies.
Did you have to make difficult choices, and what are the lessons learned?
In these uncertain times, we have to be conservative with our spending. We might have missed some opportunities, but all in all, it forced our organization to be very efficient.
What specific tools, software, and management skills are you using to navigate this crisis?
Like many companies out there, we use Slack and Zoom to “meet” and have conversations. Teamflow also helps us create a team culture.
We have team members in the US and several countries in Europe. Everyone shares their calendar, so we know when people are available or away. We have informal conversations every Monday and Friday to have more personal interactions and celebrate achievements in a more relaxed environment. I hope we will be able to all meet in person soon.
Who are your competitors? And how do you plan to stay in the game?
Our biggest competitor is Microsoft. A few big companies are evolving in our market like SAP, for instance. Our offering is unique because we designed it for the users first. Because they sell top-down, many enterprise software companies create their solution for the management, and then, the end-users struggle using the product. Ravacan is an analytics and collaboration platform designed for buyers by buyers.
Your final thoughts
What makes my job interesting and is key to my success can balance creativity and analytics. Being innovative and leading with data was instrumental to success in my career in procurement and is just as important to me now as an entrepreneur. If you are in manufacturing procurement and feel you spend too much time crunching data in spreadsheets and not enough time negotiating as a strategic buyer, please reach out via our website.
- Spokesperson: Anne Sophie Le Bloas
- Company: Ravacan
- Website link: https://ravacan.com
