Maarten Erasmus joins Kloepfel Consulting's Dutch team

German procurement consultancy Kloepfel Consulting has added Maarten Erasmus to its ranks in the Netherlands.

Maarten Erasmus has been appointed a partner per 1 October 2020, and brings more than 25 years of procurement expertise to his new role. He joins from Emeritor, a 100-strong Dutch procurement consultancy, where he spent seventeen years working for clients across sectors on topics including operations management, strategic sourcing, contract management, and supply management.

He led major improvement programs at SNSREAAL, Trespa, Natuurmonumenten, Nidera, Aafje, Cordaan, Zorggroep Almere, Vincent van Gogh, Frans Maas, Paresto and Tergooiziekenhuizen, and also contributed as a team member to engagements for Aegon, ASML, Bollegraaf RecyclingOLVG, Hemubo, Senter Novem, CED, Hal Allergy, COA, Océ, IHC and others. 

Prior to working in the consulting sector, he held roles in industry, at Philips and an automotive company.

At Kloepfel Consulting, he will co-lead the Benelux team, which launched in the Netherlands last year. The venture was formed after office founder Peter Smit and gained experience with Kloepfel Consulting in its home market Germany, and then together with Kloepfel Consulting founder Marc Kloepfel decided that the time was right to expand into the country. 

The Dutch operations works in tandem with Procurement Services to provide an end-to-end offering. The Kloepfel Consulting team is responsible for direct purchasing, while Procurement Services (led by Martijn Heijmans and André Seltenrijch) takes care of indirect purchasing matters. “Our expertise is perfectly structured and complements each other,” said Smit on the local collaboration. 

Smit and Erasmus have set the ambition to build Kloepfel Consulting into a trusted advisor, research house and implementation partner, with a focus on clients in the manufacturing industry – one of the firm’s powerhouse sectors in Germany. “We can leverage a wealth of experience. In Germany alone, Kloepfel Consulting has delivered more than 800 projects,” said Erasmus.

In the Netherlands, the firm is gradually gaining momentum. Its first customer was Nooteboom Trailers in Wijchen. “They trusted us with a complete procurement cost optimisation project… and fortunately, we were able to meet their expectations. In the first phase of the negotiations, we were able to achieve savings of €1.8 million,” said Smit proudly. 

Since, the procurement consultancy has onboarded “a number of new clients,” confirmed Smit.

Internationally, the 12-year-old firm has over ten offices in Europe, Asia and the Americas.