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As Retail Business Services – the services company of Ahold Delhaize USA – continues to grow and evolve, our teams are evolving for the future too. This summer, Retail Business Services is spotlighting leaders and their teams as they pursue a bold new future.  

First up is Nancy Nicoll, Vice President of Indirect, who leads the Indirect Center of Excellence (COE). Formerly known as Not for Resale (NFR), the COE strives to identify savings opportunities and best-in-class practices across indirect spend. 

“The rebranding of the NFR team is really in service of better reflecting what this team accomplishes every day,” Nancy said. “It’s really about representing what we strive to deliver, which is best outcomes.” 

This department is responsible for delivering value that is repeatable and sustainable, Nancy added, so that those savings can be passed on to customers in local grocery retail brand stores. To deliver even more savings, the team has shifted to operating in a consortium model.  

“We are moving to what’s called a consortium model, which is a new way of working,” she said. “We are a strong-process driven organization that’s built on relationships; and the consortium model doesn’t replace that – it’s built upon it. And what the consortium model will allow us to do is increase our operating efficiency – so be better at what we do, more efficient – but also unlock more value essentially to leverage scale better in the marketplace.  

The change is an exciting one, and one Nancy said will poise Retail Business Services as a leader in the industry and in the indirect sourcing field. For Nancy, the future is bright.  

“It’s really about allowing our partners to come together in a new way to better align on decisions and outcomes,” she added. “Under the consortium model, we’re bringing participating teams together earlier in the process – aligning on outcomes, aligning on specifications, aligning on specifications of work – and then allowing the indirect team to go into the market with an aligned strategy to deliver best outcomes.” 

A self-identified “lifelong procurement person,” Nancy is energized by the amount of change she has seen her team drive and the level of success it has achieved.   

“I could not be prouder of what this team does each and every day,” she said. “There’s positive ahead – meaning there’s only more change, more potential, more value we can deliver.” 

Look for more services spotlights in the weeks ahead!