First Topic:Clients&Suppliers

    Usually the nouns "client" and "supplier" are used when you talk about a business chain. However it cannot be denied that each worker has its own clients and suppliers. Do not forget that "client" and "supplier" does not necessarily mean "buyer" and "seller". Let me take an example. The suppliers of a superhero like "Superman" or "Spiderman" are the bad guys who aim to control the world and their clients are the victims of the latter. You can thus imagine that the topic is more complex for an Alcan employee since his clients and suppliers may be inside or outside the firm. That is what we will see in this post by wondering who are the clients and suppliers of my coach Sylvain Henry.
Do you remember which is my coach's job? He is actually a Senior Research Engineer. He works at Voreppe Alcan Research Center and his research area is Automative Heat Exchanger.

Who are Sylvain's clients?

Inside Alcan:
     Sylvain's chief clients inside Alcan are the "Automotive Heat Exchanger" business activity which is located in Neuf-Brisach (Alsace, France) Alcan factory. More precisely, the person Sylvain is speaking to, is Pascal Roger who works as Alcan Neuf-Brisach factory Slaes and Marketing Director. Indeed, after discussing with Alcan researchers from Voreppe and his director, Pascal Roger lays down Sylvain's R&D projects budgets. Since the beginning of this year, Pascal Roger has also been in charge of the "Automotive activity's Sales Direction". These two activities are part of the "Alcan Speciality Sheet" unit which gathers together Neuf-brisach and Singen's (South of Germany) factories. Remember that the "Alcan Speciality Sheet" unit is one of the nine "business units" from Alcan Engineered Products Business Group.
     Sylvain also helps Alcan producers when they have difficulties in producing the heat exchangers. It means that Sylvain may be called whenever Alcan producers met some problems. To prevent from being called too often, Sylvain trains Alcan producers so that the latter can go through by theirself when they have problems.

Outside Alcan:
     Sylvain's chief clients outside Alcan are automotive equipment suppliers such as Valeo, Calsonic, Visteon, Denso, Modine, long manufacturing, Behr or Delphi. They are his clients not only because they are the clients of Sylvain's business activity but also because it may happen that Sylvain and some employees of these firms work together; As a matter of fact, Sylvain and his colleagues may have to create some prototypes or to realize some expert appraisals for these equipment suppliers.

Who are Sylvain's suppliers?

Inside alcan:
     Sylvain's chief suppliers inside Alcan are some other researchers from Voreppe Research Center who realize different research surveys for him. The epitome of this kind of suppliers remains the "Support Research" unit which is in charge of helping the other researchers in their work. For instance, the member of this unit may help Sylvain to find some information or to do some structural investigations.

Outside Alcan:
     Never forget that industrial research and academic research are no longer separate. Indeed Sylvain have often contacts with C.N.R.S researchers. For example, concerning the automotive heat exchangers, Sylvain works with Dijon's University at corrosion problems.
     The other Sylvain's suppliers are the factories which supply him with some raw materials.

Honesty: one of the Alcan values
     Clients often need to have confidence in their sellers (or suppliers). As a matter of fact, some surveys pinpoint that if you aim to satisfy your clients, you have to indicate the problems that there might be. Your clients will certainly be at least as satisfied when you express the problems and you succeed in solving them as when there is no problem! So be honest!...

Now you may really guess that defining clients and suppliers for Alcan researchers is far more complex than for superheroes....