How Fluidra turned Supplier Relationship Management (SRM) into a competitive advantage with Luminovo

For more than four decades, Fluidra has built its position as the worldwide reference in pool and wellness, with manufacturing and sales operations spanning 47 countries. As electronics became integral to every product the company ships, from robotic pool cleaners to automation systems, the procurement team faced a complexity that traditional SRM tools were not built for. Fluidra's leadership decided to do something about it.

"By communicating the performance, the KPIs automatically improve. Everybody is in the same room and knows where they need to improve or where they failed." — François Laverdet, Head of Procurement, Zodiac Pool Care Europe (Fluidra)

Starting point: An electronics supply chain managed across disconnected channels

Fluidra's procurement team operates a uniquely layered supply chain. As an OEM, the company negotiates directly with electronic component suppliers on price and allocation, then shares that strategy with the EMS partners who produce its assemblies. Each tier of the supply chain held part of the picture, but no single tier saw the whole.

There was no closed loop on performance. The OEM negotiated, the EMS produced, and the supplier delivered. Feedback rarely travelled in the other direction.

"Even if we negotiated price and we negotiated allocation, we never gave feedback to the supplier to say, look, you are performing well or you're not performing well. We didn't have a closed loop on the performance, the feedback, the responsiveness, or the quality." — François Laverdet, Head of Procurement, Zodiac Pool Care Europe (Fluidra)

That created three concrete problems. First, performance issues stayed hidden. A supplier could report 95% on-time delivery while the EMS recorded only 80% because of logistics or transportation delays nobody had reconciled. Second, the same data could mean different things to different parties: "on-time delivery" measured from PO acknowledgement, dispatch date, or arrival date produced three different numbers and three different arguments. Third, when component allocations were tight, the OEM's negotiated volumes did not always align with what the EMS communicated downstream, which created disputes and lost orders.

Outside electronics, Fluidra had supplier management tools built on Excel and aging legacy systems. None of them were designed for the tiered complexity of an electronics supply chain.

The decision: Co-developing an SRM module built for electronics

Rather than adapt a generic SRM tool, Fluidra chose to co-develop a purpose-built electronics SRM module with Luminovo. François Laverdet, the Head of Procurement for Zodiac Pool Care Europe, had previously built a custom SRM portal at a tier-one automotive supplier, and brought that operating model with him.

The foundational principle was simple: what you can measure, you can scale. But measurement only works if everyone in the supply chain agrees on what is being measured. Fluidra and Luminovo started the partnership by aligning every party on the same definitions. The OEM, the EMSs, and the tier-three component suppliers all had to agree on what on-time delivery meant, how quality rejection was logged, and what response score actually measured.

"What you can measure, you can scale. It's a cliché, but it's true. You need a foundation." — François Laverdet, Head of Procurement, Zodiac Pool Care Europe (Fluidra)

The technology choice followed the mindset. Fluidra needed a platform that could onboard the full ecosystem on the same shared view, and handle electronics-specific data like component-level lifecycle, distributor capability, and ISO and EN certification tracking. It also had to support both backwards-looking metrics (OTD, quality rejection) and forward-looking signals (PO acknowledgement, forecast alignment). And it had to adapt as Fluidra's process matured, not impose a rigid framework.

The co-development partnership with Luminovo was the deciding factor. Fluidra's team brought operational expertise from procurement, and Luminovo brought the software platform. Over two years, the SRM module took shape as a working product.

What changed: from disconnected feedback to a closed-loop supplier network

The first principle Fluidra established was a phased rollout. Trying to onboard all 200-plus suppliers at once would have created administrative chaos. Instead, the team started with the strategic 20%, the suppliers with critical spend and high risk, before extending the SRM to the leverage and bottleneck categories.

Today, suppliers go through a structured onboarding inside the SRM module. Each supplier uploads their certifications (ISO, EN, factory locations, capabilities), and the platform automatically monitors when those certifications will expire. The master data doubles as a working RFI database. When Fluidra needs to launch a new RFQ, the team already knows which distributors can support the requirement, without sending a new RFI.

On-time delivery, quality rejection, and response scores are tracked monthly, with quarterly reviews involving the OEM, the EMS, and the supplier. When data shows a gap, for example a supplier reporting 95% OTD while the EMS records 80%, the SRM platform makes the discrepancy visible to everyone. The discussion can then focus on root cause, like logistics delays or packaging issues, rather than on whose number is right.

The most significant shift is the move from reactive to anticipatory management. Instead of reviewing past performance, Fluidra now tracks PO acknowledgements and forward-looking signals to predict where the next three to six months of supply might fail. That gives the team time to put a Plan B in place, including alternate suppliers, additional safety stock, or design changes, before a disruption hits production.

"Knowing in advance that a supplier will fail to deliver, because they have an issue in their supply chain, and being able to anticipate it. That's the next step of the SRM, and it's how you de-risk your supply chain." — François Laverdet, Head of Procurement, Zodiac Pool Care Europe (Fluidra)

The SRM module also feeds into Fluidra's other Luminovo workflows. Pricing data from the supplier base can be cross-referenced against EMS-reported costs, giving the team grounds to challenge a price they suspect is no longer competitive. And when a forward-looking risk signal pops up in the SRM, the EMS, the supplier, and Fluidra can resolve it in one conversation. All parties look at the same data instead of trading emails for weeks.

The consolidation outcome speaks to the strategic effect. When Fluidra started using the SRM module, the company worked with 95 different distributors. With the data to identify which relationships were performing and which were not, the team has consolidated that base to around 60, focusing spend and engineering attention on the strategic partners who deliver.

"We use the SRM to measure the efficiency of our strategy. We started with 95 different distributors. Now we are close to 60." — François Laverdet, Head of Procurement, Zodiac Pool Care Europe (Fluidra)

Before and after

What Fluidra's supply chain partners see now

The change benefits more than Fluidra. EMS partners and component suppliers now operate with visibility they did not have before, which is reshaping the relationship in both directions.

For EMS partners, the SRM module closes the gap between what Fluidra negotiates directly with component suppliers and what gets ordered through the EMS. When Fluidra negotiates a volume of 10,000 units with a supplier, the EMS sees the same forecast and the same allocation. The discrepancies between what was promised at the OEM level and what arrived at the EMS line are gone. That reduces disputes over pricing and allocation, particularly during electronics shortages when every unit matters.

For component suppliers, the SRM gives them a clearer view of their own performance against expectations. When the platform shows a supplier scoring 80% OTD on the EMS side despite reporting 95% on their own systems, the supplier learns about the gap and can invest in fixing it. Some suppliers go further and propose process improvements that work in their customer's favour. In one case, a Singapore-based supplier reviewed the forecast data inside the SRM and proposed setting up a Vendor Managed Inventory hub closer to Fluidra's Malaysian EMS. The result was better delivery performance and reduced cash flow tied up at the EMS.

"The supplier sometimes proposes better solutions, on logistics, on pricing, or on the development of some products. It's really interesting." — François Laverdet, Head of Procurement, Zodiac Pool Care Europe (Fluidra)

Anonymous evaluation results are also shared back with distributors. When EMS partners rate a distributor on responsiveness, communication, or delivery accuracy, the SRM aggregates and anonymises the responses before sending the summary to the distributor. The distributor sees how they rank against peers on the dimensions that matter, and uses that to focus their improvement efforts.

"We share the anonymous results with the distributor and say, look, the different EMS are ranking you in this position because you're not good at communicating delivery dates. By sharing this information, the distributor improves." — François Laverdet, Head of Procurement, Zodiac Pool Care Europe (Fluidra)

Fluidra's own end customers, from pool installers to retailers to homeowners, see the result through reliability. Better supplier performance, fewer disruptions, and faster response to design changes mean Fluidra's products reach the market on time, which becomes a competitive advantage in markets where seasonal demand spikes are unforgiving.

Looking ahead: from supplier management to supply chain intelligence

The SRM module continues to evolve as Fluidra's process matures. The next horizon is deeper integration of forward-looking signals. The goal is to anticipate not just whether a supplier will deliver on time, but where the next supply chain disruption is most likely to come from.

The other direction of growth is extending the SRM logic to other categories. Today, the module handles electronics. Tomorrow, the same closed-loop approach could be applied to plastics, motors, batteries, and the other inputs that make up a pool cleaner or automation system. The data foundation Fluidra has built with Luminovo is a platform for that expansion.

"What we discovered is that if we want to grow performance, we have to measure properly with the supplier and move them to the next step. That's how we learn, save money, and grow again and again." — François Laverdet, Head of Procurement, Zodiac Pool Care Europe (Fluidra)