Unilever has announced plans for a major supply chain restructuring. Patrick Cescau, group chief executive, said the business would be reorganised into a series of multi-country organisations.
“We now have the chance to go further – perhaps consolidating to as few as 25 MCOs across Unilever.”
Cescau said that over recent years Unilever had done a tremendous amount to streamline its supply chain.
“Our current plans allow for the closure – or substantial streamlining – of between 50-60 manufacturing sites across the world, as well as significant rationalisation of distribution networks. This will reduce costs and assets employed. But it will also entail investment in a more flexible, customer responsive supply chain, capable of supporting faster roll-out of innovation and better on-shelf availability. To give you one example, last year we established a new supply chain organisation for Europe, based in Switzerland. The benefits of restructuring mean they are able to raise their target for on-shelf availability from 92 per cent to over 95 per cent across Europe. That, potentially, is a lot of additional sales,” he said.
