 Thank you for joining today's event. Please stand by for about one minute as we let people join the room and get situated. We hope you enjoy today's presentation. Hey, welcome, everyone, and thanks for joining today. Many of you know me, but if you don't, my name is Alexis Bateman. I'm a research scientist at MIT Center for Transportation and Logistics and the course lead for SE3x. And I'm co-hosting this event with Dr. Ima Brea, also a course lead with the MicroMasters program and a research scientist at MIT CTL. And today we are really fortunate to have what I think is an absolute legend in supply chain, Ms. Wendy Herrick, Vice President of Digital Supply Chain of Unilever. Welcome, Wendy. Alexis, thank you. It's really an honor to be here. Thanks for joining us today. We're really excited to get started. So we're gonna start off with some polls. If you guys have joined our events in the past, you know, we like to run some polls. So let's get started with the first poll and just take a minute to respond. And we'll discuss it in a few minutes. Okay, so the poll is out. While you just respond to the poll, I will be just talking a little bit about the agenda for this session for about the next five minutes, Wendy will provide a context for Unilever. Also, although I'm sure everyone knows Unilever, but it's great to know a little bit more about the company. Alexis and I then will ask some questions that we have prepared. In the last 20 minutes, we will save them for your questions. So please use the webinar Q&A feature that's at the bottom of your screen and just ask your questions there. Make sure you're logged with your name because we won't be reading any anonymous questions. And we will continue to be sharing a couple more polls during the event. So to make it more interactive and keep hearing from you guys. So we have quite a few people who responded to the poll. I think we can just check out the responses. So let me end the poll here. So most people, 45% said they're here today to learn more about digitalization of supply chains. Also, like some of them want to know more about Unilever's supply chain. 14% are in the MicroMasters and they do not miss any of our live events. That's great. And we have like a few people that just want to generally expand their knowledge in supply chain management. Thankfully, as usual, we don't have anyone who said they had nothing else to do today. All our attendees are very busy but they have time to join us today. So thank you for being here with us. Yes, I think none of our MicroMasters learners are ever not busy. They're juggling lives and programs and everything. So we're really thankful you found the time to join us today. So Wendy, with that in mind, are you ready to kick it off? Absolutely, absolutely. And thank you very much. And I feel really honored, as I said, to be with you all today. I think this is a wonderful program. And I really want to thank Alexis and Emma for inviting me to this MicroMasters event. So my name's Wendy Herrick and as you heard, I head at the digital supply chain for Unilever globally and I've actually had the privilege to work for Unilever for over 25 years across the globe. I actually started in finance but I'm happy to be in the supply chain. And I really look forward to sharing anything you wanna know about my journey with you guys all today. So, Unilever, for those of you who aren't familiar, first off is we are guided by our purpose-driven compass. And what does that mean? What is our purpose-driven compass? It's our integrated business strategy and our purpose is to make sustainable living commonplace. So that's our purpose. And there's three facets to that. So we believe that people with purpose thrive, brands with purpose grow and companies with purpose last. And we actually operate across four divisions. So you might see three divisions which we just added a new one. So we are in beauty and personal care, we're in home care, we're in foods and refreshment and our newest division ad is health and wellness, right? So vitamins and all the good health and wellness things that we're trying to bring to the consumers each and every day. And so across all these categories, it gives us true breadth and depth across those essential products used by the consumer each and every day. I think we make products that people love and they're a force for good. They're all powered by purpose. So just a few brands dove in its self-esteem program, Ben & Jerry's and Social Justice and Hellman's, cage-free eggs and Life Boy, really bringing cleanliness to ensure we keep everyone safe and well and then lipped in with its antioxidants and tea. So just to name a few and 12 of our brands are actually over a billion euros per year. And it's with these strong brands that we've helped 1.3 billion people improve their health and hygiene. Our brands and our products reach 2.5 billion consumers every day. That's one third of the world's population across 190 countries. And so for those of you who don't know Unilever, you probably know some of our brands and hopefully you reach for them every day. So just to give you a feel for the scale, we have over 48,000 suppliers. We have more than 800 third-party manufacturers that produce 16% of our volumes. We have over 3,300 production lines, over 220 production sites. We probably have, it's more than that now, 5.3 million shipments a year and about 105,000 employees across the globe in more than 190 countries. So just to give you a little bit of a feel for Unilever. So with that, if there's any questions there again, very purpose-led and our purpose is to make sustainable living commonplace. Thank you. And it's certainly a very, very global company, very complex supply chain and a very inspirational company with this purpose that, I mean, I think it was great when it was like just put out there a few years ago when everyone could see like where we was driving the company, I think it was fantastic and inspirational for many people and for many other companies too, which is great. So thanks for that great introduction. I think we just get a sense of what you're dealing with in your daily job now. Now let's dive into some questions. So you are now VP of digital supply chain, but you, as you just mentioned, you have been around 20 years in Unilever and you started in finance, right? And now you are in supply chains. Could you tell us all this interesting professional journey? Sure. So it's probably not your typical journey. I'll admit that right up front. After college, I went traveling, you know, and when I got to the UK in a particular place, Bristol, England actually, I didn't want to leave. So I actually, and back then it was a little bit more lenient with regards to visas, passports, green car, all those kinds of things. And I actually got a job with Unilever International and that was a market development arm of the company. And so that market development arm really dealt with every single country around the globe that didn't have a local Unilever company. So it really broadened my horizons with regards to the world that's out there. Then I decided because I was in the finance department and I wanted to know how I could progress. So I did SEMA exams and SEMA aren't so known in the US. It's Chartered Institute of Management Accounting. So I wanted to get my accounting qualification because that wasn't my college degree. And I got my first manager job, which I was really excited about in management accounting. And then I decided, oops, that's probably not what I want to do for the rest of my life. So I actually then got secondments to Asia. So I was based in Singapore. I got to work with Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Myanmar, China, a lot of the Asian countries while I was out there for about a year and a half. And then I actually got to spend time in the Caribbean. So the reason why I was there was because we were closing down the International Market Development Company and we were handing it over to local businesses and setting up Unilever in those countries. So those secondments, again, tremendous opportunity for me across the entire supply chain. And then I moved back to London and I actually worked for a company called Birds Eye Walls, which was their frozen food and ice cream business. I dabbled back in finance again, but then I really got into some big technology projects, especially in SAP. And I'm sure you all heard of SAP. And then after we implemented that in Europe, it was finally time to come back to the US and actually have a job in the US. So I came back to the US. I had numerous jobs across the supply chain and procurement, logistics, customer service, special projects, because we integrated some of our other companies, foods and HPC and ice cream. And then after that, I got the job as the VP of North America in the supply chain for the go-to-market area. And this is where we started the digital journey. Seven years back, the words kept coming out, big data, digital, blockchain. And I certainly didn't understand what all that meant at the time. But luckily we really wrapped our arms around understanding those things. And then the business decided once we were on the journey in North America, they wanted it globally. So over the last two and a half years, I've been the VP for digital supply chain, yeah. A great summary, Wendy, thank you. Yes, yeah, such an interesting journey. And I think while you have such a unique journey, I think the ending up in supply chain sort of randomly is not that novel. So I think actually it's interesting now and we're so impressed with our learners who are starting this in their journey, some are mid-career, but some are starting it right in the beginning. So I think that that's really great opportunity for them. So thanks for sharing that. So, and in the next question, which is obviously near and hard, is Unilever has become sort of the reference for sustainability as you were talking about, right? Really one of the first big movers that made big goals and big commitments and took a lot of action well before many others have. Can you talk a little bit about the shift you've seen more for sustainability and supply chain management over the last few years? And what do you think about means, you know, obviously for our professionals that are online and how they can prepare? Sure, no, and it's a great, great, great question. And the thing I would say, which was a little strange probably for me being in Unilever, it was not new to Unilever. You know, we've been on that journey. It's always been part of our DNA. And in everything that we do, you know, it's just like plan source may deliver sustainability, you know, that climate, that whole thing is there. Now, our journeys change and our challenges have changed over the years. But if I go back to the founder of Unilever, really Lord Leverhume out of England, the UK, you know, he made sunlight soap. That was his first product back in the 1890s to popularize cleanliness and hygiene in Victorian England because, you know, the disease and illness and what they struggled with. So, you know, he also actually promoted equal rights for women as early as 1916, which again, it's that whole, you know, social responsibility as well as sustainability. And actually in 1939, he actually gave the first of many women a scholarship. So I think it's really interesting to link it to education and kind of what you guys are doing and how important it is. And then in 1970, you know, the environmental issues related to packaging, we were front and center there. And then even in 1982. So it's kind of been part of our DNA, but it has stepped up. Alexis, you're exactly right. And you're seeing it everywhere, whether it's ads, commercials, you know, and a lot of companies now, you know, especially if you look at Gartner, which just announced their top 25, you know, environmental issues and climate and all that sustainability stuff is one of the key metrics in saying how good an organization is, right? So I think companies have really stepped up in that space and the commitments, you know, as part of Paris agreements or whatever it might be, are front and center now. And the consumer and we, we are all consumers, we expect that, you know, the pressures on the planet have reached a crisis point, you know, climate change, nature degradation, biodiversity decline, water scarcity. I mean, it's all interconnected, right? So anybody who wants a career in the supply chain and in business, you've got to have that knowledge. You have to have, you know, skills and experience, ideally in this space, right? You know, we want this to become integral to every job that exists. So we can actually reverse that climate damage, right? So so, so important now to really continue to learn and grow and develop in this space. Yeah, awesome. Now that's really helpful. And, you know, I really like looking back to the original derivations of the company, you know, in terms of public health and cleanliness, which are so, you know, prominent now, but also education and women's rights, right? So a lot of kind of background there that we can think about, which is even more critical now. So I think that, well, it's always been critical, but it's more prominent. So, so thank you for that. So now I think we're going to launch our second poll, some fun Unilever trivia. So let's see how much you guys know about Unilever or how fast you can Google, but just try to answer it without Googling. Concert candidly. Okay, so, so, wait, while you respond back to the poll, let's ask Wendy, let's talk about diversity, right? Because you just like mentioned this commitment of Unilever very early in the 20th century with the women's rights. And talking about women, supply chain management is just so fascinating, so relevant, it's increasingly relevant for many companies, particularly after what we've seen, right, during the pandemic and all the shortages and all that, how important supply chains were, but most supply chain professionals today are male. So for example, in our MicroMasters, it's a MicroMasters supply chain management and we see consistently that 75% of our learners are men and 25% are women. So how could more women be encouraged to join the supply chain management field? What could be inspirational for them from their perspective? Yeah, you know, and gender, I mean, when I go back to when I was in university and engineer, I would generally be the only female in a class. So it's been, you know, an engineering isn't necessarily supply chain, it does fit there quite well, but there's a number of jobs that fit in the supply chain and I think supply chain and that word or operations didn't even exist when I was back in school. And so I think we have a job to do to really educate about what the supply chain is about. A lot of people think supply chain is just planning or supply chain is just logistics. I mean, the breadth that the supply chain offers and the roles that you can play are just, it's amazing. And that's certainly what sort of kept me in supply chain is the breadth of the opportunities that exist there. And when it comes to the diversity side of it, I mean, we in Unilever started to foster diversity, equity and inclusion. So kind of moving past the diversity side, you know, in Unilever we actually, excuse me, hit 50% gender diversity a little bit ago across the organization. Now supply chain's a little bit different and I'll come on to that. But, you know, we really expanded our thinking beyond gender to include ethnicity, you know, LGBTQI plus, diversity which are differently abled people just to name a few. So we've really started to move and really expand what that actually means. And I would say, you know, going from diversity and numbers going to inclusion I think is really important because once you feel included and you drive inclusion, it creates its diversity as an outcome, you know, in what we've seen. So that focus on inclusion and how I like to think about it is diversity is getting an invitation to the dance but actually inclusion is being asked to actually dance. Right, so being given that opportunity and I have to say here's what I wanna give hats off to you guys, this MIT MicroMasters course gives many people that opportunity, you know. People need to see the role models, right. You know, to believe in themselves to be able to get there. They have to have sponsors and mentors, right. So I mentor a number of diverse candidates and they're more than capable. They just need a sponsor, they need a voice at the table which I think is really important and it's important for all of us to kind of lean in there. So I would also just say the emphasis that supply chain is certainly not boring. I don't have a day I go through that's the same in any way, shape, or form and I've certainly been lucky, you know. I didn't choose supply chain but I'm lucky it fell that way. So inspiring and I think, you know, really great to hear about sort of those mentoring opportunities and our learners are, you know, getting an opportunity to join the program but definitely need those, you know, to get an entry into the supply chain world. So we're really interesting to hear about how you've taken that stance. And I think one thing that we've seen because it is open to everyone, right. So it's, you know, doesn't matter who you are, where you're from, what's your background, you know, you don't even have to have a college education to, you know, take it. And so just really need to, you know, have the grit to get through it. So we're really always impressed with our learners there. So now we'll get back to the fun trivia that we just shared. So there's a little bit of a trick question. And so the most chose Unilever Village for its employees. And so that is, I think it sounds like such a nice trivia there. That was 40% of you guys. 38% said Unilever aired the very first TV ad in the UK. And then 12% said Unilever did own the Calvin Klein brand and Unilever invented fish figures. So is it correct, Ima, that all of them are correct? Or excuse me, Wendy, is it true that they're all correct? Are. You know, I know you guys found that trivia, but it's absolutely true. And, you know, even for me, sometimes some brand, you know, they'll bring some brand to the fore, say, oh yeah, you don't need to own that. And like, really? I mean, there's brands that I don't even know. You know, it's a conglomerate. It's had many different brands in its portfolio. But, you know, even in the last several years, the companies that we've, you know, especially in the premium range that we've acquired, it's just a constant change, for sure. So that was a really fun question. And I even saw it in the chat right now. Someone said, what, Unilever own Calvin Klein? So there was some fun trivia there. So all right. So now we'll get back to the meat of it, which is why everyone came. Ema, do you want to kick off with a question about supply chain digitalization? Yeah, let's let's dive into digitalization rising. That's where you are right now. Those are your biggest challenges and where your biggest expertise lies. So we've seen the disruptions this past year, pushing forward innovation and digital transformation in many companies. You just mentioned earlier that in Unilever, it started seven years ago. So it was not so recent. You've had already like quite a journey in this field. But as a VP of digital supply chain, could you tell us about Unilever's supply chain digitalization journey and how it was affected by these disruptions of 2020? Maybe it got like further accelerated or actually like use some of the tools that have already implemented. Just tell us a little bit more about that. Sure, no, and great questions. And we did start, I mean, just all these words. I mean, it's been alive. I mean, machine learning and AI, it's been around for many more years than even seven years ago. But in the supply chain, these words and articles and all these academic stuff was coming out. And we were thinking, God, what does that mean? What does big data mean? What do they mean by that? What does RPA mean? What is robotics, ML, AI, blockchain? I mean, the process automation, all these things were kind of coming at us. And it's like, well, we need to figure out what it means. So as part of the North American leadership team, we came up with a strategy around what we thought it meant. And we just started that journey, like I said, in North America. And then the Mark Engel, our chief supply chain officer saw what we were doing in North America and said, hey, we need to bring this role to the globe. We need to really start looking this on a global platform. And so that's where this role that I'm currently and it didn't exist before. And then we created a larger global digital transformation group, and we actually took six months out. I'm an action, let's go. What are we going to do? Sort of person. But we really took six months out to define what it meant for Unilever. We got so many learnings across different industries, sizes of companies from startups, to massive conglomerates, to banking, to, we talked to McLaren, the car people, Ferrari. I mean, we really took a lot out to say, what does this look like and what's our strategy gonna be? And what we did, what we defined was we centered it around platforms, what we call platforms, which includes process and technology together. Cause when everybody thinks digital, they always just think technology. That couldn't be farther from the truth, right? It's people, process and technology and all that has to fit together in a digital strategy. So we focused on those platforms, but also the people side of it. Because if you don't have the right talent and you create all these wonderful processes and technology, well, the most important resource and asset you have as an organization is the people. You need to bring them along and up skill and do all that good stuff. And then partnerships. So Unilever is not a native digital company. We're old, you can say, dinosaur ages when it was born, but we needed partnerships at the table with us to bring those innovations and those digitally native ideas to the fore for Unilever. So this is where we created these platforms called real time visibility and analytics or data and analytics integrated operations. So really busting down those silos across the supply chain and the wider organization. So new business models, e-commerce and you saw it through COVID where that went. So e-commerce is probably the biggest one in the new business models. We have distributed models as well but a digital factory, right? So some call it dark factory and then really the people and the planet side of it. So how can we bring digital and our sustainability sort of plans and then an overarching kind of planning transformation which is linked to IUP. So those platforms, if you think about those areas I just spoke to COVID just ratified it and just elevated what we needed to do under those platforms. So it gave us thank God we had visibility when COVID hit with regards to what was going on. We could simulate what was gonna happen with regards to supply and get ahead of some of the risk management. It gave us agility and resilience to say we actually set up hand sanitizers to run across four different factories and with collaborative manufacturers within four weeks. So all of those things that we did early on really served us well and it kind of ratified our choices that we took six months out prior and we were very lucky that we had done that as a global organization, I would say, you know? We enabled, so give you some examples we actually operated some of our factories remotely, right? So one of our powder towers in Latin America, you know the person was sitting at home and could use their computer to operate tolerance levels what was being mixed in the mixers, how was quality coming out and all that kind of stuff. We simulated supply risks and really got new suppliers on board when we needed to. We had visibility of those high risk areas we could protect our people, which was so very important. Our number one agenda item was all around our people and that was right from Alan Joe for CEO down. So I think it really set us up for, were we perfect? No, do we still have a lot to do? Of course we do. I think it's a journey. It's not the start and an end. It's a journey and it's gonna continue because I can't remember who said this but change will never be as slow as it is today, right? So just constant change now. Thanks Wendy, like you just summarized so well like the journey and it's like very complex, right? And so many ramifications but I love how you introduced this that many people just see digitalization as the technologies and just getting the technology and implementing the technologies and that's the recipe for failure. Because if you don't have to include like the transformation of the processes and also like the risk killing of people that's like the technology is there for nothing it's not gonna be used, it's not gonna be productive. So that's, I think that's a key point that we've also seen in our research and in our conversations with other companies. I love your comment because when we started our journey it was kind of scary. A lot of the consultants, we had to get their input as well all the big four or five but they were saying that 75% of digital transformations fail because of culture. So that people side and it's really so important. It's not about the technology in the end. Yeah, so your squad mom. Yeah, now that's super interesting. Actually on that point, can we just ask one follow-up is how do you bring the people along, right? Because there's a lot of embedded behavior change, you know, I've made a couple of veterans like yourself who've been there for 20 plus years that may not want, you're obviously ready to change but maybe some others are not ready to change things they've been doing for so long and they need to use new systems. They need to, you know, engage in information systems in different ways. And can you talk a little bit about how that process works in such a large company like Unilever? Sure. You know, and this, what served me well is all the different technology projects that I kind of led or worked on in my, you know, previous roles. And we always focused on change management, right? What does change management mean? Well, everyone, it's like, oh, you know, get the process, understand the process and train the people on the systems, right? We kind of moved along the spectrum there and we call it change leadership. So change management is a part of that, but the leadership and engagement of all the people everywhere is so important. So for instance, when you're landing a capability, we have landing and adoption metrics and we have engagement plans and it's not just communications, it's engaging with them. It's getting, engaging them early on as well. It's explaining to them, you know, so what is the digital transformation? What does that mean? They didn't know what digital meant either. I mean, we took time out to really understand it. So I think that engagement piece of it and that changed leadership. So you have, you know, you always have the early adopters, you have the people that are middle of the road and then you have, you know, the cynics and really sometimes there's cynics that you're never gonna change their mind, but you need to get to those people and bring them on the journey that are middle of the road and, you know, kind of really move them into the adopters and then the influencers as well, right? You have leaders around the business that are key influencers, really getting them on board as well. So that engagement, communication, bringing them on a journey, not having, you know, not having it feel like it's being done to you, it's being done with you. Yeah, so that being a part of the journey is so, so important and I can't emphasize that enough because once people feel like you're doing this to me, you're making a very, very difficult road for yourself. Right, yeah, that's really interesting and I like how you kind of outline some of the people that are, you know, sort of the categories of people, right? That, you know, those that are kind of early adopters and then influencers, right, who are gonna bring, you know, more of the folks along with them and really can kind of engage people on how this is gonna help them in their roles, you know, how this is gonna kind of help the company as a whole. So that's really interesting. All right, yeah. So maybe, yeah, this topic is so interesting, right? So maybe another follow-up question about something you mentioned, you mentioned metrics, right, to measure like the advancement, digitalization. So how are you defining those metrics? I don't need to go into much detail, right? But you have the performance metrics and that you have like the, how you measure that actually digitalization is happening and that the companies are getting more digital. How do you combine both? How do you set new goals for your employees? So you can actually move forward together as you just mentioned. Yeah, so I think what you're talking, and hopefully I understood your question. So of course that, you know, it was funny, we were on a CEO webinar car. So every two weeks, Alan Job, our CEO, has a webinar now open to the whole organization that really helped us through COVID as well. And we used to do it monthly, but we now do it every couple of weeks. And what's really interesting, he said, you know, I worked with supply chain guys back in my career, blah, blah, blah. And he says, I'm sorry to say, but you know, you still measure the same things. I still hold accountable for the same things, whether it's service, costs, and I'll call it carbon or sustainability and cash. You know, when you look at those metrics at a very high business level, we're still held accountable to all those things. What I would say though, underneath that is, I think agility, resilience, risk management, and all that kind of falls underneath. And instead of outcome metrics, there also has to be input metrics that you're looking at, but also across the functions, right? So you're really making sure that your supply chain is synchronized and orchestrated. So when you look at, you know, procurement, they might be held accountable for the buying savings, right? Or when you look at logistics for deliveries to the customer on time, or when you look at planning, it could be customer service and, you know, customer service metrics and on, you know, the perfect order sort of thing. But what we've done with regards to really digitization is kind of looking at the end-to-end value network. And for instance, having things like lead time for new, that means every part of the organization and chain has to be involved to make sure we're doing it the quickest, fastest, and a very high quality way to meet the consumer and customer expectation. So I think having those metrics that can drill down into some functional arenas, but having orchestration and end-to-end is really important. And this is where digitization of processes comes in, right? So yesterday, it used to take me eight weeks to onboard a supplier. Now it takes me two days, right? Or, you know, making hand sanitizer. Well, I didn't make it four weeks ago, but four weeks later, I can make it. And normally, if you look at new product introduction, that takes months, if not years in some of those plans. So I think digitization of processes, orchestration, and really looking at metrics that matter to the customer and consumer. I mean, do they care about how we bought that material? No, they care about the end price of the product and the quality of that product. And did it get to them on time? Was it on the shelf or online when they wanted it to be, you know? So I think it's looking at it through an end-to-end value network lens and having metrics that are measuring that in a way to show, you know, like I said, fulfilling the consumer and customer promise. I hope that makes sense. Yes, that makes total sense. I think, and I totally agree with what you said, right? You can't focus only on, again, the technology or how you're transforming a specific process. That's important, but that's an intermediate goal. The final goal and what you're really trying to achieve is just have the happiest customer possible. And to do that, you just need to have like this end-to-end vision of like how the supply team works and how you're going to achieve that end goal by making all the pieces work together properly. So that's a huge challenge. So, yeah. Certainly are not perfect at it, that's for sure. We still have work to do. Thank you, Wendy. Yeah, so interesting. So, you know, back to our learners are on the line and, you know, some of them are very interested in supply chain digitalization and involving themselves more. And actually one of the next courses after the one I run is called technology and systems where they get a little bit of a snapshot of, you know, changing systems and how those rollouts can occur and just a very short snapshot. But, you know, from your position, can you let us know or can you share what advice you would have for our learners or, you know, they're really right now sort of the fundamentals of supply chain and they get sort of the flavor of other pieces, whether it be sustainability, whether it be technology and digitalization. Do you have any advice that you can share with them? Yeah, sure. So, you know, and I'm going to refer to a podcast section I listened to about a week ago or so on one of my walks. So in Unilever, you know, I've been in Unilever a long time, right? And you're thinking, well, what the heck? Why are you in a digital role? You know, you're not digitally native and that would be right. But I think something that we embraced early on and especially in the North American business and now globally is, you know, moving from a no at all. So I think all my years, I have all this experience and I have all this knowledge and that's what helps me get promoted or continue to grow and take on larger responsibilities which has been true in the traditional way. But we've gotten to an area where that's not going to be true anymore because the rate of change is so quick. So going from a no at all to a learn at all is so critical in whatever you're doing. And the podcast, and I'll just give an example here of what they were saying. They were saying, you know, back in 1990 when you graduated from university and had a degree you could probably get a good 10 years of what you had learned to help you progress and you know, your understanding and putting it to practice. In 2000, that kind of the year 2000 it went down to five years. And in 2020, they're saying it's 18 months, right? So whatever you graduate with, whatever you learned in university school, MBA, whatever you're learning that will serve you well for 18 months. And after that, you need to take a responsibility to continue to learn, develop and grow because the rate of change and the stuff that's out there with regards to technology, processes, I mean, just different ways of thinking the sustainability sort of problems we face into you have to continue to educate and learn in order to be a leader, I would say. But even a good manager in any organization if you're going to give them a competitive advantage and a competitive edge. So I think that, and I like to just say in that we're know it all to learn it all I have to make sure that I continue to educate and spend time on learning about anything new that's out there again. So I can bring the organization a competitive advantage. That's really interesting, really thinking about sort of the longevity of sort of your education and obviously still having the good fundamentals but you need to continue to update and learn more and expand your awareness and that continuous education I think is a key element. So we're thankful to be on the edX platform where there's so many courses. So I see so many of our learners saying, okay, now I got supply chain. Now I'm gonna go take the data analytics course, right? Even though we have a lot of data but they wanna become more of a data science person and so they're always kind of adding their knowledge there. So that's a really good perspective to bring. Yeah, we're advocates for lifelong learning and through our program but also like ourselves, right? We're continuously learning and learning new skills. So it's a great advice and I think all of our learners and many people in the webinar might agree with that. So now I think we have many more questions that we will want also to have bringing the questions from our learners who have like been posting in the Q&A feature of the webinar. So what I'm gonna do is launch a last poll for you to just respond while we start taking some of your questions and asking them to Wendy. So I have one first question here from Sandeep Kumar Sirikande. He's from Singapore working in SAP. As you mentioned, Wendy, that's where you started working with SAP too. So his question is, when going through the digital transformation of a supply chain, sometimes it involves immediate appetite to your suppliers to follow certain procedures or just to join for this digital transformation with a new digital tools. So how challenging was it in your experience convincing these suppliers to join your digital journey and how did you do it? How did you convince them to actually join it? Thanks for the question, Carlos. And so actually one of my really good friends, Andrew Butcher, actually works for SAP in Singapore. So say hello if you know him. So with regards to bringing suppliers along, and this is where I talk to those three areas, people, platforms and partnerships, they're part of your, a big part of your organization. We don't see them as separate to our supply chain. We see them as part of our supply chain, right? They're part of the Unilever team really. And we have to bring them along the journey just like anyone else. And I would say because Unilever is large, I would say for smaller companies, it might be more difficult, but we have some really, really strong partnerships. In fact, we call it partnerships with purpose. So our key partners are also driven by the same values, right? So, and when you align on values and when you create win-win scenarios, so it's not about us winning and the suppliers losing, it's about us winning together. I think if you show that value and you show that partnership, I think it really paves a road for whatever you wanna do together with regards to that. And that's when I talked about the value network. That includes suppliers, they're front and center. Without them, I mean, we're not gonna survive. And when we're a manufacturing company, we need raw materials, packaging materials, but also we need their innovation, right? They're critical to our innovation funnel in bringing new products, not only new products. And generally when we think of innovation, we think of, well, we used to think of just product because that's important to the consumer, but now it's about process, technology, people. It's that whole innovation, I would say, view that we're sort of focused on. But bringing suppliers along, I think that partnership with this program that we have, but also the shared values and the win-win situations I think has made it a lot easier for us. Hopefully then. Yeah, no, very helpful. So yes, we have a lot of questions. We're gonna try to get through a few. Bhavia, he asks, they ask, these days, many people are criticizing lean strategies due to uncertainties because of COVID-19 and obviously the outages and other impacts that occurred. What do you think about that in the future of lean strategies? You know, that's an interesting question and it's funny because even in our organization, you know, we call them world-class manufacturing, lean, Six Sigma, all that kind of stuff starts to come to the fore. And it's just like in my mind, it's just like in engineering. I don't think those strategies are wrong, but I don't think on their own, they will get you to where you need to be as an organization. I think they need to be part of the overarching strategy and that critical thinking. Now, is it exact to the lean that was learned how many ever years ago? I would say we need to adapt and adjust and evolve some of those strategies, especially in this new digital environment. But I don't think that kind of thinking is still wrong. I think how we bring those strategies to life might be a little bit different though. Just like in world-class manufacturing, you know, no matter what you call it, you can call it what you like. You know, now we're calling them lighthouses. There's a WEF lighthouse certification that you can get. And I mean, we create all these different names, but in the end, that critical thinking of being smart and how we do those things and our processes, I think are going to continue to live on just maybe in a bit of a different way. Awesome. So another question. This one is from Unad Bafsar. Sorry, that was hard to pronounce. So what kind of supply chain problems is Unilever solving in the digital space? So through digitalization, what kind of things you're solving? And also, what are the key challenges Unilever is facing in this digital transformation? These are two very broad questions. Just take them as you. I'm going to take the cultural side of it and bringing the people along. I mean, we're in 190 countries. You can think all the different cultures that exist inside that space continues. It's always going to be a challenge because it's massive. But I think we've cracked some good nuts in that space, but it's forever going to be a challenge. We need to keep our finger on the pulse, and we need to continue to engage the people and bring people along. I would say one big challenge, and it was really our board that put out the climate and nature goals we have for, I would say, for the next 20 years. And there's some of them that are on there that, even from a digital standpoint, we don't know how we're going to crack those yet. The plastic one is in the next couple of years where we want to have our virgin plastic by 2023, but also collect more plastic than we actually use by that time. It's 2021. Do we have a specific answer for that right now? No. Are we working on it? Yes. And digitization comes into play there because you have to have the visibility of it. You have to have circular. So all those things, that's just one example. Regenerative agriculture. I mean, if we have, well, 99% sustainable palm, right? So how we look at palm, and it's a big raw material for us, but we're making sure that we're doing it in a sustainable way. And we're making those claims to the consumer. But at the same time, making sure that those people in those countries where palm is made, especially Indonesia, places like that, that those people are getting a sustainable wage. So we're not just saying, OK, it's sustainably sourced and all that. We're actually going down to the farmers that are doing that and making sure not only the mills that we buy from, but those farmers actually get a sustainable wage. So that social responsibility is there. So all the nuggets in the chain bring its own complications. But I think those, if I look at what I'm like in my stomach, I think, oh, god, how are we going to do that? I think those climate things, they put some really big goals out. Paul Poeman did the same back in 2010 and 2011. And we actually achieved pretty much all of them. The biggest one we couldn't was the consumer. The consumer side of it. So the water that the consumer uses when they use our products. The plastic and recycle consumers aren't recycling. So where we're trying to get better in the consumer side, for instance, is we actually have a circular program, like even in Africa now, where we have people that don't usually earn a wage. They collect plastic, bring it to one of our spaces. We pay them a wage based on the bottles and everything that they're collecting on the streets. So it's kind of that circular, creating those circular economies. It's hard. It's really, really hard to do. And tracking that and keeping it, that's never going to be a totally digital process. But we're working on those kind of things. Having a purpose is having a challenging goal for sort of drives the digital transformation. Yeah. But those were big questions. So I just gave examples. It's great to go with examples. Just trying to see in specific examples how it actually is applied. I think that helps a lot. Yeah, I think bringing also, for instance, the palm oil example, which is such a complex and some of those commodities that do have huge environmental impacts. But then you get down to some of the social responsibility, fair wage, fair trade, and ensuring livelihoods for producers around the world, which is such a pressing challenge right now. So how can we engage in that? So really, really appreciated that. So I think people were quite interested in the story you gave about the operator that was sitting at home running the manufacturing plan for the Powder Institute. Tushar, and maybe this doesn't exist, he said, is there any kind of video we can watch? Or anything we can look at to really see how that looks? Yeah, I think we put some of the newspapers and some people. I'll share it with you, Alexis. I will share something with you. But it's really cool, actually. Yeah, I think we saw a lot of questions. So people are really keen to see how that works. And I know our boss, C.O.C. Sheffery, talks about a lot of the automated manufacturing plants and how it just needs one guy and a dog. And he tells the story many times, which is the one guy to make sure everything's OK and the dog to keep the guy awake. And so then they have the two of them. So he tells that story a lot. But yes, if you could share anything, we'd be very keen to share that with our learners. And I can follow up with that. So, you know, I think there's a few questions. Oh, you go ahead and ask one. Yeah, I have one here that I think it's interesting. So senior leader Alex Ong is just asking, like he says, senior leaders often confused themselves with hot passwords, digitization versus digitalization versus digital transformation, many others, right? So what's your elaborate interpretation and approach and so that the narrative remains consistent and everyone in your huge companies understands actually the same thing. Yeah, and it's constant communication about it, about what it means. And you're right. And even when I started that journey in North America, all those buzzwords, I'm like, what does that mean? I had no idea. Like robotic process automation. It's a macro, you know, all these cool words, you know, blockchain, OK, it's a distributed ledger. You know, so I couldn't agree more, like all these buzzwords and big data. OK, it just means a lot of data to use in a way that gives you insights versus being flooded with data. So I couldn't agree more. And you know, what's interesting for me is translating some of those things and helping others understand what it actually means, I think is really important, including leaders. Because they still, there's ones that, you know, they'll use those words and it's like, do you really know what that means? You know, and sometimes they don't. But because everyone's using it that way, the terminology, that's why, you know, initially, even in this role, like digital doesn't mean just technology people. You know, it doesn't mean just technology. Let's understand that, like when we start the journey. So I think those constant messages. And what I would say is, is it's part of our supply chain strategy. So when, you know, if you look at our boxes and, you know, it's on a page, strategy on a page. And when you look at it, digitization is there. And we explain what that actually means for the organization under those platforms and what we're trying to do. So I think, you know, communication top down, left and right, wherever it is, you need to have that same messaging. So people really truly understand it instead of just using buzzwords, yeah. Thanks, Wendy. Yeah, really interesting. So I think we saw one of our own colleagues has popped in a question, Maria Hayes of Sands, who does, works on digital supply chains along with EMA. So she asks, how does Unilever deal with the tradeoffs between automation like robots and RPA and augmentation, including advanced cognitive capabilities like AR, which are dynamic by definition and evolving while adapting and earning? I love, great question. You know, it was really interesting when we started our journey, I can remember doing RPA first. And we used some organization partners and innovation to find out what, in fact, they were in Boston. And it was a tool called Scout to really help us understand what it actually does and it tracks, you know, it tracks individual transaction and clicks and stuff like that. So I would say the evolution from robotic process automation, it has its, I think it has its use in a certain way in the organization. But what we found in RPA is it's probably more singular and it's not orchestrated. It wasn't as orchestrated across the whole value network. So it has its own usages. But when we looked at cognitive, so if we looked at our journey, we set out a strategy and data and analytics to say, well, first of all, we have to have a foundation, right? And in order to have that foundation, we need to have, you know, a data governance, we need to have data structures, we need to have data lineage, we need to have all that foundation and then the people foundation and having people understand data and all that. But then we moved to what I would call, you know, after the foundation, you wanna be data intelligent. And this is where, and what we learned on our journey is you have to walk before you can run and you can't skip a step. You've gotta have a foundation to then build some sort of data intelligence. And there's degrees of intelligence, whether that be RPA, machine learning, AI, automation, what we saw it as three different steps. We said the first one is around just basic visibility to, you know, I used to say that we don't have one version of the truth and there's times where we're either flying blind late or just not making good decision based on real time data. So that visibility is step one. Step two is around, and we call that human in the loop, by the way. And then step two is about human on the loop. So really you're now getting insights from that data and that could be through just predictive, sort of predictive analytics. Like I'm telling you this is gonna happen or I can simulate this might happen, here's a risk, you might wanna get ahead of it. So it's predicting what's gonna be there. And we call that human in the loop because then it's the human working right beside the machine and the machine's kind of giving you that insight to take the right action. So we're starting to get our people away from being data gatherers and validators to really being value added action takers. And then we kind of move to that other one which we're into now is the automation side of it. There's some processes and tasks that we wanna just completely automate because the machine is going to give you like forecasting. The machine's gonna be able to take in much more data to make you smarter in those spaces. So there's decisions and tasks that we wanna automate completely. Now that's through machine learning but then it's autonomous processes there. And once you kind of have that layer then it's about, I would call it data for growth. We call it data for growth and that's the full cognitive automation. And we use a couple of tools there. Now we've got our forecasting utility engine that we actually developed internally but there was a partner that we brought to the table that is amazing at orchestration across not just the supply chain but I would say an organization and we call it our self-driving car in the supply chain anyway. And that's where this cognitive automation comes in because this tool and platform actually learns. So it's not just automating a process. Now it's looking at what's happening at that level to look at trends and it can actually, it just brings that cognitive intelligence that we need as an organization. So hopefully that, and whatever AR, VR, whatever the tools or things that you're, I can't remember her name, I apologize, was talking to that all hangs off those different arenas with regards to where it fits in that kind of strategy. I hope that made sense. I know that was a lot. Yeah, thank you Wendy. I think it was a very clear explanation of a complex topic. I think this interplay between the human mind and artificial intelligence is just a fascinating field or something that in every company is struggling to figure out how to deal with, right? What to be completely automated? What to be like actually like just informing the decision maker that is a human and what is just gonna be run by an artificial intelligence. So it's a fascinating journey. And I'm sure it's like, as you said, not the end but just a continuous journey towards continuous improvement. So let me ask one more question and we could stay here all morning but let's go with one more. And I saw a few of our participants just asking about profitability, right? This of course, this trade of this tension between digital transformation, such a big transformation in the supply chain end to end and the profits that that's gonna bring. So it sometimes the transformation or the initial steps that you take are not directly reflected in the ROI. So how do you deal with this tension? How does the company deal with the tension between investing in something that is gonna maybe just provide a return but in a longer term? Yeah. So I would say what we've, we kinda separated out run from innovation a little bit, right? And we call it the mothership is really managing the operation, making sure that we're delivering to the consumer, managing that business. And then we call, we have speed boats, right? That hang off that mothership. And those speed boats are about experimentation and entrepreneurship. So we're really that cultural thing that I spoke to earlier, we're trying to really develop that experimentation mindset. And we actually have a team of people that looks at innovation startups, what's new out there, all those kinds of things we call that horizon three. So what's happening now, the mothership kind of really, really manages but what's new and next is the innovation side of it and working in conjunction there. And I would say, so profitability, we still have to be profitable as an organization, the mothership takes care of that, but we do set things aside to say, where are we still having issues? Where could we find more opportunity from the mothership? And how can that innovation arm help the mothership get even more profitable? Or, you know, and we always think sometimes the supply chain is just about profit, but it's much, much bigger than that. How do we make sure that we're driving the customer and consumer journey? How do we make sure, you know, where we've got partnerships with suppliers? So all the stakeholders, we need to kind of take into consideration, but, you know, profitability is part of the overarching organization's responsibility, but how does the innovation side make sure that wherever we're having issues in the organization, whatever metric it might be, how do we continue to bring that competitive advantage? Thanks Wendy. I love the analogy with the mothership. I was just gonna say that makes it so clear, you know, you have the mothership, the core, and then you have these speedboats trying to bring innovation and changing things. So I really, very clear to kind of explain these very complex topics. So we're at the end of our amazing webinar here. So just as a final wrap up, and I fully agree with what 57% of you guys, which is expanding our knowledge. So the question was, was most interesting part of today's session for you? Expanding my knowledge on digitalization of supply chain. So really fascinating to learn about your role and how you're managing and kind of evolving. And I think a lot of key takeaway learnings for myself and everyone on the line. And other kind of popular answers understanding the path to a leadership role in SEM, learning more about methods, practitioners use and ideas on how to improve your supply chain. So we just wanna thank you so much Wendy for joining us today. It was a really pleasure to have you. And I know so many of our learners got some great insights to take home with them. Thank you so much. Thank you Wendy, it was a pleasure. Thank you very much. Really enjoyed the session, thanks. All right, thanks all and have a great day. Have a wonderful day.