Sandra MacQuillan is the EVP and Chief Supply Chain Officer at Mondelēz International which is one of the global FMCG players leading the future of snacking with 2019 net revenues of approximately $26 billion.
Sandra leads all aspects of the organization’s global supply chain including Procurement, Manufacturing, Logistics, Engineering, Sustainability, and Safety.
Listen to the full discussion here:
- Listen on Stitcher
Connect with the Guest:
Sandra MacQuillan: LinkedIn
Some of the highlights from the podcast:
- Mondelēz’s structure – engineering, sustainability, and safety
- How Mondelēz are planning to grow in terms of e-commerce
- Sustainability initiative- reduce CO2 emission by 15% by 2019-2020 and 10% by 2025
- Measuring customer-centricity and communicating with other businesses
- How being more local helped Mondelēz become closer to their consumers
- Keeping connected and being more human
Show notes:
- [00:43] Mondelēz has an interesting structure. You have engineering, then you have sustainability and safety. How did you derive with this structure and how is it helping you to have all these functions under one person?
- [02:31] In Mondelēz, we actually spent some time looking at what do we want to do with all of these functions because actually, they’re interdependent. They rely on each other and influence each other positively or negatively.
- [03:33] Tell us a little bit about the growth in e-commerce. How do you see the channel developing? How did you change or adapt your supply chain to best fit that particular way of selling to the customer?
- [04:36] It’s not new for us but it is a shift in terms of the weight that we put on it in our business and it has given us a really good opportunity to say, what else do we need to do here now that it’s growing?
- [05:07] Maybe share with us a little bit in terms of what are some of the initiatives that you’re taking in Mondelēz when it comes to sustainability?
- [07:35] We actually set ourselves a challenge based on the 2013 numbers to reduce CO2 emission 15% less by 2019-2020 and we exceeded that goal. We’re now looking at exceeding our goal of a further 10% less CO2 emission by 2025.
- [09:47] What are some of the top things that changed in your supply chain, in the speed that you interact with businesses, with the customers, with the market, and if you can give us some examples.
- [10:54] When you look at our supply chain in Mondelēz, we rely a lot on the front end of understanding the customers and what the consumers want.
- [12:54] So we’ve worked with working with countries like the Philippines and Malaysia in putting them under the umbrella of Mondelēz to be part of us in terms of trying to find ways to work with governments and regulatory bodies, to make sure that we continue operating.
- [15:03] I wanted to also ask you about customer-centricity and how do you measure it? What are some of the metrics tools and processes that you use in order to get it accurate and make sure that you’re responding fast to what your customers want?
- [16:01] By being local, we got closer to our consumers and our customers and understanding more what do they want from local brands versus the big global brands.
- [17:52] Efficiency is massive in terms of making sure we do what we do well, but if we don’t do it at the right time in the right format, then the customer doesn’t actually get what they want in that space.
- [19:05] What’s keeping you up at night looking into 2021 and what are some of the key challenges that you foresee?
- [21:59] My responsibility and accountability to my teams are to make sure that we find a way to alleviate some of the challenges.
- [22:37] Do you have certain things that you’ve implemented with the team on the people side, on the soft side? Maybe rituals, sharing, or whatever it may be that helped in these few months that you would want to continue.
- [23:12] Connecting can sometimes be quite difficult with the time zones, but we’ve now gone to more connections and weekly connections and subgroups working just for that connectivity to keep things going.
- [26:40] If we don’t say it’s hard and we don’t talk about stuff we need to talk about then other people will not feel that they can.
- [28:06] You guys obviously are not as reliant on China because your supply chains are a bit more localized, but I think everybody had a pretty strong dependence on China. And then the second part of the question is the role of supply chain management in addressing some of the social challenges and major social disparities that can occur. So what are your thoughts on that?
- [29:35] We do not have anything like what we want in terms of supplier diversity, to the lens of African-American or any other type of diversity that we would talk about. So that’s a big push for us and in the next one to three years, we want to make sure that we’re building that diversity to represent our world because we operate everywhere.
- [30:55] I am a big believer in diversity. As the organization evolves we would want to bring in different thinking because no one person has the answer.
- [32:08] What type of soft skills and hard skills are you looking for that are hard to find? Tell us a little bit about your thoughts on that.
- [33:20] I think we need more and more to embrace the emotional intelligence of who we are because we’ve already proven that we can do so much intellectually.
- [36:00] In Mondelēz, if we’re not more holistic in supply chain, we won’t make that connection with our business units that need us to deliver in a certain way, and that’s about common sense and emotion.
- [37:05] What would be some career advice you can give to our younger listeners, looking back on your career that helped you the most?
- [39:34] Look at things as an adventure, not a risk, but a calculated adventure, and make sure that you and your family are safe and that you’re getting what you want.
Quote from the Episode:
About the Host:
The host, Radu Palamariu is the co-author of “From Source to Sold – Stories of Leadership in Supply Chain”. He has been named one of the top 3 Global Supply Chain Influencers on LinkedIn and was featured in Forbes, Bloomberg, WEF, Bangkok Post, and MIT Supply Chain Talent magazine. Radu invites executives to share stories and perspectives around technology, logistics, e-commerce, supply chain, and manufacturing, and their views on how the future will look.
Alcott Global connects and upgrades the supply chain ecosystem by finding the right talent through executive search, developing talent through learning solutions, and meeting supply chain technology needs through a comprehensive crunch base marketplace.
The supply chain executive search has been our focus since the very beginning, offering recruitment services for top-tier supply chain roles at every level of the end-to-end supply chain: plan, source / procure, make, and deliver. Our consultants have years of experience in placing top talent, in North America, LATAM, Europe, the Middle East & Africa, and APAC, and besides speed, one of our biggest strengths is our network within the supply chain industry, and we capitalize on it to find the best solutions.
Through the years, we have grown as an organization and our offerings with it. One of our initiatives, the learning solutions- training and supply chain academy, is focused on transforming leadership- self-leadership, executive presence, influence capital, and business acumen. Through Supplify, we aim to match corporations with the top technology companies to solve their supply chain and logistics challenges with a focus on innovation and digital transformation.
We are in constant touch with the leaders in supply chain, inviting them to inspire the supply chain professionals in thought-provoking podcast episodes and events, and showcasing what is possible at the yearly Leaders in Supply Chain Awards.
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