This fireside chat recap is from Day 1 of FreightWaves’ Future of Supply Chain live event in Rogers, Arkansas. For more information and content from the event, click here.
FIRESIDE CHAT TOPIC: Importance of supply chain analysis in mergers and acquisitions.
DETAILS: Matt Waller, dean of the Sam M. Walton College of Business at the University of Arkansas, and Dennis Hammen discuss the role of supply chains and scaling in mergers and acquisitions with smaller companies.
SPEAKER: Hammen is the head of global supply chain, health and well-being at Unilever.
BIO: Hammen has supply chain experience across manufacturing, planning, customer service, logistics, end-to-end supply chain, project management, and mergers and acquisitions. Prior to his current role, he led the NA Planning Transformation Program, which served as the gateway to next-generation planning capabilities and performance.
KEY QUOTES FROM DENNIS HAMMEN:
“Unilever has been very active in the M&A space, particularly in the health and well-being category. … Most recently, it’s been more of a focus on smaller companies with high growth trajectories.”
“What I have found in working with [smaller] companies is once they reach a certain volume, it’s not manageable anymore on a spreadsheet. That’s when Unilever can provide the funding, the expertise and the resources to help take these companies to the next level.”
“With many of these smaller firms, we want to keep what made them famous. We don’t want to lose that magic. … However, where it makes sense, we’ll bring in scale.”
“The primary goal that we have when we come across supply chain challenges is — what would it take to mitigate those challenges?”
Click here for more FreightWaves articles by Alyssa Sporrer.
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