Working together
Dave Ingram, Unilever’s Chief Procurement Officer, discusses the importance of Unilever’s partners
The role of Procurement today is unique and filled with opportunities to positively impact the world around us. More than ever, we have a responsibility to take our deep understanding of materials, ingredients, the value chain and the supply market and use this to drive Unilever’s purpose of making sustainable living commonplace.
As a business we believe that brands with purpose grow, and we know that achieving this growth will require help from everyone in our value chain. Unilever works with thousands of partners in over 190 countries where our products are sold. It’s crucial to us that every single one of these partners helps us to create the value, capacity and capability we need to deliver brands and products that consumers love in the most responsible way possible.
Part of growing responsibly is making sure all Unilever’s partners work in line with our standards around responsible sourcing, sustainability and human rights. Whether it’s our sustainable sourcing commitments, targets around plastics or expectations around safe and fair working environments, we rely on the expertise and integrity of our partners to set greater industry standards.
Through our strong partnerships, we hope to inspire our partners to demonstrate our values of respect, responsibility and pioneering towards our planet and people.
Together, we can realise a vision where sustainable living is commonplace. Are you with us?
Dave Ingram
Chief Procurement Officer
Let's work together
Innovation partners
A significant portion of our growth will come from innovation, delivering leading-edge products into the marketplace. We anticipate that around 70% of our innovations are linked to working with our strategic suppliers. That's why we invest in mutually-beneficial relationships with our key suppliers so we can share capabilities and co-innovate for shared growth.
With some of our more strategic suppliers, we nurture open relationships, with our research and development teams working with theirs to jointly pursue new technologies and innovations that will make a difference. Our partners often do business with other companies that operate in the same competitive markets as we do.
That's why we pride ourselves on doing business differently, moving away from traditional forms of buying/selling relationships. Pioneering new ways of doing business so we can partner to win. If you believe you can help us deliver on innovation please contact your Unilever Procurement Manager to discuss opportunities.