Ipek Ozsuer has worked in tech for over 25 years. She started in IT at Procter & Gamble, worked in IT outsourcing and subsequently data analytics at Hewlett Packard, and was one of the CIOs and head of digital transformation at Bayer, among other roles. She joined DSM as CDO in 2022 and became CDIO of dsm-firmenich one year later when the company merged with the Swiss fragrance and flavor company Firmenich. She is now spearheading a multi-pronged digital transformation.
What is the biggest challenge your organization currently faces?
“If we look internally, we started with a dream to create a company in a category of one, through a merger of equals, by bringing DSM and Firmenich together. One challenge is the pace of integration and the change we are going through. How do you balance bringing the company under one umbrella in terms of backbone, processes, data, and ways of working and, at the same time, continue to drive your business and deliver on merger synergies?
Last year was also challenging for the industry, with geopolitical challenges, destocking in China, and inflation. And almost seven months after the merger we announced to separate our Animal Nutrition and Health business from the Group. We have four business units: Animal Nutrition & Health; Health, Nutrition & Care; Taste, Texture & Health; and Perfumery & Beauty. We are now in the process of preparing the first steps of the separation execution of our Animal Nutrition & Health (ANH) business.
How do you ensure that you execute the decisions you take from a portfolio point of view, and, at the same time, continue your trajectory of profitable growth, making sure you drive your growth and sustainability agenda in a world that is more dynamic than ever? What is the right balance that you bring in to ensure healthy growth for your company, and innovate while transforming? Those are the questions we are facing at the moment.”
What role do IT, data and digitization play in all of this? And what is your perspective as a leader?
“Technology is at the heart of everything we do these days. Take the merger for example. One of the indicators of a good merger is if you can operate as one – building the right technology foundation plays a very important role. So you need to be able to harmonize your ways of working, from the workplace to the HR systems to the finance systems, and ensure the company comes together.
“One of the indicators of a good merger is if you can operate as one – building the right technology foundation plays a very important role.”
At the same time, you still need to ensure the company runs securely, despite all these disruptions that happen around you. And cyber security is a big portion of that as well. So running the company, making sure you do the integration and, in our case, the separation of our ANH business as well. As part of the separation process, our ANH business needs to have a running system on its own. This new entity will need to be able to buy, sell, and produce, and the employees need to be able to work. So IT is playing a critical role, as the key enabler for it to be separated, and optimally set up to be successful in its future ownership structure.
Of course, in parallel, there is the transformation of the company using technology and data. The world is changing, and the majority of this change is driven by technology. Our business evolves, and we are expected to run it more efficiently and innovate. How do you bring efficiencies using technology? How do you create new experiences? How do we digitally transform our company internally? How do we bring new consumer, and customer insights with data & AI, and our R&D innovations?
I always tell my CEO, ‘If you want to know what is happening in the company, come and ask me because I’m involved in everything we do, from integration to all the innovation-related activities.’ It just gives me so much energy to influence how we work and to be an integral enabler and accelerator for the company.”
How far are you with this transformation? What have you achieved so far, and what are you proud of?
“Both companies had strong legacies. As we brought the companies together, we didn’t start from scratch. Keeping business continuity and execution of key programs, we focused on a phased approach to integration. I’m really proud that we have completed our One workplace project, anybody can work from anywhere in the world from our offices. We almost completed our HR integration, so everybody is in the same system with harmonized new HR processes. The same goes for finance reporting, with one reporting backbone, and many more integration-related activities we have concluded across the company. These things may look simple however harmonizing ways of working, technology choices and change management takes time.
I’m also proud that I was able to bring the organization together under one digital and tech unit. My team is completely harmonized. We now bring the best of the integrated dsm-firmenich. We operate as one. It’s not that all systems are merged, because we have certain systems for perfumery that don’t need to be integrated with our human nutrition business, for example.
However, from a cultural and team dynamics point of view, we moved to a completely new operating model. We are platform-based and capability-driven. By creating multi-disciplinary teams, we limit dependencies and ensure speed in delivery. Via our platforms, we connect the business strategy to the execution, which ensures decision-making at the right level of the organization. We have eight business platforms, such as a customer platform, a supply chain platform, and a finance platform, and three enabling ones like Technology and Data.
In a rapidly changing world, we want to ensure a flexible and scalable operating model. So where do you drive standards, harmonization, and commonality, and where do you differentiate? If you are running a multi-business unit company, how can you be as unified as possible and as different as needed?
Looking at the ANH separation, tech teams normally know the process side quite well. We’ve been instrumental in helping shape the trajectory of the whole separation project. We are now in the implementation phase: another key priority of the company and I’m proud my team plays a key role in this process.
And on top of that, we started building the right foundations in the areas where we think we need to invest more: data especially. Data gives us a competitive advantage. We are building the data governance and the data management foundation; both to drive operational efficiency and to enable AI.
We are working with our business on AI and genAI-accelerated use cases. We have identified our key focus areas, customer obsession, product innovation, operational efficiency, and most importantly, what I call the “empowered employee.” So the plan is there and now comes the execution.
“If you are running a multi-business unit company, how can you be as unified as possible and as different as needed?”
Finally, the upcoming ERP transformation. This represents a business transformation on our side. It will be a key enabler and accelerator of bringing the company together, it will help harmonize processes, the core, the supply chain, customer service, order to cash, and manufacturing. I feel we’ve done a good job bringing the company into this stage and getting all stakeholders on the same page. ”
Do you have a motto? Any recommendations for your peers?
“Our company purpose is: ‘We bring progress to life.’ There is no progress without technology. Be intentional and influential in the way you shape the future. My recommendation: ‘Be present in the conversations on how you influence the agenda with technology. We play an important role. Dream big, however, when you go into the execution process, be focused on delivering toward that dream. Inspire, but at the same time: deliver. That’s how you build your credibility.”
This year, we are celebrating 20 years of the CIO community. Looking back, what has been an inflection point for you?
“20 years ago, IT played a very important role, and it has only grown. Back then, there were many aspects such as ERP, CRM implementations, and making sure the company ran. Everybody saw that as foundational. And at a certain stage, as you’ll recall, this became very big and IT started being seen as a cost center. IT was seen as sluggish and unable to take decisive action.
Then, we saw all these positions coming up alongside the CIO as a solution for accelerating the deployment of technology. However, soon people realized that you cannot run your innovation and accelerate without solid foundations. You can introduce as many roles as you want, but you still need this backbone to run together with the innovation you bring to the technology space. For me, that was a moment of reflection. Being able to move at two speeds as a whole and still build it in an integrated way. Each part is important.
The role has also changed. CIOs used to report to CFOs or COOs – which is still the case here and there. I’m not saying this is wrong, but you see more and more digital and tech roles at the board level, or being a core part of a CEO’s agenda. Tech has become a core part of a company’s DNA.”