Marketing Procurement: From Category Driven to Business First

Speaker A: Welcome again to another of casme's Pondering Procurement podcasts. Graham Crawshaw here, Procurement Content Director. And once again I've got a very special guest to talk about all things procurement. Daniel Ebert, global head of Procurement Marketing Activation Intelligence at Beersdorf, is my guest today and we're going to be talking about the progress of the marketing procurement function that uh, he has been overseeing. So over to you, welcome. It would be great just to introduce yourself and your role and then we'll get into the conversation.

Speaker B: Daniel, thanks for having me on this podcast. My name is Daniel. I'm looking back to a career of 14 years within different procurement areas and transformation projects. My role here within Beiersdorf as head of uh, global Procurement, Marketing Activation and Intelligence sits right at the intersection of marketing, procurement and data driven decision making, which makes the role overall quite exciting. I'm operating with um, a global team being located in different countries and we are serving one Beiersdorf, as we keep saying, across all brands and all categories. We cover key components of the marketing value chain covering business strategy, purposes, data and insights to support for example media planning and creative execution. And we cover activation through sponsorships and licenses with our strategic partners to support our brand activation and sales. Lastly, we come into play at the measurement and optimization to enable key analytics with our team.

Speaker A: So Daniel, just in case anyone's not familiar, Beersdorf, it's a name you may or may not know. Just tell us what the company does.

Speaker B: So Berf is a globally operating company for skincare products and we serve different markets, just the mass market skincare industry with the most famous brand called Nivea. I'm pretty sure most of the listeners are familiar with the Nivea tin. We are quite proud of by over 95% of the global population is aware of that Nivea tin. So it's quite a famous brand. But we're not stopping there, right? We are also serving the health care and pharmaceutical industry as well as the luxury industry for, for skin care. So it is dermatological healthcare and premium beauty that we are serving with different brands. The most famous one, as I said, is Nivea, Usurin La Prairie or Chantecaille in the US for example.

Speaker A: Excellent. Certainly Nivea I know well. So uh, that's good to give that context to, uh, understand. It's important when we're talking about uh, marketing to understand exactly the, the products we're uh, talking about. So talk us through the transformation that you've been sort of going through.

Speaker B: So the transformation that we are going through or we have been going through is uh, basically that the biggest difference is for us that we have moved from a category driven, more siloed organization to a business first cross functional operating model. Right. So previously we had four global categories, four global category teams operating mostly for themselves together with our marketing teams across all different regions and more than 190 affiliates globally in all the markets where we have our product. And yeah, we must admit that structure uh, worked at a time, but it became too rigid for the speed and complexity of modern marketing. Right. And it also created silos both internally and in how stakeholders experience procurement within Biastor. And in fact when we assessed ourselves through 90 plus interviews that we have conducted internally, we identified that stakeholders didn't see procurement as a strategic partner. They experience procurement mainly as a function focused on compliance on contracts and on savings. Right. More the commercial part of things and these aspects are by no means irrelevant. And as a global operating company with close to 10 billion in sales, these functions are needed. But it is very procurement operational. However, there's more than the technical procurement aspects and we have been operating reactive and strategies have been very limited and very rare. At the same time we needed to look at the market development and identify new services, new partners, new opportunities to execute our strategic commitments. One clear example is AI and generative engine optimization. We now need to look into there. We are committed as procurement to play a fundamental role in order to drive our marketing activities forward and to serve our consumers at the end of their marketing value chain. So the new model changed this fundamentally. Right. So what we have embedded in in procurement at BioSource is we have embedded procurement into the business with regional focus. We call that squats. Yeah. So basically that is a cross functional team. We are keeping focus on our core categories driving efficiency and scale. At the same time. The word squats appeared in organizational design and management vocabulary already in 2012 through so called Spotify Agile model when Spotify where also this podcast you know can uh be found by the listeners. Uh published a white paper on agility and the organization. So this is something that we found out throughout our transformation. So it's already a proven setup in a company in order to operate with more agility, more speed and more clearer uh decision making as one team together with procurement, marketing and finance where we do see ourselves as operating in a triangle and uh, connecting the dots. So we have a clear vision including end to end accountability from strategy to execution which has been established. And the core is our shift from more reactive demand, as I said earlier to Actively shaping it and shaping our marketing activities. So the real difference is not just structural, it is how we have repositioned procurement as a driver of marketing performance, if you will, not just a control function. So it provides us with a famous seat at the table. We have been demanding for many years and I think this was a topic for procurement overall, but now it's not anymore. About the question, can we get and how do we get a seat at the table? This should be, uh, a given. And through this transformation we see that this is already being established and we are connected. We are, uh, a totally connected function, embedded function, connected with finance, with marketing, as I said earlier. So from pitching and formulating our requirements together to negotiating beyond costs, ensuring sustainable outcomes, this is remaining our competitive edge. We work seamlessly as one team, driving strategic partnership management and enable joint growth. So growth is proving possibilities to improve our products, to unlock innovations and improve the consumer experience on a continuous basis.

Speaker A: Fascinating. What I really liked, Daniel, was the fact that you said it was working. So you had got category management in place, but you just felt that it wasn't suited for the requirements of what the market demands today. And I like that. So it's not that it was not working, but it was recognizing that you needed to change, needed to do something differently given that the pressure is on to get things done, given that technology is changing things. And I guess that some point someone said, yeah, we've got to make this change. The change you described is then what took place.

Speaker B: Yes, exactly. So we have for example, our marketing functions operating in different markets. Right. We have obviously our global headquarter, uh, being located in Hamburg where the company has been founded by a, uh, pharmacist many, many years. The first brand was Usurin. So here we have a marketing team and then we have it also on a regional level as well as on a local level in order to serve all the needs and in all markets where we sell our products. And having that in mind, we had obviously our media strategies, our media activations in place. We had content creation, so all the creative work as well ad production and also data and analytics. And now with the new ways of working with a new operating model, we are connecting more the dots and looking at all these different categories as one picture. And for example, we connect our media activities together with our digital activities, which is very much needed these days. And that's why there was a need for change. And yes, now we are adapting with a new working model. We just won a prize, uh, marketing procurement award for this. So we are very, very proud of that. And a lot of change management is needed or people need to adapt to the new working model. But so far it's going extremely well. It's not always the case in change management. So the ones, the listeners that have experienced bigger changes would exactly know what I'm talking about. And yet it is different because people have seen the need and this is uh, driving the change forward really with speed and it's super exciting.

Speaker A: So Daniel, congratulations on getting the award. Do you know exactly what it was about all the transformation that you've done that meant that the judges selected your organization for the top award?

Speaker B: That is a very good question. Maybe they're using Nivea a lot or Usury. No, I'm just joking. Um, that would be very biased. I think what probably stood out was the fundamental change in actually not only transforming ways of working and meaning how you do things and how you execute, but really also what you do in terms of transforming the teams and actually building new teams. Right. So it is not a team that has been existing and is now changing the operating model. It is a new team, uh, being equipped out of different categories, having cross category experience, which is driving ideas, which is bringing different skills and capabilities together, coming from different categories and just making us stronger as one company. And I hope that we can also be seen for some companies as, yeah, maybe kind of a role model where companies will be interested to adapt this, especially because we are seeing that this is working extremely well. And for example, also one thing that we do ever since we started with this approach is that we are doing continuous reflection sessions in order to learn to have continuous improvement in place. Because it would be ridiculous to say that everything is running smoothly and always successful. This is by far not the case. So one thing that we have implemented as well, for example, is a speak, uh, up session. A culture where we can openly share what is not going well, what is not working well, and uh, where we can learn from each other and, and really change.

Speaker A: Excellent. You've referred to the change as being supported by three pillars. And um, I'm just keen to understand what are those three pillars and how do they fit in?

Speaker B: Yes, exactly, Graham. So there are three main pillars that we see for now and it is that the transformation has been built around three core pillars. So the first one is redefining the ways of working what I mentioned earlier. So we have moved from more of a fragmented, late stage involvement to an early integrated collaboration. Right. And that means that our regional squads, as we call them now, act as the single interface to the business owning the full journey end to end, from strategy to execution, even to performance tracking. And this removes complexity for stakeholders and also ensures procurement is involved where decisions are actually made. Secondly, we have a stronger partnership management in place now. Uh, we have re established supplier relationship management as a core discipline with strategic supplier leads. We now actively manage key partners throughout the core initiatives with joint business plans to unleash growth together. Because it is not only about growth at Beiersdorf and exceeding our close to 10 billion net sales annually. It is also that we are looking after our strategic partners to grow. Actually we want to grow together in order to be more successful in the future. To improve the consumer journey, we have standardized and clear performance dialogues in place. And this is done by regular business reviews. So for example, we do this on a quarterly basis. We have innovation roadmaps to identify new areas for collaboration to support the success of our consumer journey. So you can already hear from my answer. We always take the consumer journey into play. We always look through the lens of the consumer. And our clear goal is to drive performance beyond the contract. As I said earlier, not just negotiate better terms, but truly being embedded in the partnership management as a key driver for joint success. Third pillar is a winning team mindset. Extremely important. And this is about capability, focus and flexibility at the same time. So we introduced our squads equipped with cross category expertise to drive scale together with our marketing functions. We have media there, we have creative and content creation there. We have digital there, we have data and analytics there, sponsorship licenses and also consumer interaction. And this is where we connect with finance and marketing what I explained and connecting with legal and even sales for example, providing data and insights in image recognition for our products to enhance our team and clear business focus. We have established we have category strategy leads now implemented for long term directions. We have flexible roles to deploy expertise across priorities. Meaning that we can work with people and liquid capacity in order to focus on what matters most and where we can create impact for our business and for our consumers. And we have clear prioritization of where we create the value. We clearly moved away from trying to do everything and instead focus on where we can truly impact the business. And this implies strong collaboration with clarity as one team across our different brands and regions. How to communicate and decisions to lead communication, for example with our external partners. So those are the three main pillars that are really uh, making us successful and where we see the success also coming mid and long term.

Speaker A: Excellent. Thank you for explaining that Daniel. Can I still is. I love the detail around this, you make it sound quite straightforward. Can I put it like that? Very easy. There must have been something that when you were going to initiate that change that was difficult or challenging. How did you get the stakeholders in marketing to almost let you go on this journey and to implement these three pillars? I know you've achieved it, but is there any nugget, is there any guidance for people of saying, well, Daniel, you've made it straightforward, but, uh, I struggle just to get my stakeholders on board. What was the winning formula there?

Speaker B: Yes, that is another great question and something that I have also elaborated on during Procure Con Marketing last December. And I'm also looking forward to elaborate on that in June again when we meet in Chelsea, London. So what we have created about a year ago, and that was endorsed by our executive board, in fact, is a supply chain strategy. And we as marketing procurement here in Beiersdorf, are part of the supply chain function. And we have a strategy called beat. And that strategy implies that we consider us within the supply chain to be the business, meaning that we work seamlessly together with all our business functions. And for us in procurement marketing, this is the marketing function. And therefore it was a given that those pillars could be rolled out. And this means by far, not that we are doing all of this alone. So for example, I have been elaborating on the strong partnership management, which is a key, one of the key pillars, right, where I said that we do joint business plans to unleash our growth together. This is something that we always do in close collaboration with the marketing function, meaning that we are not going there alone. We always do it together as one team within Beierstorf.

Speaker A: Excellent. Thank you. So, Daniel, I know that Beiersdorf has previously talked about being as global as possible and as local as necessary. And, um, that's particularly relevant in marketing where we know global consistency, local consumer relevance, they both matter. So how do you decide what should be globally standardized and what should remain locally flexible?

Speaker B: Yes, exactly. So we do have our global teams taking decisions on, for instance, uh, global campaigns. And at the same time we also have local activations where we have our local markets, you know, looking after their own, uh, P and L, driving their sales, and with that also deciding on their own marketing activities. But now, indeed, Graham, the question is how to decide and how to follow a clear principle. And uh, what we do is we follow a very pragmatic principle, I would say. So we standardize where it creates scale and quality and localize where it drives effectiveness. Right. So for instance, if you look into our partnerships, uh, for Nivea Men, we are a proud partner of Real Madrid, the world famous football club where for us it is, uh, pretty clear that this is global. This is a global partnership where we can create scale, where we can deliver quality. So globally we standardize supplier frameworks, governance models, KPIs and performance tracking as well, and category strategies. But marketing is inherently local for us. So we keep flexibility in execution and local activation and certain partner decisions. But it's not always one or the other. There is clearly no one size fits all. Right, so we do have category strategies that are purely global and then all regional as well. And then the local markets are adapting to it, which is not always easy. And then on other categories we focus more on the local activation of things. What's different now is that our regional squads that we have are bridging the gap. So they combine global expertise with local understanding. So decisions are not made in isolation. This avoids the typical tension between global efficiency and local relevance. So we design for both from the start and we connect our global teams with our regional teams. Because also in procurement we have global, regional and local. And we all sit together in those squads being connected to the marketing functions. And with that, yeah, we are always part of the decision making journey.

Speaker A: You know, a common phrase that you're using throughout this podcast is the communication. And it seems that that is absolutely critical to uh, success here. The ability to communicate with the stakeholders, with the rest of the marketing teams, those within procurement, whether it is at a global or local level. So it just seems, uh, yeah, really interesting that that's the emphasis you're saying.

Speaker B: Yes, exactly. So communication for us is a key enabler, meaning we are sitting together on a regular basis. So for example, for our UNA Market, Europe, North America, we sit together on a bi weekly basis together with our marketing leads from different functions. And uh, communication for us indeed is a key enabler. What we also do, connecting it, uh, back to the beat strategy that I was saying when you were asking about the three pillars and how we bring them to life. As part of the beat strategy, we also challenge the business. So you can imagine that once there is a campaign coming from a certain market, we always use that within our regional squads to also challenge the other markets and double check with them whether this would be also interesting for additional markets in order to drive and to scale that campaign and at the end of the day to again serve our consumer and ensure a similar consumer journey across different markets, at least within one region, if not more than one region.

Speaker A: Interesting. So that also indicates the, almost the opportunity that you've got to really add value going beyond savings. And I know at procurement we tend to, in fact it's ridiculous we constantly talking about savings, we say we shouldn't be doing that when it comes to marketing procurement. But what areas of value would you say that you're now focused on delivering to the business?

Speaker B: Yes, that's a great question I always like to answer when people ask about procurement and whether this is a very, yeah, siloed organization. So a good example here I think is um, how we redesign parts of our agency ecosystem and workflows as well. So instead of focusing, you know, purely on cost reduction, we looked at how workflows between creative production and other partners by simplifying interfaces and clarifying roles we achieved. So faster turnaround times, less duplication, better asset reuse, improved campaign consistency and also data quality. Because if you consider the marketing value chain then our data and analytics, our insights where we derive actions are extremely important. And therefore we have our data providers where we agreed on clear deliverables when it comes to quality because we use the data to also calculate roi. So there it is by far, not only about commercials, but really about the return on investment and really quality we get um, for the investments we decide on. So the impact is operational and qualitative. It's not just financial on proving value. This is a real challenge across the industry. So we focus on a balanced set of metrics including speed and efficiency gains. So we have seen up to 30% improvement in turnaround. We see supplier uh, performance and innovation coming into play. We see stakeholder experiences which are extremely important. And of course at the end we also see savings which are giving us another opportunity to decide on investments. So the key is to be disciplined. If you ask me, not over claim but consistently demonstrate where procurement has changed outcomes. Okay, excellent.

Speaker A: So let's look at agency models and um, working with agencies. You've described a lot already about this sort of transformation that you've been sort of going through and that pillar reverting back to that pillar of stronger partnership management. What does that mean as far as agencies and the ways that you work with marketing agencies?

Speaker B: For us, stronger partnership management means um, moving from transactional supplier management to actively orchestrating an ecosystem, some practice that includes fewer uh, more strategic partnerships. While we of course also work with various pre filled partners as well, as I explained earlier and clear roads across the ecosystem that need to be defined and implemented. We need a regular performance and governance structures in place and also strong Focus on joint value creation. So that is again linked to the joint business planning that I was alluding to earlier. So our strategic supplier leads as clearly new roles in the new concept we have, they play a key role here. They ensure we continuously improve performance, not just at the point of negotiation, but really along the journey, along the collaboration, always, uh, being able to adapt to our needs when it comes to AI, when it comes to, for example, within production, when it comes to content adaptation and topics like that. So this is how we really see the partnership management.

Speaker A: Excellent. And how are the agencies responding to what the changes that you've implemented? Because they almost expect procurement to behave in a certain way. They can be quite skeptical of procurement. How's the agency relationship from their perspective? Do they see you in a different light?

Speaker B: I experience the agencies, uh, absolutely seeing us in a different light. But also here again, we brought our core agencies on the journey at a very early stage. So it was not something that, you know, we implemented overnight. So, for instance, they have seen us as procurement having that seat at the table from an early stage, even before our transformation actually happened. So it was a given that we, for instance, implemented the strategic supplier leads and that we also implemented our category strategy leads, for instance, and even our squads, which in all fairness are, uh, more for internal purposes. However, we still also speak with our agencies about that because at the end we want to develop our success stories together. Right. This is what we have our partners for. So we are connected to our partners on a regular basis and we even have our partners working with us, being even in our building on a regular basis. So we are really actually sitting together.

Speaker A: So it strikes me that actually demonstrating that partnership, that collaboration, and I guess over time, the agencies then know that you mean it, that you are doing as you say you're going to do, which then builds confidence and trust.

Speaker B: Exactly. Confidence and trust are actually good points, Graham, because this is also another very relevant role that we are playing from procurement side because we are connecting our marketing function with the partners. So I'm expecting my team to generate trust also with our partners, which you should never take for granted. This is always my advice. Just because you might be a client of that agency or you are actually a client of that agency, doesn't mean automatically that you have trust. And another huge advantage, in my experience, is that once you have the trust, uh, you can achieve great things together. And this is a key enabler. So, yes, the agencies do see us in a different light, but this is all positive, which does not mean that all conversations are always positive and easy. You also need to make the tough calls whenever it is needed. And this I also see that our marketing functions are expecting that from procurement that we are picking up these tough conversations in order to improve uh, the return of our investments and derive better outcomes.

Speaker A: Speaking of talent, technology and future ready capability, Daniel, I know that you are speaking on a panel at procurecorn Marketing in London in June, all about emerging technologies and shaping the roles of teams and structures, how to attract, retain development talent, such a critical topic for procurement, let alone marketing procurement. Given all the pressures of AI and technology, can you give us a glimpse of really what does that future ready talent, meaning in marketing procurement, give us a bit more of an insight, what you'll be covering on your panel?

Speaker B: Yes, first of all, I'm extremely proud and um, feeling honored, uh, to be invited to speak about such a critical topic during the ProcureCon event in June this year. Without talent, technology and future ready capabilities, you can design any transformation you want and it will never be successful. This is a clear thesis from my side and I think this should really resonate so therefore this is an essential part of the whole transformation. So what I consider is future uh, ready talent and marketing procurement as you know, being fundamentally different from the past. We still need strong commercial skills. That's clear, that should be a given. But that's no longer enough. And this I think should be clear. We now need in the future, uh, a clear business understanding of marketing ecosystems. We need data literacy and analytical thinking. We also need the ability to navigate complex multi partner environments, not only about one partner and less complexity, in fact it is more. And we need strong influencing skills. We need negotiation skills, yes, but uh, we need influencing skills, meaning we need to find a good way in order to get the trust, what I said earlier. But we also need to move the conversations into the right direction and that works with influence. So now as AI also comes more into play, we need people management more than ever. Communication skills, active listening skills and empathy are uh, needed more than ever in my point of view. And one important shift is that the role becomes less about execution and more about orchestration and decision making. So internally we also had to address cultural challenges. Our interviews showed siloed working and hesitation to speak up. So building a winning team mindset and psychological safety was just as important as structural change. So from the ProcureCon panel, I'm also particularly interested in how others are seeing it. Integrating AI into procurement workflows, rethinking team structures to stay competitive edge, you know

Speaker A: Danny, I particularly like the conversation around influencing because I think that is something that again, a good procurement professional spend so much of their time doing. Because we haven't got that direct authority we need to be getting the projects done, um, the working with the agencies, all of that through, in a style that's achieved through influencing. And I think, yeah, absolutely key to any future talent or anyone now has really got to refine those skills, how to do that influencing, how to build the relationships to achieve common goals. I mean ultimately we've all got the same objective to improve for the organization. But so often it can get really difficult and then complex to work. If you get that influencing right, life becomes so much uh, so much easier. We've got to have a conversation around sustainability because I know that Biersdorf has committed to net zero by 2045 and will aim to reduce emissions across scope one, two and three by, by 90%. So how does that net zero ambition change what you're doing in terms of marketing procurement? Is it changing anything now? Because 2045 sounds an awful long way into the future. What are you doing now that's going to get you to that objective?

Speaker B: Well, what we're doing now is of course we have that target clearly, clearly in our picture. And this is something that we pick up with every agency during every negotiation and every dialogue we have basically. Luckily we have strong partners also supporting this. So it is not a Beiersdorf only target, but it's really a partnership joint target that we see. So we have our partners being very supportive in order to fulfill that commitment to net zero. By 2045 we have sustainability and especially scope three has uh, significantly expanded the role of marketing procurement, that's for sure. So what, what we are considering is the carbon footprint of marketing activities, uh, supplier, uh, sustainability, uh, performance of course, and also how to influence decision across the value chain. So that means sustainability is no longer a separate initiative. It is embedded into our supplier, into our partner selection, into performance management, of course, and even in uh, scope design as well. So it also reinforces the importance of, of supplier collaboration for us and we rely on partners to bring innovation and transparency there as well. So the expectation has shifted from managing costs purely to co create sustainable solution with the ecosystem.

Speaker A: Thank you. I mean Daniel, you've shared so much. I'd like to end with some very practical advice for listeners. Clearly Biersdorf is advanced, award winning and um, doing incredibly well when it comes to marketing procurement. What would your words of advice be to perhaps a procurement professional? That's not having that same support or is not as progressed as much as you have. What should they be doing in 2026 to help move the support? See that it's not just a cost control function. How would you position the work that someone should do to help move their marketing procurement forward?

Speaker B: Yes, great point and happy to elaborate on that. So for teams that are still seen mainly as cost control functions, I would highlight three practical moves. Number one, move closer to the business. Embed yourself where decisions are made. If you stay in reactive role, you will always be seen as a transactional function. Number two redesign how you work, not just what you do. Structure matters. In our case, moving to squads and cross functional roles fundamentally changed how stakeholders experience procurement. There is a clear difference between the what and the how. Use people capabilities and active listening to identify together the success story you want to ride and go together as one team to achieve it. And number three, invest in supplier relationships. Invest in partnerships. Sustainable value comes from strong performance and continuous innovation, not just effective negotiation. That requires investing time in your partners through regular check ins and structured reviews so they become a fully integrated part of your operating model rather than just external suppliers.

Speaker A: Excellent Daniel. Well, thank you so much for all of those insights and recommendations. Personally looking forward to seeing you@ uh, Procurecon Marketing in London in June. And yeah, thank you for sharing the transformation, the journey that you've taken Beersdorf on in terms of marketing procurement. So thank you. We hope you enjoyed this CASMI Podcast all episodes can be found on Spotify and the Apple Podcast app. Remember to subscribe so you don't miss a future one. If you'd like to find out more about casme's procurement events, research and benchmarking, get in touch with us@casmi.com.