DSM reorganizes; creates Executive Committee

Following recent portfolio changes, the organizational changes at DSM aim to create a more agile, focused and cost efficient organization, with a stronger business and market focus and globally leveraged support functions. These changes will result in structural savings of €125-150 million to be fully achieved by the end of 2017.

 DSM will also strengthen its management structure by establishing an Executive Committee, enabling faster strategic alignment and operational execution.

 In addition to the changes above, DSM is developing a business (growth) improvement and efficiency program for the Nutrition business that will be communicated at the Capital Markets Day on 4 November 2015.

The support functions will be globally leveraged across DSM to capture scale-benefits and deliver high-quality professional support at lower costs, among others via further standardization of processes, delayering, and elimination of duplications, resulting in a more efficient pooling of resources with clearer accountability for performance. This will lead to a reduction in size of the support functions, with the transfer into partnerships of the Pharma, Polymer Intermediates and Composite Resins businesses.

The new organizational model will apply to Finance, HR, Legal, IT, Business Services, Indirect Sourcing, Communications and Corporate departments as well as the Regional centers. In addition, DSM will implement efficiency measures in its major R&D centers globally.

The DSM business groups remain the cornerstones of the company and their focus will be on the primary functions of the company: Innovation and R&D, Direct Sourcing, Manufacturing & Operations and Marketing & Sales.

The changes will result in a reduction in the number of employees, with structural savings from the reduced headcount and lower spend estimated at €125-150 million compared to 2014. 

DSM will strengthen its management structure by establishing an Executive Committee, enabling faster strategic alignment and operational execution by increasing focus on the development of the business, innovation and people. The members of the Executive Committee will be the Managing Board members Feike Sijbesma (CEO/Chairman), Geraldine Matchett (CFO), Stephan Tanda (Life Sciences) and Dimitri de Vreeze (Materials Sciences), as well as Chris Goppelsroeder (Nutritional Products), Philip Eykerman (Strategy and M&A), Rob van Leen (R&D and Innovation) and Peter Vrijsen (Human Resources). The statutory responsibilities of the Managing Board remain unchanged.