Kimberly-Clark, a global consumer packaged goods and personal care corporation, embarked on a global transformation effort that included several strategic initiatives. One of the initiatives was the centralization of Facilities Management (FM) services. Specifically, the company sought to centralize and maximize operational and financial efficiencies in FM across the globe. This case study focuses on the initiative implemented in Latin America.
Kimberly-Clark partnered with Trascent to embark on a market competitive Request for Proposal (RFP) to secure the right supplier and leverage the size and scale of its FM portfolio across Latin America, spanning over 20 locations in more than eight countries across this region. With this in mind, global suppliers were invited to provide solutions and give visibility to validate the business case and opportunity.
It was essential that Kimberly-Clark’s local leadership understand the opportunity, while being able to convey the pain points and unique factors of their locations. Trascent supported the Kimberly-Clark project team with the development of communication materials as well as an approach to socialize and collect key data that supported the initiative. This not only enabled the creation of effective relationships with key stakeholders across countries and business units alike, but also secured buy-in of the initiative: local leadership knew Trascent was there to help.
Additionally, Trascent and the Kimberly-Clark project team worked with Single Points of Contact (SPOCs) at the site level, which became the “eyes and ears” of the project at each location. By creating this community of support and making it part of the project governance, the initiative gathered momentum and developed a sense of ownership: SPOCs participated in key parts of the RFP, coordinated supplier interactions and assisted on the selection decision making process. Obtaining local stakeholders’ active engagement made this project feasible and increased its likelihood to succeed on its objectives.
In parallel, Kimberly-Clark was designing and developing its internal regional FM organization. The RFP activities created a lot of positive buzz and excitement around the region, providing a knowledgeable and motivated pool of individuals to fill these roles. Trascent and the Kimberly-Clark project team also identified the capabilities of the existing Kimberly-Clark team that was already in place, the scope of their responsibilities and found ways to leverage their experience combined with other resources from the region to create a team that handled the supplier relationship across many functions, evolving from the tactical to the strategic levels.
Decentralized Environment
Decentralized environments are common in manufacturing settings and can offer many challenges. However, in this instance, the decentralized environment became a key advantage for this project. Even though the project was part of a global strategy, it was tactically implemented at a regional and site level that created relationships with key stakeholders and decision-makers across the sites, business units and countries. Therefore, the FM team in Latin America could better understand their challenges and become their business partners to drive the initiative forward successfully.
“It was incredibly important to have a local team on site discussing with the leadership and helping identify what was important to that site. This enabled the FM team in Latin America to have quicker responses, engaging better with the leadership and helping to understand the local issues.”
Market Maturity
Latin America lags behind its European and North American counterparts on FM market maturity. On both the client and supplier organization sides, there is a limited talent pool that needs to be increased if the region is to continue to develop and mature.
In the case of the Kimberly-Clark project, the team had to be very intentional about talent development beyond the basics to support people growth. Elements, such as language skills, vendor management and governance were key areas of focus. Therefore, as mentioned above in the “Approach” section, Kimberly-Clark took the time to build and develop the team in parallel with the RFP process. This created robust engagement and a strong sense of program ownership across the project and is something the FM organization is working to continue maintaining.
The Talent Gap
Closing the talent gap has many options and avenues. But what is most important is for any initiative to be intentional. Kimberly-Clark’s FM organization needed to be honest about its own positioning and opportunities and provide people training on basic as well as more elaborate skillsets to enable them to run an FM program at a regional level.
There is no magic bullet. Both client and supplier organizations know there are opportunities to develop talent on multiple fronts. The key is to leverage people’s strengths and invest in the right tools and the right training in specific areas to close the talent gap. Advanced financial analysis, vendor management under complex contracting structures, partnership-oriented communications and change management (internal and external) are a few skills that are key for the success of the program.
COVID-19
Contracting discussions with the selected supplier were completed in February 2020, in parallel with transition planning activities, which included plans for site visits commencing in late February. Since the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the transition right at the beginning stages, the approach had to change. Trascent, Kimberly-Clark and the selected supplier had to unify efforts and make key modifications to the process to maintain momentum.
Many of the key activities, such as operational and financial due diligence, which had been marked to occur on site, had to adjust to a virtual format. The implementation team (Trascent, Kimberly-Clark and Supplier Partner) created a virtual due diligence framework and relied heavily on the Kimberly-Clark FM team structure being created at the time. Once again, leveraging the team structure and the FM people that were already on site, not only kept the company’s “eyes and ears” on site but provided “working hands” that made it possible to continue with the transition process and to enable the supplier engagement ‘go live’ a few months later.
“Ideas are the easy part. Execution is everything.”
John Doerr, Measure What Matters
One FM Team
From the beginning, the FM team had a clear objective that accountability, performance and quality was non-negotiable. Therefore, acting as one FM team that comprised of client and supplier team members solidified the relationship and improved performance throughout the project.
Flexible FM Supplier Agreement
It is recognized that organizations change constantly and so to address this, it was imperative that the FM supplier agreement contained flexibility. It needed to be able to adjust priorities and mechanisms, and to alter costs and resources depending on the fluctuations of the business.
Once in place, the FM organization on the Kimberly-Clark side needed to remain connected with site leadership to understand and prioritize what was the strategic direction of the organization. With this connection and leveraging the governance forums, using the FM supplier agreement and its flexibility, changes could be instituted in a way that addresses the business needs and maintains the supplier relationship.
Macro Corporate Objectives
The team accomplished several objectives that were defined at the beginning of the project:
The success of the program manifested itself through expanded development opportunities for the regional FM teams that supported initiatives in Europe and Asia.
Regional Impact
The accomplishments of these objectives by Kimberly-Clark not only enabled them to mature in their FM journey but has had a strong influence on the IFM market across the Latin America region. Through these developments and the best practices established in this project, other Kimberly-Clark FM organizations in other regions have also been able to progress their IFM journeys and achieve successful results faster.
Marcelo Girardi, Senior Director Global Facilities Management Operations, Kimberly-Clark
Marcelo is a Civil Engineer with a Master’s in Business Administration and postgraduate degrees in Finance and Strategy. With over 25 years of expertise in Real Estate and Facilities Management, he has held key leadership roles at renowned global organizations including Ericsson, Atlas Copco, and CBRE. He currently serves as Senior Director of Global Facilities Management Operations at Kimberly-Clark.
Diego Sierra, Managing Director, Americas (LATAM), Trascent
With over 20 years of experience in consulting, operations, and project management, Diego is responsible for leading Trascent’s consulting practice in the Latin America region, where he works with clients developing and implementing corporate real estate and facilities management programs through effective supplier partnerships, within the context aligned with market maturity conditions and local dynamics, setting industry standards and best practices across the region. Diego has helped design, negotiate, and implement initiatives totalling nearly $3 Billion of contract volume globally.
