dsm-firmenich brings together the best of two iconic global companies to form a category of one. As innovators in nutrition, health and beauty, we make it our purpose to bring progress to life – by combining the essential, the desirable, and the sustainable. We reinvent, manufacture, and combine nutrients, flavors, and fragrances to meet the evolving needs and expectations of the world’s growing population while at the same time addressing the urgent sustainability challenges facing our planet.
Our approach to business
The merger of DSM and Firmenich created a world-leader in nutrition, health and beauty. Through its highly integrated portfolio of nutritional, natural and renewable ingredients, together with complementary science capabilities and technologies, it is positioned to deliver superior innovation-led growth.
By creatively applying proven science and drawing on data-driven innovation capabilities as well as exceptional standards of operational excellence, dsm-firmenich seeks to tackle the tension between what society needs, what people individually want, and what the planet demands. By working closely together with customers to create what is essential for life as well as desirable for consumers yet simultaneously more sustainable for the planet, dsm-firmenich is poised to bring progress to life for people around the world.
dsm-firmenich is organized in four distinct high-performing businesses, rooted in complementary world-class scientific research and manufacturing excellence: Perfumery & Beauty; Taste, Texture & Health; Health, Nutrition & Care; Animal Nutrition & Health.
Sustainability
We are a purpose-led company and we place people and planet at the core of our strategy, directly alongside financial performance. Formed of two science-driven companies, both with a track record as global sustainability leaders, we are determined to keep increasing our positive impact and raising our standards in helping to tackle climate change, protect nature, and care for people all along our value chain.
Sustainability lies at the heart of our development and business activities and we develop our roadmap and science-based targets based on the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals, The Ten Principles of the UN Global Compact and the Paris Agreement on climate. Our bold commitments to shape a better future are evidence-based and measurable, and we go above and beyond what is required of us in pursuit of lasting positive impact. Our values are underpinned by a shared passion for a more sustainable future. Caring about customers, communities, people, and the planet is not only the right thing to do; it is the only way to grow a profitable and enduring business.
Our principles for progress
In 2023, we set the fundamental principles on how the different parts of our organization work together and deliver value, to achieve our vision of being the leading co-creation and innovation partner in nutrition, health, and beauty. Our four complementary Business Units are supported by Group Business Partners such as Science & Research, Finance, Human Resources, Sustainability, Procurements, Safety, Health and Environment and Digital & Tech.
The following principles govern our operating model:
- We operate as one Group, united by a common purpose and values. We drive group priorities, strategy and standards across the company and ensure that we continue to differentiate through Science & Research as well as Sustainability
- We empower our Business Units with a high degree of autonomy to ensure agility and close customer connections in our market approach. To bring the best service to our customers, the Business Units have full accountability over their manufacturing plants and Supply Chain as well as Regulatory Services. The Business Unit innovation teams work in partnership with Group Science & Research to deliver on our ambitions in innovation. In combination with their accountability for delivery of their profit & loss and cash generation, they will be able to make choices faster, focus strongly on customer needs, and deliver customized services
- Our Business Partners enable excellence and efficiency, by partnering with the Group and the Business Units, helping them to deliver on their ambitions, serve their customers. In addition, the Business Partners will drive excellence with shared centers of expertise, to bring differentiated capabilities to our company
We made progress at pace in 2023 to translate the Operating Model principles into how our Business Units and Business Partners are structured and how they operate, ensuring transversal alignment across the company. By the end of 2023, the implementation of most of the new organizational structures and operating models were completed. See also Integration update.
Our drivers of success
Through our shared strengths and complementary capabilities, we are uniquely positioned to provide visionary and science-backed solutions that tackle key global challenges and help shape the future. We drive growth and positive change with the aim of better meeting consumers’ needs. We deliver added value thanks to the skill and passion of our people and our combination of creation and science capabilities, augmented by new data-driven and digital business models.
Our people
Our team of nearly 30,000 people is dedicated to achieving our purpose and creating measurable added value for our customers. From our master perfumers and leading scientists to our support staff and plant workers, we take pride in our craft and have an uncompromising commitment to quality and innovation. Our defining values guide our aspirations: To be a force for good in the world, to own the outcome of our endeavors, and to act together with our customers.
Along with our purpose, these values established following the merger in May 2023 underpin what we stand for and how we make choices in our day-to-day delivery to our customers and stakeholders. Shared values are an essential driver for success as we elaborate our plans for integrated rewards, people development, safety, health and well-being, employee engagement, and diversity, equity and inclusion.
Our innovation capacity
We build on the foundations of more than a century of purpose-led scientific discovery and innovation to create positive impact for people and planet. Our growing portfolio of more than 16,000 patents and more than €700 million in annual R&D and innovation investment enables our Science & Research team across 15 research hubs to deliver transformative new solutions.
Our Science & Research team works in partnership with our Business Unit innovation teams and their 40 creation centers and 75 application laboratories to deliver differentiating innovations for our customers. We believe that collaboration offers the best chance of addressing the myriad challenges our world faces, and we champion an ecosystem approach that thrives on more than 100 collaborative relationships with academics, startups, and established companies.
Our market proximity
Our 340 sites across the world allow us to combine a global outlook with local insights and market proximity, enabling us to offer our customers a comprehensive range of value-adding solutions and to co-create with them on the basis of our wide-ranging expertise and scientific and technological capabilities. We operate to exacting safety and quality standards worldwide to ensure consistency and continuity of supply.
Our foundation
We recognize that our global presence brings with it not only opportunities but also responsibilities. Quality, safety and compliance form the foundation for all our business activities and priorities, and are anchored in the principles of our Code of Business Ethics and policies.
Quality
With our strong purpose and values, we are committed to leading our industry by consistently providing best-in-class, safe, and reliable solutions and to being recognized as the trusted first choice of our customers. At dsm-firmenich, quality is viewed as every customer’s right and every employee’s responsibility.
Through the implementation of our new Quality Policy Statement, we foster one single quality community across all our businesses, with a permanent brief to drive excellence and continuous improvement. Our quality culture is dedicated to maintaining uncompromising standards, and we take pride in the care with which we craft products and solutions for our customers.
Safety, Health & Environment
Our commitment to safety, health & environment transcends borders and cultures. It is driven by our core belief that safeguarding our people, communities, and planet is not just good business: it is the right thing to do. We value and protect people by constantly striving to enhance health and safety. Our Safety, Health & Environment (SHE) policy is a promise to our employees, partners, customers, and stakeholders to hold ourselves to exemplary standards so that we not only ensure our own sustained growth but also contribute to a safer, healthier, and more sustainable world.
Ethics and compliance
Our legal, regulatory and compliance team plays a vital role in enabling business growth, connecting our company with opportunities and protecting our interests and values. We strive to ensure that we operate to the highest legal and regulatory standards while carefully managing our risk exposure and upholding our commitment to ethical business practices as enshrined in our Code of Business Ethics, in close collaboration with all the company’s stakeholders.
