Up

08.07.2020

Thinking and acting globally

The limits of globalization were exposed in the crisis unleashed by the coronavirus. Nonetheless, we are still working to become an international company

Globalization and being international are important for all export nations, although in the current crisis, their economies found that global connections can also be problematic. International supply chains are more fragile than they appear. Outsourcing production abroad does not make sense when borders close, flights are grounded and ships are stuck in ports.

What’s clear for our dairy, though, is that DMK’s internationalization is still a key part of our strategy for the future. We are mainly focused on our activities in the Netherlands, Russia and our collaboration in China. For DMK, exporting is an important mainstay, but CEO Ingo Müller notes that, “regional bases in Russia or China with local teams are more effective for us than just exporting from Germany.” Classic exports to these countries only make sense if DMK is dealing in major volumes, he says. What is most important is that there’s no loss of friction through working together with companies in other countries. It makes no sense to duplicate work – that only costs money. DMK is currently engaged in a process of adjustment to achieve seamless collaboration. The MAXIMA Project is running at full speed in the Netherlands, where all processes and structures are being adapted to DMK management in Germany. In the future, our colleagues at DOC, DDP, Uniekaas, DVN and DP Supply will work in line with the proven model used by their German colleagues.

While in Germany, the 4S logic is now almost part of everyday life, these mechanisms are going to be explained at Dutch locations and work will be organized according to this model. Our German SAP software is also to be successively rolled out in the Netherlands. The aim of all these processes is to become an organization that thinks globally.

The 4S model defines four clear areas of work for management in order to avoid duplicating work and to increase our flexibility, knowledge and skill across all of the organization’s units. Responsibilities are clearly allocated, enabling each organizational unit to focus on its core activities:

  • Safeguarding is where guidelines are developed, at the Corporate Center, to apply to all areas of the business. This is where overall strategies are created, governing for example how capital is allocated throughout the company. We assess how far our business activities fit with our company strategy on a daily basis.
  • Shaping applies to all local, regional and global areas of the business that are implementing our strategy in operational terms. This area includes all six of DMK’s Business Units. Each day, we assess how far our activities make sense for the best possible implementation of our customer business.
  • Skills All our departments’ expert knowledge is gathered under Skills, making this available centrally for all. Each day we ask whether an activity requires specific expertise that other units could benefit from too?
  • Services is where all activities for other departments are bundled that often repeated, such as payroll or accounting. These activities should be standardized and offered centrally. What colleagues here ask themselves daily is whether there are activities that could be standardized for the benefit of several units?

Internationalization is not a one-way street, though. 

Where there are good ideas in the Netherlands, or good ways of working, we will of course adopt these in Germany, too. Knowledge and know-how needs to be distributed across all areas of the organization. Basically, our Vision 2030 applies in all of the countries that we work with. That’s important as it gives us a shared sense of what we are doing. This is particularly important for a cooperative that’s centered around a sense of “us” between farmers and employees.

 

OUR VISION:

We are the first choice for customers for dairy products of natural origins – for always. Dairy products form the basis of our product range. We offer the best selection of dairy products and are expanding into related food and drink segments. We want to be the leading competitor in select strategic markets.

OUR MISSION:

For us, the customer comes first and we keep customizing our offering around that. We optimize our key products to exceed our customers’ expectations. We know how to get the best out of our milk and we stand by our sustainable responsibility. We are responsible for our dairy farmers, our employees and our consumers. We achieve the best possible milk price, create a platform for our employees and produce good products.

OUR VALUES:

Despite all the changes currently underway, our core values are unshakeable. DMK stands for fairness, innovation and entrepreneurial spirit.

We want to live these values, together with our 7,700 employees. We owe it to our farmers to reduce the cost of administration, increase our efficiency by pursuing synergies and aligning our working processes around the world, even if these are carried out in different countries. Because without becoming more international, we cannot be equal to the challenges of the future.