Strategic Choices: Ethical Challenges, Value Creation And Supply Market Opportunities

Can you describe a situation where you had to make a difficult decision that involved balancing financial considerations with ethical considerations? How did you approach and resolve the situation while ensuring both the organisation’s interests and ethical standards were upheld?
Discontinue a business line, with a consequence of shutting down a factory in the peak of a challenging economy that will impact 100+ employees & their families, but from the business side, the category had a major struggle as the portfolio was phasing out from the market.
The action was to have a company-wide volunteer separation to pool the same headcount across all manufacturing sites & design a rotation plan for all employees to ensure knowledge transfer in key critical roles.
This led to proceeding with the business decision with the least impact on the employees.

What are the opportunities for value creation in a disrupted supply market?
E2E collaboration & transparency

• Customer to Supplier to provide visibility on market dynamics, demand shifts or portfolio changes (volume, price points, products…etc)
• Supplier to Customer: Deliveries, expected shortages, and any SKU changes required

What emerging trends or technologies have the potential to impact the field of procurement and supply chain management? How do you stay updated on these advancements?
The main opportunity in technology is integrating Supply Chain Extension software to ERP, e.g.:

• Demand management & forecasting
• Shipment tracking & transportation management
• Industry 4.0 to address manufacturing efficiency

Staying updated is through:

• Frequent connection with industry leaders/ suppliers
• Connection with peers in other companies
• Conference attendance (Virtual & In-Person)
• Newsletters

---

Khaled is experienced supply chain leader with more than 20 years of experience across the Middle East, he held various roles in Manufacturing, Planning & Supply Strategy with Mars, PepsiCo and Leoni, currently, he is in Americana as Egypt Supply Chain Senior Director since 2021, working to consolidate all companies under One Americana Food.