Senior Director of Enterprise Platforms (ERP & Supply Chain)
Ecolab
Ecolab is a publicly traded fortune 500 (#293) global enterprise headquartered in St. Paul, MN, that generates over $14B in annual revenue and employs nearly 50,000 people worldwide. With sustainability and R&D at its core today, Ecolab is a highly sophisticated enterprise that designs, develops, and produces a wide variety of industrial and household cleaning and sanitizing products, systems, and services. It also develops and offers services, technology, and systems that treat, purify, and clean water across a wide variety of applications. Maintaining an extraordinary 100-year legacy and history of monumental growth and success, Ecolab was founded in 1923 by Minnesota-native, Merritt Osborn, initially as "Economics Laboratory", producing a single carpet cleaning solution called Absorbit. Osborn was a sales person by trade, but relentlessly pursued innovation in the cleaning and sanitizing category, setting the tone for the organization's next 100 years of invention and engineering excellence. The company went public in the 1950's, allowing for major globalization and continued scaling efforts, followed by extensive organic and inorganic growth inclusive of many major multi-million and multi-billion dollar acquisitions, including its most significant to-date, Nalco Water ($8B). More recently, Ecolab's executive team defined a 2030 strategic growth and impact plan centered on continued sustainability, water conservation, pollution and illness prevention, and DE&I advancement. Ecolab's CEO (Christophe Beck) and executive team understand that major investments into technology innovation are crucial to achieving its meaningful goals, and are now particularly focused on supply chain transformation given the challenges and opportunities that exist in today's modern global economy.
A Foundation you can build on
Getting a sense of the foundation that has been built prior to your arrival offers a lens through which you can see where your career may go.
Ecolab's Enterprise Structure
Ecolab develops and provides products and services in the field of water, hygiene, and energy, and it operates through 3 main segments: Global Industrial, Global Institutional & Healthcare, and Global Life Sciences. The Global Industrial segment consists of the water, food and beverage, paper, and downstream operating segments. It offers water treatment and process applications, and cleaning and sanitizing solutions to industrial customers within the manufacturing, food and beverage processing, transportation, chemical, primary metals and mining, power generation, pulp and paper, commercial laundry, global petroleum, and petrochemical industries. The Global Institutional & Healthcare segment consists of the institutional, specialty and healthcare operating units. It provides cleaning and sanitizing products to the foodservice, hospitality, lodging, healthcare, government, education, and retail industries. The Global Life Sciences segment includes some healthcare and life sciences operations. It provides cleaning and sanitizing products to personal care and pharmaceutical industries.
History
Ecolab (formerly Economics Laboratory) was founded in Minnesota by Merritt Osborn in 1923 on the foundation of a single carpet cleaning product called Absorbit. Through the 1920's and 1930's, Merritt grew his product portfolio by focusing on sustainable dishware cleaning solutions including "Soilax", a patented solution developed by a U of MN student and acquired by Merritt in 1924. As Ecolab's customers discovered Soilax worked significantly better than ordinary soap in the mechanical dishwashers that restaurants were now using in this time period, the business took off and continued innovating and inventing solutions aligned with dishware washing, restaurant cleaning and sanitization, and even residential home care, introducing new products nearly every year through 1930's, focusing on diversification and innovation during the Great Depression when sales were stifled. This led to explosive growth of Ecolab's business through the 1940's and 50's, ultimately leading to its IPO in 1957. Ecolab's IPO fueled major national and global expansion, which included several important acquisitions over the next 30 years. In 2011, Ecolab acquired Nalco for $5.4B, nearly doubling the overall size of the enterprise and adding to its interest in diversification and sustainability impact.
Industry
Ecolab is a powerhouse in the overarching industrial cleaning, sanitization, hygiene management, and water treatment industry on a global scale. A major component of its competitive advantage is that it not only produces incredibly high quality products, but it offers targeted and tailored services as well employing and deploying over 25,000 field associates who partner directly with customers in their facilities, providing personalized consultation and service. These experts employ a rigorous process to gather data, apply advanced technology, rethink processes, and provide solutions to address Ecolab's customers’ unique economic, social, and environmental challenges. What also really pushes Ecolab to standout is that it is one of few solution providers in the category whose 1,200+ on-staff scientists and R&D professionals have figured out how to balance unparalleled levels of quality and effectiveness with environmental friendliness within the product development process, an untouchable combination.
Scale
Ecolab's scale is very large, employing nearly 50,000 people serving customers and partners in 170 countries across the globe, and generating over $14B in annual revenue. The firm holds 9080 patents, proof of its culture centered on innovation. More important, Ecolab is leveraging its massive scale to do massive "good" in the world. To date this year, Ecolab has helped customers conserve 206 billion gallons of water, helped provide high-quality and safe food to over 1.4 billion people, helped clean 55 billion hands, and has helped customers reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 3.4 million metric tons.
Our Take On Ecolab's Values
Consultative Approach
One of Ecolab's greatest competitive advantages is that it not only produces incredibly high quality and effective products, but it also employs over 25,000 field agents across its global footprint who engage directly with clients in a truly consultative way offering "services" in assisting those clients to make more sound and impactful product buying and utilization decisions.
Bettering Our World
In addition to driving shareholder value, Ecolab is very serious about positively impacting our planet. It has put forth a highly intentional and specific "Impact Plan" which highlights specific 2030 goals centered on protecting human beings and our resources that are vital to living good lives. The company maintains a sincere interest in bettering our planet.
Invention
From Ecolab's very beginnings nearly 100 years ago, innovation and invention have been at the core of the company's growth and success. Today, Ecolab employs thousands of scientists, R&D professionals, and technologists who are constantly ideating on the future of health and cleanliness on a global scale.
