KEVIN O ’ MARAH
TECHNOLOGY
An initial pilot with a major retailer in Mexico significantly increased on-shelf availability , resulting in improved in-store execution to better serve Unilever consumers and drive strong category sales growth . The programme is now being rolled out globally across 30 of its largest modern trade customers in less than 18 months .
Juan Carlos continues : “ As we continue to virtualise our end-to-end operations , we intend to create a fully-integrated digital ecosystem where different ‘ actors ’ – our supply chain team , operational hubs , customers , sensors and digital agents – can transact and interact . Fostering collaboration , efficiency and resilience remains our priority as we drive our world class supply chain towards more autonomous operations in the future .”
A human + machine approach Zero100 ’ s report highlights Unilever ’ s path towards building teams where humans and machines collaborate closely .
As noted by Juan Carlos , who spearheaded the transformation , having autonomous operations does not mean without human intervention .
“ We ’ re moving into an environment of industry-leading operational excellence where meaningful portions of the work are being automated , guided by people ,” he says .
“ It ’ s an opportunity . We ’ re freeing up people to focus on more strategic , value -adding activities . The technology does the heavy lifting of what has historically been more repetitive tasks , so the quality of the human work shows up in more impactful and creative ways .”
“ Unilever envisioned an operations metaverse where the machines do the work guided by the people ”
KEVIN O ’ MARAH , CO-FOUNDER AND CHIEF RESEARCH OFFICER , ZERO100
KEVIN O ’ MARAH
TITLE : CO-FOUNDER AND CHIEF RESEARCH OFFICER
COMPANY : ZERO100
INDUSTRY : RESEARCH AND ADVISORY
Kevin O ’ Marah is Co-Founder and Chief Research Officer at Zero100 . He can count Oracle , Amazon and Gartner as former employers and is credited with creating the latter ’ s esteemed Supply Chain Top 25 .
148 February 2025