The $24 Billion Procurement Challenge: Inside Kimberly-Clark’s Kenvue Integration

When Kimberly-Clark acquired Kenvue, it created one of the largest procurement integration challenges in recent corporate history. The question is whether the combined organization can capture value o

Kimberly-Clark’s acquisition of Kenvue, the former Johnson & Johnson consumer health spinoff, closed with relatively little fanfare in the business press. Wall Street focused on synergies and market positioning. Analysts debated strategic rationale and shareholder value.

But inside procurement circles, a different conversation emerged. The deal created a procurement integration challenge of staggering scale. Two organizations. 820 procurement professionals. $22 billion in combined spend. An estimated 40,000 suppliers. Two enterprise systems. Two cultures. Two chief procurement officers.

Panos Anastasiou at McCain Foods analyzed the complexity recently on LinkedIn and his assessment reveals why mergers and acquisitions represent both the greatest opportunity and the greatest risk for procurement transformation.

The Numbers Tell the Story

Kimberly-Clark entered the deal with 400 procurement professionals managing $13 billion in spend across 30,000 suppliers. The organization runs on Coupa and Taulia for procurement technology.

Kenvue brought 420 procurement professionals managing $9 billion in spend across an estimated 10,000 to 15,000 suppliers. The company uses SAP Ariba. The workforce includes legacy employees from Johnson & Johnson plus new hires brought in post-spinoff.

Combined, the new organization employs approximately 820 procurement professionals managing $22 to $24 billion in spend across roughly 40,000 suppliers. On paper, the scale creates opportunity for leverage. In reality, the integration creates massive complexity.

The companies operate in adjacent but distinct categories. Kenvue purchases active pharmaceutical ingredients for consumer health products. Kimberly-Clark buys pulp, fiber, and stretch film for diapers and personal care products. Category overlap is limited. Supplier ecosystems barely touch.

This makes integration harder, not easier. Consolidation opportunities require deeper analysis. Systems cannot simply merge. Processes do not naturally align.

The Early Wins

Eugene Theodore, who works in strategic creative and insights, asked where the biggest early wins could come from: culture alignment, system harmonization, or supplier consolidation?

Anastasiou’s answer was unambiguous. “The biggest early wins will always be the easy tactical ones and will come from spend and supplier consolidation.”

He outlined two immediate opportunities. The next time the organization negotiates a big contract, it likely has more suppliers than needed and more spend to direct to fewer players versus the aggregate supply base. More volume equals more leverage equals higher discounts or price reduction.

The next competitive bids, e-auctions, or reverse auctions will bring more value. More players from both organizations vying for a bigger pie.

These incremental savings should fund the acquisition business case while the organization works longer-term people and process benefits in parallel.

This pragmatic approach reflects procurement reality. Leadership needs quick wins to justify integration costs. Supplier consolidation delivers visible results faster than culture change or system integration.

But the quick wins create their own problems. Consolidated suppliers gain more leverage. Competition decreases. The organization trades short-term savings for long-term dependency.

The Systems Nightmare

Technology integration represents one of the most expensive and risky elements of the merger. Kenvue runs SAP Ariba. Kimberly-Clark uses Coupa and Taulia. Both platforms handle procure-to-pay and source-to-pay processes. Both contain years of master data, taxonomies, hierarchies, and spend categories.

None of it aligns.

Kenvue’s data structure reflects pharmaceutical and consumer health categories. Kimberly-Clark’s structure reflects consumer packaged goods and personal care. The taxonomies are fundamentally different because the businesses are fundamentally different.

Someone must decide which system survives. Or whether to implement an entirely new platform. Or whether to run parallel systems indefinitely.

Each option costs tens of millions of dollars. Each option takes years to execute. Each option disrupts operations during transition.

Meanwhile, procurement professionals need to work. Requisitions must be approved. Purchase orders must be issued. Invoices must be processed. The business cannot pause for systems integration.

This creates the worst scenario. Integration projects drain resources while day-to-day work continues under pressure. Technical debt accumulates. Workarounds proliferate. Data quality degrades.

The organizations will also need to address various sub-procurement processes and tools. Keelvar for sourcing optimization. Taulia for supply chain finance. ServiceNow for workflow management. Each tool represents another integration decision. Each decision creates winners and losers among employees who invested time learning specific platforms.

The People Problem

Boris Borozan raised an additional dimension. Operating model design. Specifically how the combined function will balance global category management versus local market enablement.

He emphasized the culture challenge. “Getting two procurement teams to think beyond cost and toward shared value creation will be key.”

Anastasiou acknowledged familiarity with how one organization operates but not the other. “Global categories versus regional buyers versus local people in plants, site buyers and the like. You can’t have everything and the something you have needs to work for your footprint, your capability curve, your systems and processes and so forth. Now getting two different organizations together and getting it right. That’s one real challenge right there.”

The challenge extends beyond operating model. The merger created workforce redundancies. Two CPOs. Two category management teams. Two supplier relationship management functions. Two analytics teams. Two training organizations.

Standard merger logic suggests eliminating duplication. But which people do you keep? Kimberly-Clark’s experienced professionals who know the business? Or Kenvue’s newer hires who bring fresh perspectives?

The integration will encompass widely varying skills, locations, and experiences. Different employee grades. Different titles. Different responsibility splits. Managing this diverse workforce will be crucial, especially considering potential attrition.

High performers always have options. The uncertainty and workload increases that accompany mergers drive voluntary turnover. The organization risks losing the people it most needs to retain.

The Supplier Dilemma

Peter Hewett, who works in procurement and supply chain transformation, posed a question that often gets overlooked. “Imagine how the Suppliers feel. Who’s thinking about them?”

Anastasiou acknowledged the excellent point. He hoped both CPO offices had communicated with suppliers regarding upcoming changes and what comes next.

He outlined divergent supplier experiences. Some direct suppliers of raw materials, packaging, and ingredients are unique to one organization but not the other. These suppliers have meaningful spend and diverse product portfolios. They see an opportunity to grow.

However, for many smaller suppliers, particularly in indirect categories or generic tail spend, the merger represents more threat than opportunity. Consolidation efforts will eliminate vendors. Volume will shift to preferred suppliers. Contracts will be renegotiated with less favorable terms.

Supplier communication during mergers is notoriously poor. Organizations focus on internal integration and neglect external relationships. Suppliers receive conflicting messages from different buyer teams. Uncertainty about future business creates service disruptions. Payment terms change without warning.

The suppliers that survive consolidation often face worse outcomes than those eliminated quickly. Increased volume without increased pricing power. More demanding service requirements. Longer payment terms as finance teams extract working capital improvements.

The Broader Integration Challenge

Beyond the immediate procurement concerns, the merger requires aligning ESG goals, meeting SBTI climate targets, and harmonizing third-party risk management programs. Each area represents complex workstreams with external reporting requirements and stakeholder expectations.

The organization must also decide innovation pipelines. Which product launches get priority? Which R&D programs continue? Which supplier development initiatives survive?

Anastasiou suggested the ideal approach. “If you’re the CPO, ideally you’d like to start from the end-design, on a whiteboard and walk back to current state. See what you have too much of and too little.”

This outside-in design thinking makes theoretical sense. Determine the target state. Identify gaps. Build a roadmap.

Reality works differently. Politics determines outcomes more than logic. Integration decisions favor power bases, not optimal structures. Quick wins take priority over long-term design. Urgent problems consume capacity that should focus on important work.

The integration will take years. Some elements will never fully merge. The organizations will find equilibrium somewhere between full integration and parallel operations.

What Procurement Can Learn

The Kimberly-Clark Kenvue integration offers lessons for any organization facing merger integration.

Quick wins matter. Leadership needs visible results to justify integration costs. Supplier consolidation and category leverage deliver measurable savings faster than structural changes. Capture those wins early to build credibility and fund longer-term transformation.

Technology decisions cannot wait. Delaying systems integration creates compounding problems. Choose a platform. Build a migration plan. Execute quickly. Parallel systems drain resources and create data silos that get harder to fix over time.

People determine success. Technical integration plans fail if you lose critical talent. Communicate transparently. Provide clarity on roles and career paths. Accept that some attrition is inevitable but work to retain high performers.

Suppliers need attention. Poor supplier communication creates service disruptions and relationship damage that takes years to repair. Designate clear supplier contacts. Communicate changes proactively. Honor existing commitments while negotiating future terms.

Operating model drives everything. Global versus local. Centralized versus decentralized. Category management versus cross-functional teams. These structural decisions shape how the organization functions. Make them deliberately and early.

Culture cannot be mandated. Two organizations with different histories, systems, and approaches will not blend simply because leadership declares a new culture. Integration requires patience, consistency, and genuine respect for what each organization brings.

Most importantly, procurement transformations fail more often than they succeed. The difference between success and failure is not complexity management. The difference is leadership that can navigate politics, make tough decisions, and maintain momentum through years of difficult change.

The Kimberly-Clark Kenvue integration will serve as a case study. Either an example of how to capture merger value through strategic procurement transformation. Or a cautionary tale about complexity overwhelming capability.

The numbers suggest massive opportunity. The history suggests caution. The outcome remains unwritten.

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