Item 1. Business.
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Item 1. Business.
The Procter & Gamble Company (the Company) is focused on providing branded products of superior quality and value to improve the lives of the world's consumers, now and for generations to come. The Company was incorporated in Ohio in 1905, having first been established as a New Jersey corporation in 1890, and was built from a business founded in Cincinnati in 1837 by William Procter and James Gamble.
Additional information required by this item is incorporated herein by reference to Management's Discussion and Analysis (MD&A); and Notes 1 and 2 to our Consolidated Financial Statements. Unless the context indicates otherwise, the terms "Company," "P&G," "we," "our" or "us" as used herein refer to The Procter & Gamble Company (the registrant) and its subsidiaries. Throughout this Form 10-K, we incorporate by reference information from other documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
The Company's Annual Report on Form 10-K, quarterly reports on Form 10-Q and current reports on Form 8-K, and amendments thereto, are filed electronically with the SEC. The SEC maintains an internet site that contains these reports at: www.sec.gov. Reports can also be accessed through links from our website at: www.pginvestor.com. P&G includes the website link solely as a textual reference and the information on our website is not incorporated by reference into this report.
Copies of these reports are also available, without charge, by contacting EQ Shareowner Services, 1100 Centre Pointe Curve, Suite 101, Mendota, MN 55120-4100.
Financial Information about Segments
Information about our reportable segments can be found in the MD&A and Note 2 to our Consolidated Financial Statements.
Narrative Description of Business
Business Model. Our business model is built to deliver balanced top- and bottom-line growth and value creation. We rely on the continued growth and success of existing brands and products, as well as the creation of new innovative products and brands. We offer products in markets and industry segments that are highly competitive. Our products are sold in approximately 180 countries and territories through numerous channels as well as direct-to-consumer. Our growth strategy is to deliver meaningful and noticeable superiority across five key vectors of our consumer proposition - product performance, packaging, brand communication, retail execution and consumer and customer value. We use our research and development (R&D) and consumer insights to provide superior products and packaging. We utilize our marketing and online presence to deliver superior brand messaging to our consumers. We partner with our customers to deliver superior retail execution, both in-store and online. In conjunction with the above vectors, we provide superior value to consumers and our retail customers in each price tier in which we compete. Productivity improvement is also critical to delivering our objectives of balanced top- and bottom-line growth and value creation.
Key Product Categories. Information on key product categories can be found in the MD&A and Note 2 to our Consolidated Financial Statements.
Key Customers. Our customers include mass merchandisers, e-commerce (including social commerce) channels, grocery stores, membership club stores, drug stores, department stores, distributors, wholesalers, specialty beauty stores (including airport duty-free stores), high-frequency stores, pharmacies, electronics stores and professional channels. We also sell direct to consumers. Sales to Walmart Inc. and its affiliates represent approximately 15% of our total sales in 2023, 2022 and 2021. No other customer represents more than 10% of our total sales. Our top ten customers accounted for 40% of our total net sales in 2023 and 39% in 2022 and 2021.
Sources and Availability of Materials. Almost all of the raw and packaging materials used by the Company are purchased from third parties, some of whom are single-source suppliers. We produce certain raw materials, primarily chemicals, for further use in the manufacturing process. In addition, fuel, natural gas and derivative products are important commodities consumed in our manufacturing processes and in the transportation of input materials and finished products. The prices we pay for materials and other commodities are subject to fluctuation. When prices for these items change, we may or may not pass the change to our customers. The Company purchases a substantial variety of other raw and packaging materials, none of which are material to our business taken as a whole.
Trademarks and Patents. We own or have licenses under patents and registered trademarks, which are used in connection with our activity in all businesses. Some of these patents or licenses cover significant product formulation and processes used to manufacture our products. The trademarks are important to the overall marketing and branding of our products. All major trademarks in each business are registered. In part, our success can be attributed to the existence and continued protection of these trademarks, patents and licenses.
Competitive Condition. The markets in which our products are sold are highly competitive. Our products compete against similar products from many large and small companies, including well-known global competitors. In many of the markets and industry segments in which we sell our products, we compete against other branded products as well as retailers' private-label brands. We are well positioned in the industry segments and markets in which we operate, often holding a leadership or significant market share position. We support our products with advertising, promotions and other marketing vehicles to build awareness and trial of our brands and products in conjunction with our sales force. We believe this combination provides the
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most efficient method of marketing for these types of products. Product quality, performance, value and packaging are also important differentiating factors.
Government Regulation. Our Company is subject to a wide variety of laws and regulations across the countries in which we do business. In the United States, many of our products and manufacturing operations are subject to one or more federal or state regulatory agencies, including the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) and the Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC). We are also subject to anti-corruption laws and regulations, such as the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and antitrust and competition laws and regulations that govern our dealings with suppliers, customers, competitors and government officials.
In addition, many foreign jurisdictions in which we do business have regulations and regulatory bodies that govern similar aspects of our operations and products, in some cases to an even more significant degree. We are also subject to expanding laws and regulations related to environmental protection and other sustainability-related matters, non-financial reporting and diligence, labor and employment, trade, taxation and data privacy and protection, including the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and similar regulations in states within the United States and in countries around the world.
The Company has in place compliance programs and internal and external experts to help guide our business in complying with these and other existing laws and regulations that apply to us around the globe; and we have made, and plan to continue making, necessary expenditures for compliance with these laws and regulations. We also expect that our many suppliers, consultants and other third parties working on our behalf share our commitment to compliance, and we have policies and procedures in place to manage these relationships, though they inherently involve a lesser degree of control over operations and governance. We do not expect that the Company’s expenditures for compliance with current government regulations, including current environmental regulations, will have a material effect on our total capital expenditures, earnings or competitive position in fiscal year 2024 as compared to prior periods.
Human Capital. Our employees are a key source of competitive advantage. Their actions, guided by our Purpose, Values and Principles (PVPs), are critical to the long-term success of our business. We aim to retain our talented employees by offering competitive compensation and benefits, strong career development and a respectful and inclusive culture that provides equal opportunity for all.
Our Board of Directors, through the Compensation and Leadership Development Committee (C&LD Committee), provides oversight of the Company’s policies and strategy relating to talent including diversity, equality and inclusion as well as the Company’s compensation principles and practices. The C&LD Committee also evaluates and approves the Company’s compensation plans, policies and programs applicable to our senior executives.
Employees
As of June 30, 2023, the Company had approximately 107,000 employees, an increase of 1% versus the prior year due primarily to business growth. The total number of employees is an estimate of total Company employees excluding interns, co-ops, contractors and employees of joint ventures. 49% of our employees are in manufacturing roles and 27% of our employees are located in the United States. 41% of our global employees are women and 30% of our U.S. employees identify as multicultural.
Training and Development
We focus on attracting, developing and retaining skilled and diverse talent, both from universities and the broader market. We recruit from among the best universities across markets in which we compete and are generally able to select from the top talent. We focus on developing our employees by providing a variety of job experiences, training programs and skill development opportunities. Given our develop-from-within model for staffing most of our senior leadership positions, it is particularly important for us to ensure holistic growth and full engagement of our employees.
Diversity, Equality and Inclusion
As a consumer products company, we believe that it is important for our workforce to reflect the diversity of our consumers worldwide. We also seek to foster an inclusive work environment where each individual can bring their authentic self, which helps drive innovation and enables us to better serve our consumers. We aspire to achieve equal gender representation globally and at key management and leadership levels. Within the U.S. workforce, our aspiration is to achieve 40% multicultural representation overall as well as at management and leadership levels.
Compensation and Benefits
Market-competitive compensation and reward programs are critical elements of our employee value equation to attract and retain the best talent. Our total rewards programs are based on the principles of paying for performance, paying competitively versus peer companies that we compete with for talent in the marketplace and focusing on long-term success through a combination of short-term and long-term incentive programs. We also offer competitive benefit programs, including retirement plans and health insurance in line with local country practices with flexibility to accommodate the needs of a diverse workforce.
Sustainability. Environmental sustainability is integrated into our business strategy to offer consumers irresistibly superior products that are more sustainable. Our aim is to deliver balanced top- and bottom-line growth, value creation and key sustainability objectives. In 2021, the Company announced a 2040 net zero ambition and published a Climate Transition Action
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Plan, which describes the Company’s ongoing efforts toward reducing greenhouse gas emissions across scopes 1 and 2 and elements of scope 3. This includes a long-term objective of net zero emissions for scopes 1 and 2, elements of scope 3 and interim goals to help us pace our progress. The Company has also declared goals towards using renewable electricity for our operations, reducing use of virgin petroleum-based plastic in packaging, increasing the recyclability or reusability of packaging, responsible sourcing of key forest-based commodities, improving efficiency of water usage in our operations and driving a global portfolio of water restoration projects to address water scarcity.
We use the standards and guidelines of the Global Reporting Initiative, Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) industry specific standards and the Task Force on Climate-related Financial Disclosures (TCFD) to inform our sustainability and related disclosures included in this Annual Report, our Proxy Statement and our sustainability reports. The “materiality” thresholds in those standards and guidelines may differ from the concept of “materiality” for purposes of the federal securities laws and disclosures required by the Commission’s rules in this Annual Report. References to our sustainability reports and website are for informational purposes only and neither the sustainability reports nor the other information on our website is incorporated by reference into this Annual Report on Form 10-K. Additional detailed information on our sustainability efforts can be found on our website at https://pginvestor.com/esg.
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