Company: CL
Filing Date: 2025-02-13
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0000021665-25-000008
Chunk: 83

Company: COLGATE PALMOLIVE CO
Filing Date: 2025-02-13
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1A
Chunk 83
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 could adversely affect our business, results of operations, cash flows and financial condition. See “Our business results are impacted by our ability to manage disruptions in our global supply chain and/or key office facilities” above for additional information.

There is no guarantee that our ongoing efforts to reduce costs will be successful.

One way that we generate funds needed to support the growth of our business is through our continuous, Company-wide initiatives to lower costs and increase effective asset utilization, which we refer to as our funding-the-growth initiatives. These initiatives are designed to reduce costs associated with direct materials, indirect expenses, distribution and logistics, and advertising and promotional materials, among other things. The achievement of our funding-the-growth goals depends on our ability to successfully identify and realize additional savings opportunities. Events and circumstances, such as financial or strategic difficulties, delays and unexpected costs may occur that could result in our not realizing any or all of the anticipated benefits or our not realizing the anticipated benefits on our expected timetable. If we are unable to realize the anticipated savings of our funding-the-growth initiatives, our ability to fund other initiatives and achieve our profitability goals may be adversely affected. Any failure to implement our funding-the-growth initiatives in accordance with our expectations could adversely affect our business, results of operations, cash flows and financial condition. For additional information regarding our funding-the-growth initiatives, refer to Part II, Item 7 “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations – Executive Overview.”

A cybersecurity incident, data breach or a failure of key technology systems could adversely impact our business.

We rely extensively on information and operational technology systems (“IT/OT Systems”), some of which are managed, hosted, provided and/or used by third parties, including cloud-based service providers, and their vendors, in order to conduct our business. Our uses of these systems include, but are not limited to:

•communicating within our company and with other parties, including our customers, suppliers and consumers;

•ordering and managing materials from suppliers;

•converting materials to finished products;

•receiving and processing orders from, shipping products to and invoicing our customers, suppliers and consumers;

•marketing products to consumers;

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•collecting, storing, transferring and/or processing customer, consumer, employee, vendor, investor and other stakeholder information and personal data, including, but not limited to, such data from residents of states, countries and regions with comprehensive data protection laws and regulations;

•processing transactions, including but not limited to employee payroll, employee and retiree benefits and