Tuesday, November 23, 2021

What is your current role?

I'm the Global eCommerce Digital Shelf Excellence Lead. My job is to ensure our brands have the best possible presence across eCommerce Platforms. One of my key focuses is integrating eCommerce into our brand strategies. We want to craft a seamless consumer journeys that leverage eRetail media, and great eCommerce brand content to grow sales. As you'd imagine there's a lot that goes on behind the scenes to make this happen. It's a global role, and I work closely with our local market eCommerce leads, and with my global colleagues in Marketing, Consumer Experience, IBS, and Insights and Analytics. I also lead our global Digital Commerce capability program to upskill the organization on eCommerce. We're a big company, and there's a lot of people to train! This year we've launched 15 playbooks, trained over 3000 people, and launched a podcast. Next year we will really scale this up.

How has your career developed at MDLZ?

I have had amazing career development opportunities at Mondelēz. I have moved across functions and geographies and have grown with each new challenge. I started my Mondelēz journey in the UK Category Development team, working on Tesco, and then on Co-op (the UK's biggest convenience retailer). I led the co-creation of category and format snacking strategies with these retailers and spent 9 weeks working with Tesco in their merchandising center. After a few years in Category Development I was ready for a new challenge and moved into front line Sales. I joined the UK eCommerce team to manage pure play customer Ocado. I managed the full Mondelēz range and got to learn the ropes in Sales and eCommerce. In Jan 2020 I took a big leap and moved to Singapore to lead Shopper Insights and eCommerce for South East Asia. Juggling Shopper Insights, and eCommerce through the pandemic was tough, but the best learning experience of my career to date. Thankfully it paid off as in January this year I moved into my current role in the Global eCommerce team.

What makes e-commerce at MDLZ so exciting?

You never get bored in eCommerce! Digital Commerce is constantly evolving, keeping you on your toes. The pace of change means you have to be swift, agile, and entrepreneurial to succeed in eCommerce. I love to learn, and I find this constant state of flux exciting. I love the breadth of eCommerce, it touches all aspects of our business. One minute you’re a Marketer, the next you're Sales, Consumer Experience, IBS, Supply Chain, finance etc. It's fantastic broad business experience that set's you up well to be a future business leader. We have amazing brands at Mondelēz, and many of them are category leaders. We get to be the change makers, carving the path to how consumers buy our products through digital. Digital Commerce is the future, and in the eCommerce team we get to be on that cutting edge of it.

How do you see the future of e-commerce develop at MDLZ?

I am confident that eCommerce will become an increasingly large, and strategically important part of our business. As eCommerce continues to scale, we will need to become more integrated with the rest of the business. eCommerce needs to be everyone's job! Gazing into my crystal ball I see the eCommerce landscape shifting. Last Milers (or Quick Commerce) are growing very fast, as they satisfy consumer demand for super-fast delivery. Our Mondelēz websites e.g. oreo.com, are another exciting area that allow us to unlock incremental consumption occasions. I think we will alsosee more competition between eCommerce platforms. We've seen the incredible rise of Pinduoduo in China, and I've currently got my eye on Shopee who started in South East Asia and are now expanding globally. Watch out Amazon and Alibaba! Omnichannel retailers are getting smarter, and I think we'll see seamless hybrid retail models that could also be quite disruptive. Lots of exciting developments to watch!

What is your view on working from home, a hybrid model and the way MDLZ handles this?

Even pre pandemic I have always found Mondelēz very flexible on where you work from. Everyone has different needs, and I believe Mondelēz is fantastic at accommodating them on an individual basis. We are trusted and have autonomy to work from wherever works best for us. Currently I'm working from home a lot as my global role involves early morning, and late-night calls. Working from home allows me to manage my schedule better. I enjoy coming into the office to meet colleagues, so I will do a couple of days in the office each week.

How can e-commerce help MDLZ to become even more sustainable?

One important area is optimising our packaging. Our products typically come with an inner (a shelf ready case of product e.g. 10 chocolate blocks ), and an outer (a big box of cases). If product is picked from a warehouse the shelf packaging becomes redundant. We the need big box, but the inner packaging becomes waste. We also need to be mindful that ship to home fulfillment can generate more packaging to protect product. Designing our eCommerce packs with sustainability in mind is important.