x
READY TO BECOME A MEMBER?
Stay up to date on the digital shelf.
x
THANK YOU!
READY TO BECOME A MEMBER?
THANK YOU!
“Ecommerce is a lot about nitty-gritty details. So, keep it simple both in the way you provide education and in the way you will offer this service and this education platform to your employees.” — Antoine Borde, Global Ecommerce Director, Danone
When it comes to winning on the digital shelf, companies often focus on tools and technologies, but people and processes deserve just as much attention.
Danone, a multinational consumer packaged goods (CPG) brand, realized this early on, as the company focused on ecommerce education and upskilling its workforce as a part of its holistic ecommerce strategy.
Danone collaborated with Circus Street, an online training provider, to ensure it delivered impactful, engaging training that drove measurable results and improved the company’s ecommerce performance and efficiency.
Antoine Borde, Danone’s global ecommerce director, and Ian Jentgen, senior vice president at Circus Street, joined a recent episode of the “Unpacking the Digital Shelf” podcast, “Global Digital and Ecommerce Education at Scale,” to share why training should be an integral part of driving ecommerce growth — and how Danone successfully scaled ecommerce education within its organization.
Ecommerce is transforming nearly every facet of brand manufacturers’ operations. Brands that want to remain relevant, be competitive, and drive growth can’t think of ecommerce as just a passing fad.
Borde says as a CPG, Danone wasn’t naturally a company that was very ecommerce-driven, so it needed to adapt.
“You need to adapt the types of clients you're going to work with. You need to adapt where you supply your products and you need to understand that these consumer behavior shifts also will impact our business. [Ecommerce] requires that we [adapt] in a very consistent manner and in a very standardized manner,” Borde says.
Danone was focused on ensuring core ecommerce employees and the cross-functional teams that support them all had the same level of understanding and knowledge. This principle guided the company’s upskilling plan.
“[Training was important] not only to shift the mindset and the culture internally at the top executive levels, but also to ensure that in the markets and in each of the functions, there was some common understanding of what ecommerce stands for, where do we need to play, and what are the key elements that we need to drive to win ecommerce for Danone,” Borde says.
Danone had several compelling business reasons to focus on upskilling its workforce.
Though ecommerce only accounts for 9% of its total business, it accounts for 30% of Danone’s growth. Borde says ecommerce is critical to the company’s future and to increasing the penetration and distribution of Danone’s products globally, especially in emerging markets.
Retailers are becoming more omnichannel, so Danone had to move in this direction, as well.
“They have understood very early on that ecommerce will be a phenomenon that is here to stay, which means they are adapting their business model to it,” Borde says. “They're starting to find new revenue streams around ecommerce, data, media, and supply chain services, and we need to also strengthen our game to have this level of conversation with our traditional retailers.”
Danone wanted to upskill its teams on the fundamentals of ecommerce, omnichannel commerce, creating product content, and driving sales on Amazon.
The company didn’t embark on its upskilling plan alone. It worked with Circus Street to create a scalable training program focused on creating relevant, engaging content for employees that could be rolled out relatively quickly.
Circus Street, which works with global chief marketing officers (CMOs), sales leaders, ecommerce directors, and other digital marketing professionals, was the perfect training partner for Danone. Borde says Circus Street’s online training format and platform, as well as its omnichannel and digital marketing-focused content, made it the best fit.
Jentgen, senior vice president at Circus Street, says Circus Street starts its work with clients by looking at “the current disposition around learning within the organization” — and then works with company leaders and key stakeholders to identify which training approach will make the most sense culturally for the organization.
Training can take many forms depending on the company. This can include distinct learning plans with tailored content for a particular functional team or videos featuring executive leaders that will be integrated into the training content.
“The question that we're always looking to answer is, ‘Can we ensure that the learners and users on our platform are looking at the learning as true enablement and that it's time invested that's going to help them do their job in a more compelling way and reach their shared objectives’,” Jentgen says.
Before launching its training program, Danone used surveys to benchmark current ecommerce knowledge within its organization. It then worked with Circus Street to develop training that filled any knowledge gaps.
Danone conducted training in phases by gradually making more lessons available to avoid overwhelming employees. It also targeted training to certain teams at different times, starting with its ecommerce team, then moving on to sales and marketing.
“If you start giving access very broadly without giving any guidance, people might be a bit lost,” Borde says.
Danone also relied on gamification to spur competition. Teams that were really active and completed the most lessons at certain points throughout the year could win prizes.
“We used those techniques and tactics to have gamification and higher engagement than just rolling out a simple plan saying, ‘You need to take the lessons and you have six months to do it’,” Borde says.
Borde admits that there was some pushback on the training because employees worried about not having time in their workday to complete it. Danone also was undergoing a global restructuring at the same time, so employees were concerned about whether the training actually would be relevant to them in their future role.
Borde says leadership buy-in and engagement were critical to overcoming these challenges.
“Nigyar Makhmudova, the chief growth officer for Danone, really was the one driving this and engaging the executive committee of Danone to really be the advocate and sponsor for this training,” Borde says.
Nominating select team members to create a sense of scarcity and curiosity around the program also drove engagement.
“Immediately, you have a reaction from the organization. ‘Well, I want to be in’ and you get this cool thing of people really wanting to be onboarded into the upskilling program — and actually it worked,” Borde says.
However, all this excitement would have dissipated if the training content was lackluster or if the platform just created more friction for employees. “The good thing is that the platform is very good. The content is great, so the buzz started to generate thanks to that,” Borde says.
“If you're sitting within a cross-functional team, whether that's in supply chain, HR, or procurement, those teams are now required to upskill around the foundations of ecommerce.” — Ian Jentgen, Senior Vice President, Circus Street
Danone has capitalized on its upskilling program to improve its ecommerce operations.
“When we were rolling out and we did the pre-learning and post-learning assessment, we could see very clearly the [change in] perception, but also the operational improvements that the teams were able to make on their ecommerce pages, ecommerce search ranking, ecommerce ratings and reviews, and understanding of omnichannel and Amazon," Borde says.
Danone is currently working with Circus Street to roll out new training modules focused more widely on digital education.
As changes happen in ecommerce, Danone will continue to provide the learning and skills employees need to help the company win at ecommerce.
Jentgen adds that it's important for companies not just to train one functional team, but to upskill their entire organization. This can lay the groundwork for ecommerce success.
If Borde was giving any advice to other brands about how to successfully upskill their teams, he says he’d tell them to keep it simple.
“Ecommerce is a lot about nitty-gritty details. So, keep it simple both in the way you provide education and in the way you will offer this service and this education platform to your employees,” Borde says. “But also keep it simple in the way they will use this information and knowledge to implement it in their daily work, because if they see the impact, then immediately they will reconnect that with the added value that the learning plan had.”
For more details on how to develop global digital and ecommerce education at scale, check out the rest of this episode of "Unpacking the Digital Shelf."
