Creating A Global Approach to Omnichannel Execution Excellence with Local Control, with Vivian Valks, Global eCommerce Acceleration Manager at Arla Foods

Transcript

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Peter Crosby (00:00):

Welcome to unpacking the Digital Shelf where we explore brand manufacturing in the digital age. Hey everyone. Peter Crosby here from the Digital Shelf Institute. After a decade of rapid growth and experimentation, e-commerce for many is moving into a more mature phase. While, of course, still being incredibly dynamic. Many companies are finding that the new opportunities for category growth lie in establishing the best practices for omnichannel execution, and then scaling those capabilities while adapting it to each local market. Vivian Valks's global e-commerce acceleration manager at Arla Foods has been at the front lines of that e-commerce growth curve at Mondelez and at Arla Foods. Now she's leading their efforts to level up their omnichannel execution, driving a cross-functional process across global teams and in every market designed to improve the consumer's omnichannel shopping journey and drive better results. She joined Lauren Livak Gilbert and me to lay it all out. Vivian, welcome to the podcast. We're so delighted to have you on. Thank you so much.

Vivian Valks (01:15):

No worries. Thanks for having me.

Peter Crosby (01:17):

So you have over a decade of e-commerce experience. I've seen a lot connecting the dots between departments in your organization and you've been in multiple different functions across that spectrum from global to local to shopper marketing, and particularly sort of compelling right now as you're working on a project at Arla Foods on improving omnichannel execution there. And we'd love to just dive right into that and hear how it came about and what you're working on.

Vivian Valks (01:49):

Yeah, of course. And I guess it's probably good to zoom out a little bit first, right? I mean, about a year ago now, we started doing a couple of really big projects internally of which one was around content. Well, basically rolling out a new content vision. And the second one is that we rolled out a digital retail media framework. And I guess both of those projects really helped us step change what we did on the digital shelf. It almost organically led into a discussion which we had internally around omnichannel execution. I mean, long story short, when I was asked to lead in the omnichannel execution work stream, I mean it was for me a no brainer, right? It's kind of part in our internal organization from a NextGen marketing perspective. So it stands for Next Generation Marketing. And when the discussion came up, it made only sense for me to invest my time into it. I kind of worked out a plan together with the team on, okay, what does that then look like and how do we actually want to approach omnichannel moving forward? So that's kind of where we started. And then from there, it's been evolving.

Peter Crosby (03:09):

Oh my gosh, I have so many questions. So first I'd love to one next gen marketing. It does feel like we are at an inflection point in the marketing practices and execution and strategies that you need to be good at in order to reach consumers and to influence them and all of that. And I'd love just to the degree you can share what's driving that overall initiative and is it sort of driven around that kind of just all the shifts in how we need to connect with consumers? Yeah, I'd love to just get,

Vivian Valks (03:53):

Yeah, it's perfect, and I think it's a multi dollar question. I think in general, NextGen marketing for me goes way beyond me in that sense. It's much bigger. It is led by our transformation team in general. And as part of that omnichannel execution is kind of one of the software extremes related to that. And that's where I kind of come in and where, of course the digital world is super relevant because as e-commerce or digital experts, we are often driving that omnichannel transformation because it's almost like the missing link to the traditional organization in order to facilitate the transformation.

Lauren Livak Gilbert (04:34):

And Vivian, so from where you sit now in the role that you have, did you have just a digital focus or are you the one that's kind of like quarterbacking omnichannel across the organization? And what if someone is listening to this and they're trying to build out an omnichannel team, how would you try to explain how you got to this point?

Vivian Valks (04:57):

Yeah, I think how we went about it is indeed, and this is where I was saying before, it's almost like an organic evolution. I mean, if you're setting out guidance and some new visions around e-commerce or digital shelf kind of strategies, for me it goes hand in hand. But approaching it more from a category perspective, and that rolls into having conversations with cross-functional departments. So that's really how it started. It started from setting out a content vision where I felt the urge to connect with the marketing department, which then led into conversations with the next gen marketing team, which led into conversations into digital retail media, et cetera. So for me, that's really the enabler. Start reaching out to your cross-functional colleagues in the business, show them the they're not too familiar with and the kind of longer term vision you have, because that for me was the big enabler to get this off the ground.

Peter Crosby (06:06):

I hear the sound of crumbling silos. I love that sound. I know we do.

Vivian Valks (06:16):

It's not rocket science is it? But again, not easy though. It's definitely key to success.

Peter Crosby (06:23):

Sorry, go ahead, Laura.

Lauren Livak Gilbert (06:24):

I was just going to say, so you talked about some of those cross-functional partners, and then as you're going through this project and you're working with your cross-functional partners, how are you actually measuring success of the project and just the program overall for you and for each of those teams that are dedicating time to the initiative?

Vivian Valks (06:42):

Yeah, I guess the key to success is a combination of a couple of different pillars. So one is I think you need someone to lead the project who has a big passion for it, because I mean, it's often on top of everyone's day job anyway. So you've got someone who keeps on investing time and energy into it to streamline the whole thing. Then on top of that, you need a truly cross-functional team to be part of it, because otherwise you end up thinking again in your own little silo. So it's important to make sure the people you gather around, you have different areas of expertise which they bring, because in that way, you can really almost break through the kind of tunnel vision other people might have. And I think, but with any project or good project management skills, it's like having a clear plan, being realistic as well about it and including proper approval and feedback loops into it.

Lauren Livak Gilbert (07:47):

And do you have specific metrics around the number of projects that you've kicked off with the number of people involved? Is there any tangible metric that you're using to help measure that outside of the cross-functional collab?

Vivian Valks (08:01):

In all other theater transparency, I would say it's a journey for us as well. So I mean, we are learning on the go, so we're adapting as well. And I think that's what you need to be able to do because I can guarantee you that if you start off a project like that a couple of months down the line, the plan needs to be adjusted. And I think you need to have that agility and that flexibility in order to be successful. So that goes the same with the KPIs. They might be fine tuned over time. So I mean, I think one of the other, and it's not so much a hard KPI, but it's more on the approach around it. How do I say? I think the risk is if you kick off a project like this, which usually happens on a global perspective, is that you kind of lose the connection to the local businesses. So what we've done as well in the work stream is we made a combination or we tried to have the right balance between having global people, but also local people. Because I mean, in a more mature organization, the KPIs are going to be different versus less mature organization or business. So it is constantly about adapting and making sure it's almost fit for purpose no matter where in the journey you are.

Peter Crosby (09:25):

I'd love to know, and I don if you have it off the top of your head, but whatever sort of strategy paper you put together for this, is there a way in which at the top of it sort of said what you wanted your outcome to be? Like, what transformation should look or feel like either to Arla Foods folks and outcomes or to what the consumer or your customers should feel? Is there an easy way to describe that? I know it's probably complex, but

Vivian Valks (09:55):

Yeah, and I guess without giving too much away, I guess it starts with having a clear objective internally. I mean, that's what we started from. What is the objective? What is the key challenge? From there, we identified a couple of key deliverables going from thought leadership into tools and executional purposes, but also including capability building. So those three almost deliverables were extract, if you could say so of the objective and the challenges we are facing. And that kind of set for us the foundation in order to, one, put the team together, but also work out the actual action plan on the back of it.

Lauren Livak Gilbert (10:39):

And Vivian, you talked about the global local relationship, which anybody who's listening knows there's a level of complexity to the global and the local relationship because you're activating in the region, but you still have the global team. Can you talk about how that relationship works in the org and how it can benefit an omnichannel operations project like this, having both a global and a local place in the project, if that makes sense.

Vivian Valks (11:09):

And this goes layer per layer, I would say. So there's different elements to an omnichannel, having an omnichannel approach, which probably requires slightly different perspective. So to give a bit of examples, I would say from a capability building perspective, I think you can most likely tackle it from a global perspective, but then adapt it slightly to local nuances to bring in really examples, et cetera. But if you're talking about budgets, indeed, like there's processes on a local level usually, which really needs to be considered. So I mean, you can set out this global way of working or a process, but of course it needs to be kind of tacked on to the timelines and the whole processes you have locally. So yes, it's not a simple project, it involves a lot of stakeholder management, it involves a lot of sense, checking, gathering, feedback, testing it out. So yes, it's how we usually start is we set out a vision which is sense checked and already inputted by local, but then you've got to do a pilot, for example, to see if this actually works, generate the feedback and revise, et cetera.

Peter Crosby (12:31):

So when I think about what you're talking about here, and I was thinking of the teams that you talk to, marketing, digital media, brand marketing, shopper marketing, agency management, and then you have the people across the categories and all that. It sort of leads me to what we've been working with you on recently with the DSI and TPG, the ECAP man

Vivian Valks (12:57):

Research

Peter Crosby (12:58):

That we did category management. And I wondered if that's, that's sort of one of those places of upskilling that you are thinking about that's going to fold into omnichannel excellence. And so I'd love for you to describe because you contributed meaningfully to the report and we're super grateful of that. And I would love your perspective on this kind of relatively new practice. They've been doing category management forever, ever on the in-store side, but it really is somewhat the same, but a lot of difference on the e-commerce side. So I'd just love your perspective on that piece of opportunity that you've been seeing at Arla.

Vivian Valks (13:42):

Yeah, that's a great question. I think in essence, I mean category management is in essence, the objective is not different from traditional category management. You want to grow the category because that's in the end how you drive sustainable growth, in my opinion, how that becomes or turns into really real life examples, that's where it really is different just because the e-commerce shopper journey is so different from the traditional shopper journey if you have a look at them in isolation. And that's also where there's of course, different type of projects which are linked to ecap man versus traditional capman. Just to give a couple of examples, if you look at e-commerce content, that is something we approach from a category perspective. Think about the protein category. We've done research on understanding what is more important for a shopper in terms of the communication and those insights is what we then utilize in order to kind of optimize our e-commerce content.

(14:54):

But it goes into all sorts of different key drivers or KPIs from a digital shelf. So it goes into search. I mean, if you search for butter, you're expecting butter, I'm assuming, right? But what happens? Yeah, right. I mean it is a no brainer. But what happens if a shopper then suddenly sees peanut butter? Yeah, I mean, it's a category story to have or to be had with your customer or your retailer in order to see, okay, I get it that the algorithm is picking it up like this, but from a category perspective, it doesn't make sense. The shopper is not expecting it. What can we do about it? And those are such basic and vital conversations, I would say to have. And that for me all sits under category management from a digital shelf

Lauren Livak Gilbert (15:42):

Perspective. And Vivian, one of the things I loved that you talked about when we were doing the e catman research was your taxonomy reviews and how you actually built out a plan for your regions to understand how they could go through those conversations with the retailers. Can you touch on that a bit? Because I thought that was a unique approach for catman.

Vivian Valks (16:01):

Yeah, yeah. So I think when you look at customer requests out there, when it comes to ecamen, I think most companies will be known with this, is that it always goes into like, okay, is the category structure the right one is the space planning, right? It's on the digital shelf. You can do the same. And that's what we refer to as taxonomy reviews. So there's a couple of different layers within that going from how is the actual menu on the website structured to are products like Juul site on site in the right categories is again to that search example, are the right products actually showing up when the shopper is searching? I mean, I could go home for a little while, but there's so many different layers to taxonomy reviews, which I think is important to have a few from when you're talking about your own categories and also have those conversations with your retailers.

(17:02):

So what we did internally is indeed we kind of tried to help our local teams who have less experience in this space to set out a, that's what we call the taxonomy review guide, but it's really like if you drill it down, it's a step by step guide on this is the approach you should be taking. This is the kind of information data points you should be looking into. And even if a market, for example, wouldn't have the funds or the data requirements to do a proper analysis available, we put in suggestions on how they could go about it to still make it work. And that goes back to what we were talking about at the beginning and the different maturities of different markets. There's no point for me to set out a guide is not adaptable or actionable by local markets if they're in a different maturity level. So we always try to go back to the drawing board and say, okay, if you don't have any data available, what can you still do? And that's what the guide really goes into on those different levels.

Peter Crosby (18:09):

When I think about category growth that you've been talking about, it feels like, and I love your perspective on this, it feels like category growth, particularly in a future AI agent led mission, shopping driven, here's my question, give me my two answers kind of thing, that more and more category growth is going to be getting more and more granular in terms of the kinds of consumer missions or the questions or the niches that might want to buy your product. And in some sense, stealing them away from your competitors. Because I mean, the number of human beings in the world that are having eating protein bars is finite. And so what can change is can you get them the one that's right for them as quickly as possible? Does that sort of line up with your thought about getting better and better at taxonomy and at the way in which you can search on products?

Vivian Valks (19:27):

Yeah, I think in a way it does. I think the real reason I would say why we would be looking into it for me is around removing the friction for shoppers and making sure they're able to find what they're looking for, where in store they're familiar with the path they need to walk. I mean, they often go to the same store anyway, so they kind of know where they're going online. This is different and it's per retailer different, almost like I would set up. And I also think if your product on the digital shelf, it's just easier to get lost in the massive amount of assortment which is available there.

(20:13):

So there's a couple of elements in it, I guess One is the findability. So through taxonomy reviews, you can be easily found in the right categories, but then it's also about the whole range analysis around it. And that goes back to my peanut butter example of being present in a butter category. I can guarantee you shopper is not looking for peanut butter when they're searching for butter. So I think it goes back to, again, having that out zoomed view of what is right from a shopper perspective. Because I mean, there's hundreds of studies out there which prove that if you have a journey online with less friction, it's driving conversion and therefore it's also driving category growth. So it's not so much about stealing it away from others, it's really about making it so useful for a shopper that they don't get distracted or they go to another retailer because they like the user interface better.

Lauren Livak Gilbert (21:18):

And I think the key there, Vivian, that I want to call out, and you said it before, is that's a collaboration with the brand and the retailer. Brands need to have these conversations with the retailers so that they can change the taxonomy on their website, how they're thinking about the category. And all of this is connected to those joint business planning conversations where you can bring these insights to the table. And that's why ecamen is so important. So I just think that connection needs to be made for brands and retailers to have those joint conversations. A

Vivian Valks (21:46):

Hundred percent. I couldn't agree more. I think it's all about the collaboration and the co-creation of these kinds of things. So it's about starting the conversation early out. I mean, understanding also the challenges from the retailer because I mean, if you understand the challenges from their perspective and you kind of combine it with your own challenges, that's kind of how you, I think, find the balance between the two worlds and can find how you really drive category growth.

Peter Crosby (22:14):

And that is what is so cool about this piece that you've contributed to that the DSI and TPG have put it out. And so I would be remiss in my role as mc of this little show, if I didn't ask Lauren the report itself. And then you folks have recently done with Vivian as well as others a webinar on it, where is the best place to go on the DSI site to find those assets?

Lauren Livak Gilbert (22:41):

If you go to digital shelf institute.org and click on resources, it's on the top row. The report is there, the webinar is there live. So you can view all of that. If you can't find it, you just have to type it in the search bar, ECAP van, and it'll come right up.

Peter Crosby (22:56):

Search works, who knew? We love it. And also,

Lauren Livak Gilbert (22:59):

Am I making a note? We also did a report on joint business planning. So a second plug if you want to see how you can incorporate this into those conversations, you can search for JVP in the resources section and see how you can utilize that as well.

Peter Crosby (23:14):

There. My work here is done.

Lauren Livak Gilbert (23:16):

I love it. So Vivian, we chatted a bit about agentic search and using AI agents and things like that. How are you thinking about infusing AI into your strategy to be able to scale a lot of these things that you're talking about?

Vivian Valks (23:33):

Yeah, that's a bloody good question, right? I guess mean that's the end goal, making life easier. And I think AI definitely is a key enabler for that. I mean, within ala, we do quite a bit actually on it. It started basically with ALA rolling out their own Arla GPT system internally. And that kind of got us thinking with an e-commerce at least in terms of, okay, what can we do in order to make our lives easier? And we started off using all A GPT to optimize our content on the digital shelf. From there, we kind of rolled into, okay, can we then do some more pilots and test and learn? So we started looking into how can we create content like visual content through ai, which is of course one of those topics everyone really wants to engage with, but it's proven to be still pretty difficult. So we kind of found, I believe, a middle way of utilizing it. So we finalized our first pilot in the Dutch markets fairly recently, and we are now actually doing some pilots on actual content testing linked to it.

(24:51):

And that's all a result of our test and learn playground. So we have this program internally where we kind of inspire and the e-commerce community to do tests and learns ai. We kind of integrated as one of those pillars eventually, but we also soon realized that actually it's way bigger than that. So even though we kicked off these pilots and we kind of started testing the grounds on it, we also said, okay, we've got to probably take it to the next level and broaden this up a little bit. And that's when we came up with our AI lab, which we're rolling out at a minute, which is super exciting, and it's meant to also bring cross-functional departments together. It's meant to share insights across the business as well as within the e-comm community. So it's a lot of exciting stuff happening. And I mean, we could probably make a whole podcast episode all this topic in isolation, but,

Lauren Livak Gilbert (25:54):

And Vivian, where does ownership of something like an AI lab sit in the organization? Because I know everybody's trying to figure out how to incorporate ai, but is that owned by a certain team or function? How have you set that up in your org?

Vivian Valks (26:08):

Yeah, I guess what we are trying to do with an e-comm, we are really powering that in our community, but we've kind of opened it up for other departments, so it's not necessarily owned by e-comm, but it's definitely opening conversations across the business. And then of course, we've got a digital board who is actually owning this kind of stuff.

Peter Crosby (26:32):

Because obviously, first of all, what you just rattled off in terms of how your company is leaning into this is so impressive.

(26:43):

We've talked to a lot of folks in the industry that are, and rightfully so in a lot of ways, are wary of it, are concerned about its potential legal and compliance issues. Is it accurate, is it not? And understandably that those worries have made them more tentative about investing in it. And so I see little experiments happening, but this kind of, what I imagine is sort of a strategic, and you tell me executive level, we are going to figure this out and we'll take our time, but we're going to invest in it. That to me seems like a real connection of executives IT data. I'm sure all of your analytics folks, all these folks need to be involved. You're chief legal officer, right?

Vivian Valks (27:42):

Yeah.

Peter Crosby (27:42):

And I'm wondering if that's how it's coming, that it's both top down and kind of bottom up sort of.

Vivian Valks (27:49):

Yeah, I guess it's both indeed. So all GPT definitely is more a top down approach, whereas the AI lab is more bottom up approach because I guess what happens is people get excited about ai. I mean, so you kind of jump on a train, which is you can't stop. So we also saw the urge of creating playbooks, but in our community specifically on eComm, for example, on sharing limitations and risks, because if people get excited and they want to start trialing things, I mean, you can't oversee everything. So that's why we said, okay, we need to speed up what we are doing in terms of providing global guidance within e-comm to show what you can and cannot do. And that's kind of like how it all accelerated. And I mean, that's also why we are in an accelerated team, hence the name. I mean, I'm making my case, but yeah, so that's kind of how it all happens. And in order to do that, you need to be entrepreneurial and you need to be agile, I would say. So that's a specific mindset, but I guess most of the folks within e-commerce or digital commerce, they usually have that kind of personality or mindset. So yeah, that's why you often see it happening within that apartment first.

Peter Crosby (29:11):

I love it. I just think it's so impressive. And to close out, I'd love to just ask you kind of a career pathing question. You've been in the scrum of elbow throwing, I'm going to make e-commerce from scratch, and you've run the business, right? Well, you know what I mean. You've had daily KPIs of this is why I need to drive here. You've done the work there and now you're in a global role where, and both are entrepreneurial in a really crazy way, but require adding way more, not way more skills, but such different skills to be able to do the global role. And I'm just wondering how you think about that in terms of do you miss the daily I am in this market and I'm doing this thing, or I'm in this role and I'm doing this thing, or I dunno, just to what degree I'm surprising you with this question, but I would just love your thoughts. Okay, no worries. Don't worry.

Vivian Valks (30:15):

I love development questions anyway because I'm a big, big believer of personal development, which I guess is also sentiment to my own career path to date. But yeah, to answer your question, I think, well, one, I'm personally very entrepreneurial. I used to have my own business before I went into the FMCG, so I guess that's just something which is still very close to my heart and why it's kind of getting into my day-to-day work as well. But I also think for me to be successful in a global role, you've got to have local experience because that's the only way how you can properly envision yourself on what is required for the local teams. And that's the only way how you can help, really help them support them on the long term. It's about staying close. And if you're asking me if I'm missing the local day-to-day, I've very consciously chosen to use all the local experience I've gained over the last years to kind of help people accelerate in this space. And that's just because I love to see other people grow and I love also to inspire people in that way. So for me, it all kind of came together in this role. And yeah, the fact that Ally is also then allowing me to still pave the way and enable transformations like an omnichannel transformation internally, it's the right mix for me at least.

Peter Crosby (31:52):

I love it. And I know, and Lauren can testify to this, we are so grateful that you've brought that energy to the DSI. It's people like you that come and share their expertise. Lauren sat in the seat. I've never been anywhere near the seat. So to have somebody that's coming in and sharing that and being on the podcast, we're just super grateful and really happy to partner with you on this stuff.

Vivian Valks (32:21):

No worries. Totally. Likewise. I mean, I dunno, I'm very Dutch at it sounds like you get a bit of aish, right? It's been a pleasure being on the podcast and contributing to the research and stuff like that. So yeah, happy to help.

Lauren Livak Gilbert (32:39):

And we truly got connected through the DSI because you reached out through an email I sent out to the community, so it works. So I really does appreciate you participating and being a part of the DSI and sharing all of your thoughts on all of our different channels. So thank you so much, Vivian.

Peter Crosby (32:55):

Thanks Vivian.

Lauren Livak Gilbert (32:56):

No worries. Thank you.

Peter Crosby (32:58):

Thanks again to Vivian for sharing our's. Work with us more. Great inspiration and smart people are coming together live at the Digital Shelf Summit in April in New Orleans. You should be one of them. More info at digitalshelfsummit.com. Thanks for being part of our community.