Transcript:
Peter Crosby:
Welcome to Unpacking the Digital Shelf, where we explore brand manufacturing in the digital age.
Peter Crosby:
Hey, everyone. Peter Crosby here from the Digital Shelf Institute. Now in its sixth year and spanning the entire globe, the latest e-commerce organizational Benchmark report from Profitero has hit the digital streets and it is chock-full of insights on best practices in organizational design, capabilities development and retailer brand joint business planning. Andrew Pearl, VP Industry Insights at Profitero, joined Lauren Livak and me to lay out the learnings and describing the next steps you can take to put every pixel to work. So Andrew, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. The kind of research work that you do at Profitero and what you share with the industry is just so important and impactful, so we're loving this conversation.
Andrew Pearl:
Well, Peter, Lauren, thank you so much. Yeah, it's a real pleasure to be here today. First time recording with you. So no, thank you very much and really looking forward to this conversation.
Peter Crosby:
Yeah, you've put out your sixth annual Profitero Benchmark survey, and there's a ton of rich data in there, particularly around organizational design. Especially as e-commerce takes a more bigger role in the success of brands, it has become not just a side project, it is the growth driver. It is impacting a high percentage of offline sales. It really becomes how do you build an organization that supports the integrity and the unity of e-commerce across the whole business? And your report touches on a lot of that, so I'd love you to just tell us, dive into that and tell us how you benchmark those results.
Andrew Pearl:
Yeah, absolutely, Peter. As you say, it's our sixth year and it is a global survey, which is fantastic, where you have great representation across EMEA, APAC, and of course North America. And really, we focus on the e-commerce leaders. We are very fortunate to have a great connection with many of those. We had responses from nearly 300 e-commerce leaders around the world this year. And I think that gave us a real richness of understanding. And it wasn't just the initial survey, it was then follow-up questions. And I know some of those points, we'll really cover today. In terms of what it's aimed for, yeah, absolutely. It is that core benchmarking, and I think it's not just looking at you versus the rest of your industry. Obviously, you can compare it versus your region, and if you want to you can go down to a core vertical.
One thing, I think the real interesting is when you start to look in between, not only year-on-year of course, where are the changes? And again, we'll talk through a lot of these, but I think also about within some of those verticals. And how is, for example, food and beverage compared to health and beauty or home goods or non-edible CPG? And already I think, and this is an interesting conversation we have a lot actually with our clients. You might be talking, actually today I was in the UK, I was with a global grocery brand. And they're very much comparing themselves with the premium beauty side of things. They really want to know how does the beauty sector benchmark themselves? And again, if you look into the data, there are already some really interesting comparisons. I think food and beverage actually, surprisingly, is probably the most bullish out of how they're feeling within leading in terms of e-commerce capabilities and skills and also organizational development.
They're the most advanced in calling themselves, round about a third of them say that they see themselves as leaders within the e-commerce field. I think it's very interesting, probably driven a lot by North America there, obviously with a focus on Amazon. In EMEA and APAC, I guess less so. But you compare that actually with health and beauty, they are almost the most pessimistic. Only about 6% of them actually see themselves as leaders. So really interestingly, benchmarking again, not just year-on-year to see what has changed. And that I think leads onto, I guess, some of our key headlines, but also understanding within each of the benchmarks.
And I think the final thing that has been fascinating this year, which is new for us, absolutely, you say it's about benchmarking sales versus the industry, it's about org structure. But I think one thing really we're focusing on this year is about looking at retailer collaboration. And I think in the past, it has been really, really interesting. Again, with the continued growth coming out of COVID and these tough economic times, it's now more important than ever that brands are really actioning this. And I think there's some great stuff I know we're going to talk about today, about what are the key actions, what are the points of difference that you can differentiate yourself versus your key competitors when it comes to talking with your retail partners? That's a new and exciting one that we've focused on this year.
Lauren Livak:
Can't wait to dive into that one, Andrew, but if we think about those 300 responses, was there any main, headline theme across the board that came up from the benchmarking study?
Andrew Pearl:
Yeah, absolutely, Lauren. I think the key point that's really fascinating, and again this is where the year-on-year progress we've seen, is that e-commerce absolutely is becoming democratized. And that's actually over that relatively short period of time. And what do we mean by that? Well, it means the responsibilities are being shared throughout organizations. So, it's moving away from that very kind of specialized discipline, that all owned and completely run by the e-commerce team, now towards a much more universal one really, which is interesting. And I think if you go back and look at where we were quite a few years ago, you can see in the report, internet marketing, it was very much a bespoke thing. And now, it's just marketing. It has all become democratized and we see that slowly and gradually with e-commerce. I think that has brought about a lot of change.
There has been I think very interesting change in terms of getting the access to greater investment. We actually saw a significant drop, despite all the challenges at the moment with economic headwinds, that actually a drop in challenges coming from securing extra headcount, but also extra budget. Leaders said they were almost 10 and 20% less likely to have come across those challenges. And at the same time, they're actually really ramping up their resources in particular areas. I think probably one of the biggest ones is undoubtedly going to be retail media. That's where the biggest growth. But I think for me, the biggest change or this movement towards democratization is reflected in the change in org structure. And again, it's very, very slow. Still, the majority of organizations are running this structure, kind of two different ways. One is an embedded team, it's a small team and it reports up through one single line of reporting, typically into a sales or marketing VP or heads. Or another one is a sidecar, where you've got multiple functions within one organization.
So, they still make up the majority. They still make up about two thirds of all organizations, but actually the one that's fastest growing is what we call this democratized model. Really, you have those e-commerce roles that are spread across the organization. For example, in your sales, you're not just dealing with offline, you're dealing with online. Same with marketing, same with finance and all those kind of areas. So, it's interesting. It's driving some changes in org structures very, very slowly, but it doesn't mean it's the right thing for everyone. And it's absolutely important you do this really carefully and at the right stages. Yeah, I think that's the key headline. I think the key action from this is how can brands start to really share e-commerce, share the understanding and share the knowledge throughout their organization even if they're not looking to move towards that more democratized structure?
Peter Crosby:
Yeah, we've been talking about this a lot lately. The idea that coming out of a period, particularly driven by COVID but also by the consumer, the proliferation of channels, it created a lot of innovation between brands and retailers to innovate during that period. When the digital shelf became the only shelf, you had to get really good at it or you lost your consumer. And then certainly, the ability to be able to get your product safely caused a lot of innovation in things like curbside pickup or quick commerce, or a lot of these motions that now have to be rationalized as part of the overall business to make sure you can operate it at the lowest cost and the highest profitability. And so it makes sense that embedding it or unifying it across the entire business is the only way to get to those goals of most efficiency and highest profit.
This really resonates with what we've been hearing from a bunch of the DSI members. And so if an organization is trying to imagine what actions they should take to move towards democratization or unification or however you want to describe it, what would be the advice that you would give coming out of the survey? What are the best practices of that you're starting to see?
Andrew Pearl:
Yeah, sure. I think that's a really interesting question, Peter. And I think this is where we got some great, actually direct feedback from many of those leaders that we spoke to because actually, a lot of them were worried. If they're not necessarily running that democratized model yet, they actually talked very openly about fears of doing it too quickly. And I think one of the biggest reasons for that is that their worry is that particularly in categories and probably grocery, I'd say, was one of the clearest here is where maybe e-commerce represents still 10% or maybe even single digit of your total sales. And in reality, if you do it too quickly and give all those responsibilities to sales teams, for example, are they really going to focus on the issue online, on changing content, on negative reviews when actually it's only 6, 7, 8% of their sales? Possibly not.
To answer your question, we asked that question directly of those leaders, what are the key things? And I think there were very much three things that came out of it. The first one is it's all-important, is just have that top-down support. It has got to come directly from the C-suite. We hear from a lot of customers and we know, we talk with some excellent leaders in e-commerce, but they're still struggling to really get that understanding within their organization just because it's not really being supported and pushed down fully right from the very top. Again, just going back to this grocery brand I talked to today, this actually came from a meeting with their CEO, a new CEO they've got in, and he was really keen to really drive an understanding of e-commerce. And it brought together teams that were from the US, UK, Australia, France, many parts of Europe, all in one room to talk about it, all driven by that CEO approach.
That's the first thing, got to have that top-down level approach, and they've got to really champion it throughout their organization. And then of course, it's about getting the right e-comm skills and knowledge embedded into workflows. And this is really tough. This takes time. We got another great example. One of our customers is a global health and beauty client, and over the last 18 months they've really been integrating e-commerce KPIs throughout their organization. So now that everyone, not just the e-comm team, we're talking about sales and marketing and finance, they all have three KPIs, one to do with availability, one to do with search. So for each market, they've got a limited number of search terms and they're all monitoring share of page one and they're seeing if that's increasing and or decreasing. And the final one is content, product content. So, looking at their top priority, just three or four main areas across all of their main brands, are they achieving those?
Now, that's a really interesting one 'cause you might say, "Well, if I'm in sales, how am I going to influence content?" for example. Or, "If I'm in finance, how am I going to influence search?" It's about building that understanding and that, I think, is where the third part, and the third most important criteria has got to be in place. You've got to drive that education throughout your business. So, a lot of focus, what I was talking about today is, why is it important and why are the fundamentals of the digital shelf still absolutely vital? And I've been at Profitero seven years now, and it feels like in some ways change has happened every day, every six months, and some things, everything stays exactly the same.
It's all about getting the basics of the digital shelf right, about maximizing the uplifts that you can get from great search performance, from great content, optimizing all those areas, adding video, and minimizing the negative impacts of poor availability. Like for example, if you're out of stock just for one or two days, actually the negative impacts can last anything up to two weeks. You're losing sales for a lot of that time. And if organizations drive that understanding throughout their organization, particularly people who've never really had to encompass e-commerce before, ones who are more sort of dyed-in-the-wool in-store experts, if you drive that understanding, it can drive great engagement with e-commerce and it makes them realize how important it is.
And I think the final thing is that it actually is a great way of driving competition and improvement between markets. With that one customer I was talking about, every month they're asking us, because they get analyst support, they say, "What's the scorecard? What's my latest scores?" If they're Germany, "How am I doing versus France?" If they're US, "How am I doing versus Canada or Mexico?" It drives that sense of internal competition, and I think that is a key thing.
Peter Crosby:
Yeah, I mean incentives and competition are sort of in the human soul, particularly if you're sales or marketing or any of these folks that are coming to this. And I want to pull on a few threads of the things that you talked about. I too was talking to a CPG executive the other day and one of the things, and maybe this won't be revelation to our audience ... I mean, it's not a ... I've never heard this before, the way it was said, sort of that the value that you're driving for or the best end goal that you're driving for on the digital shelf is AVC, availability, visibility and conversion. And I hadn't heard it quite put that way, and maybe our audience is going, "Well, catch up Peter," but to me, especially the middle one has grown in what those visibility options are with the advent of retail media and things like that, that the disciplines and the education that needs to happen to realize what does visibility look like? What does it look like in the offline environment?
How is the digital shelf showing up there? And then of course conversion. And we think of it like this, you were talking so articulately about it, that the next stage is put every pixel to work, make sure that you are maximizing the value that you're getting out of every consumer exposure to your AVC. Are they able to know they can get it? Are they able to find it or discover it? And then are they able to have the confidence to convert? And that's a continuous cycle of optimization and learning and all of that that we just need to get better and better at to drive the kind of growth and efficiencies that we're looking for. That just resonates with me a ton.
Andrew Pearl:
I love that, Peter, and completely agree. And it actually brings to mind another great example of where democratization can work really, really well. And it is exactly that. Historically, again, we have seen a bit of disconnect, of tension, if you will, sometimes between say marketing teams and teams that organize with search or content because they understand, they probably got the insights to understand what the language, the words that shoppers are using to find their products. And they see through Profitero or their digital shelf provider that they're not performing well in terms of share of page one. And they know that some of the basic, simple things to do is get those keywords in the titles, get it through the backend keywords, all those kind of things that everyone knows very well about.
But then you come across to the marketing team and they go, "Absolutely not. That goes against our brand guidelines." And that battle has always been there, and in a lot of cases always will be. But for an organization, and again, I've worked with them many, many times where they have started to democratize it, so they're bringing the marketing teams in and they've built their understanding, and now they get it. They get it that this particular search term, which is so far away from their brand guidelines, it's a whole different use case for a particular product. In this case, it was a particular kind of beauty cream, but actually that's what shoppers are using it for on a particular retailer. If you understand that, then you can drive. Then they changed the content and actually, it resulted in a whole new product itself. So, it was great. It delivered some new innovation from it. But had they not tried, gone down this democratization path of moving e-commerce away from the core team, the core e-commerce team, that would never have happened.
I think just one extra point. It also is that I've spoken with a few organizations already, and there may be people here, sitting on e-commerce centers of excellence, go, "Okay, what does this mean for me? Does this mean I'm going to lose my job? I'm not important?" And absolutely not. We were very, very clear that always, centers of excellence in organizations will be the bedrock of e-commerce progression in large organizations, because their role is key. It's their role to drive this understanding, to drive the training, to allow best practice sharing.
So yes, we are not saying, again, you should move away from this central theme, the central pillar that owns e-commerce. They always will have a very, very core part to play. But actually, if they can then drive the training, the understanding, the democratization and sharing of responsibility throughout their organization, that's their job. Well, one of their key jobs done, and it's likely to bring about some major benefits as well.
Lauren Livak:
Andrew, everything you're saying, from my past life, it all rings true. And I love what you said about it feels like we've made a lot of progress, but at the same time having a lot of the similar conversations. And I think the two pieces out of what you were talking about that I think is important for the audience to remember is the education and the timing. Just because you're not an embedded organization anymore and you're at the integrated level doesn't mean you don't have to educate anymore. That education of your best practices never goes away. That always has to continue and that thread always has to be pulled through.
And I was having a conversation this week with a brand and they were asking, "How long will it take for me to change my organizational structure?" And that's another thing, that it takes time. It can take a year, it can take two years, it can take three years to get to where you need to go. And I think companies need to understand that that comes with change management and education and every function, including supply chain and legal and regulatory. Everybody needs to be democratized across the board for this to be successful. So everything you're saying, I just was kind of jumping out of my seat here, remembering a lot of what I talked about.
Peter Crosby:
Yeah, and hearing you mention, Andrew, KPIs, which is sort of the foundation to get everyone to know where they ought to focus. And then the incentives have to be aligned to the KPIs. That second piece is, am I going to get paid because of this? What is driving my compensation? And what is driving my career path? Those things have to be integrated into the organizational shift so that you're encouraging the right behaviors, I would think. Is that part of what you also discovered?
Andrew Pearl:
Definitely. And you're both absolutely right and believe me, there is no other, better motivation for wanting to understand e-commerce and digital shelf data than if you are compensated on it. Yeah, completely. And just go back to our last point. I think there are risks as well. You are absolutely right, Lauren. I mentioned that brand. They're taking 18 months to really embed the KPIs and get it done. And that's entirely normal. I've seen brands or manufacturers done a lot quicker, and they're trying to do it in the space of three, six months without the education piece. And therefore, people don't see, people don't want to understand the reason for it. They don't buy into it, and if they don't buy into it, plus they're not able to influence it in any way, how are you ever going to expect them to really engage with it?
So, very, very important you take your time. As I say, get that, just go back to those three points, the top-down approach, embedding it and training are absolutely vital. And I've had conversations with my commercial colleagues on this. I think from a digital shelf point of view, having access to data, unless you have the right people and the right organization to use it, you are almost wasting your investment. I would much rather work with you and get that organization right first, get the people in place who are going to understand it, who use it, who can disseminate it throughout your organization, really drive those actions, rather than don't just buy data for the sake of it because we all have too much data. It's coming from all directions. So yeah, getting that structure, getting the organization in place first is absolutely key. And don't rush it. Make sure it's right for you at the right time.
Lauren Livak:
There's a reason why people, process and technology has people first. I totally agree with you on that. It's a very critical component and I know we could continue down this path for a long time. There's so many different aspects of it, but I'd love to revisit what you were talking about in the beginning of the conversation around retailers and brands partnering together. That is so critical, especially in the wake of the retail media boom that we've seen. Where do you see the point of difference in 2023 and what came out of your benchmarking survey?
Andrew Pearl:
Yeah, it was a fascinating one because as I mentioned, first time for this year, we've actually had this topic in. And I think the first question we asked was what level of involvement do you have when you're talking about JBP, joint business planning? And quite surprised actually, 77% of all organizations said in some way, they're including e-commerce in joint business reviews. Which is good, that's great, right? It has got to be a positive movement forward. However, if you really then dive down into the detail, actually are brands really focusing on it? Over a third of those respondents actually said they're only really doing it very, very sparingly. And it's not really very much part of an ongoing strategy. So, it almost feels like a tick-box exercise. You're having the annual discussions with your buyer and you're talking about e-commerce and you're building some targets, you're getting against it, you are almost certainly putting investment against it.
And it's like one of those things, I know prior to Profitero, I worked about 15 years on brand side, it's like those investments you know aren't going to happen and you're going to have an argument about them at year-end when it comes to any profit gaps. It feels like a bit of a tick-box exercise. In reality, it's only the relative few, about 14% that we saw from our survey, who are specifically including goals, but also budgets and specific requirements for e-commerce within their JBPs. That's one thing, yeah, great to hear that majority of brands are doing it, but don't just skim it. You've got to really go in depth and think, "Okay, what do I want to achieve? What are the goals?" And then that led us on to the next thing. Say, okay, what are these goals? What are these things that brands are aiming for?
And again, it was really interesting, the kind of things that brands or manufacturers are collaborating with retailers. Again, to put it into a couple of groups, I'd say there's those areas, and this is to do with digital shelf management, that are really pretty much just table stakes now. The number one was optimizing e-commerce content. Again, probably not a great surprise to anyone listening to this, but actually nearly three quarters, 72% of all manufacturers are collaborating with retailers in some way in content. And again, if you're not doing something, to be honest, shame on you. It's almost because your competitors are. But another area was of course looking at availability online. And we know with massive supply chain challenges, that has been a big issue over the last two years and continues to be, but at least those conversations are happening.
I think that's interesting. The point of the thing is, though, that just talking about getting more images or adding video or greater enhanced content, great copy, doesn't give you a point of difference anymore. We really wanted to pick out, well, okay, what are those things? Where do we see the opportunities that brands can have to actually have a point of difference in 2023? And I think there were three key areas that came out. The first, and there has been a lot of discussion on this, is about the retailer-specific or almost e-comm specific CatMan projects. And it's still fairly limited. We're having a lot of interest and we know there's a lot of discussion. I'd love to hear any feedback you've had from any of your discussions as well. But things like optimizing websites, so using insight from the likes of Profitero, so understanding how shoppers searched, understanding the importance, to really make sure that they've got the taxonomy right.
The second, and I think probably the biggest opportunity, is really on e-comm first assortment or e-comm only assortment. Now again, I know this is a massive challenge. It's exactly everything that most CPG manufacturers don't want. It's small batches, it's small runs, it's difficult, it's tough, it's consuming, and it's probably expensive, but it's exactly what the retailers are shouting out for. And in a lot of cases, shoppers as well. There's relatively few examples recent. I've seen one recently, great one actually on Amazon in the UK, launched by Ferrero. They launched an Amazon-exclusive bundle with different chocolate bars in that bundle. But understanding, and this is direct, this is all on LinkedIn, so I'm not giving away any trade secrets, but that took about six months to do. These things are time-consuming, they are expensive, but we've seen only about one in four manufacturers are doing it.
And again, I know we know that retailers are calling out for it. That's a great example. It may be tough within your business, but it is going to give you a point of difference. And the final thing, I think it's really interesting, again, like you, we do a lot of understanding about what are the key drivers on the digital shelf? Because every category is different, and retailers are different. And what you can influence and what actually has an impact very much varies. Fairly consistently, one of the biggest impact drivers is product reviews, and the number of reviews and actually therefore, not only how retailers are increasingly using sampling programs to do that, but how you can use that to really drive the numbers.
I think out of the research, it's those three things. With the insight that you have on the digital shelf, how can you drive some real e-comm, CatMan-specific projects with your retail partners? Can you start to think about how you can drive that e-comm first or e-comm only assortment? And how can you make sure you're really driving that loyalty afterwards and driving greater conversion through adding in more ratings and reviews? And again, there are more opportunities coming up with sampling. Again, only about one in four manufacturers are doing that at the moment, so it feels like a big opportunity.
Peter Crosby:
First of all, I very much want DC comics to come out with Catman, 'cause now I'm thinking of a new superhero that's getting more profit.
Andrew Pearl:
It has got to be done. It has got to be done.
Peter Crosby:
And value actually out of e-commerce. It'll be very exciting to the comic book community. The thing that really, there's so much there that stood out to me, but one of the things that I have been hearing from people who are trying to do joint business planning right from the brand side is what they discover is that often, the people who own joint business planning on both sides are largely brick and mortar experts. And because you were talking earlier about the percentage of the direct business that comes out of e-commerce is relatively small, although growing at places, it's hard to wedge in there. And so there's also, I think, as it's always been, the onus on the people who are digitally shabby to be ...
Shabby. Digitally savvy to become educators, not only of your brick and mortar account managers, but probably reaching through to the retailer and doing some education there and pushing for more connection between more of the stakeholders in the joint business planning, so more of that thinking is getting exposed beyond just the core joint business planning meeting. Is that part of what you're seeing these sort of top 14% doing? Does that resonate with you?
Andrew Pearl:
Definitely. And it's fascinating. My background is CatMan, yeah, yet to find this superhero, I'm afraid. It's definitely not me. But yeah, of course, be involved in many major projects and in the in-store environment where you can drive the secondary display options, and it's relatively simple. When you come to talk to retail buyers on e-commerce, even though they themselves are creating their own, omnichannel kind of structure, often comes up against a brick wall. And you are absolutely right, Peter. Education is a key part of this. But of course, insight has got to be the basis of it. Now, I think where we've seen those top 14% gain success is by taking that insight to the buyer, who almost certainly isn't going to be the one to influence it, but that will then open up further conversations. You get to talk to the content team or the search team.
I think one great example is talking with one client, again, a global brand within the bev/al category, and just taking that when you're buying a whiskey, if you go onto any of the specialist retailers that are available, you can search for the finish of the cask, you can search for the history, the provenance, all these kind of things. Whereas you go on a retailer website, it's very functional, it's like alcohol, ABV and all these kind of things. Very, very little actual education and understanding. And so by taking the understanding of what the shoppers are looking for ... If you're going to spend 50, $80 plus ... I'm getting my conversion figures wrong from pounds, but if you're going to spend a lot of money on a good bottle of scotch, you want to understand it. And there's still very much this functional expertise.
Yeah, taking it back to the retailers. Now, are you going to influence them directly? Are they going to suddenly open up a whole nother filtering opportunities? No, but there's going to be one or two little snippets from that that they might add in one of, so actually now, you can filter on cask finish. And if there's that one thing that you achieved, then that's a step forward. It's all about little, incremental steps and getting those small changes. We know particularly within CBG and particularly within grocery, getting those changes done are hard to do. Easy to talk about hard to do, but if you start approaching, yes, going back to the old cliché of test and learn, but I think there is many categories are crying out for expertise in e-category management, and that e-CatMan superhero is just waiting because again, the industry is still learning on this. They're understanding what they can influence, and it's relatively small.
Peter Crosby:
And I think like you said, bring data to the table because that is the common denominator that can spark a conversation, and then everyone has to let go of their dug-in positions or prejudices or whatever, or even fear of imposter syndrome. Like, "This isn't an area I understand, so I'm not going to talk about it." Data creates the space for conversation that might not otherwise exist. I love that.
Lauren Livak:
And I've also seen that a lot of organizations, if they put it in their strategic business plan and they put e-commerce as a critical part of their business, part of their growth, really invested in their overall commercial goals, then it's helpful to trickle down to JBP. And it's not just a checkbox because from that top-down aspect in the three to five year strategic plan, e-commerce is a part of it. That means it has to be a part of your JBP. So, also something to think about for organizations who maybe haven't taken it from that JBP level to the strategic planning level, that's another place to add it in, so it's not just the check the box exercise. And I don't know if you've seen something similar, Andrew?
Andrew Pearl:
Yeah, yeah, I couldn't agree more, Lauren. Yeah. Yes, again, that's where it's taking that long-term approach to it. It's not just saying, "Oh, we want to change these titles," and you know it's never going to happen. It's about thinking, what are those two or three key category projects? And it may start with the retailer taxonomy. It may be about adding in extra capabilities in content or research or changing something, but having those throughout the year. I think the final thing I would say, though, is that all of this will fail if you don't do the basics right. And more important than ever within e-commerce, you've got to earn your place at the table. And if you don't get the basic execution right of the digital shelf, so if you're not driving great content, if you're not meeting or exceeding the benchmarks for images and all the other areas you can do, if you're not driving, in general, good availability and ratings and reviews, then you're unlikely to get it.
So yes, absolutely right, it has got to be data driven. It has got to be insight driven. You've got to take a strategic approach and think about those two or three projects, but you've got to deliver on what you say. You've got to get the basics of the digital shelf right. And with all this, it's great to talk. I love talking about strategic things. I'll always bring it back right to the very beginning again. Focus on the basics of the digital shelf first. That has just got to happen. And I think thankfully, the message is getting through. We've seen from our survey, 50% of all organizations now are monitoring the digital shelf on a regular basis. That still leaves a whole half of the population who aren't, so there's still some work to be done, but I think that message is getting through. Unless you can get the basics right, then you can't really earn the right to talk about more strategic areas.
Peter Crosby:
Put every pixel to work, babies. That's what I'm saying. Speaking of the data, we want to make sure we're able to provide to our audience the ability to get their hands on that Benchmark report. So, get your pens and paper ready. I'm going to read out a URL. It has got a few slashes in it, so everyone, I'm giving you a minute to pick up your phone or remember a pen? They're a thing with nub on the end that ink comes out of. So, you can get that report at profitero.com/report/benchmark-2022. Say that again, profitero.com/report/benchmark-2022. I'm also sure that a search on some number of those words on the Google machine will probably get you where you need to be, but if for some reason you can't find it, reach out to Andrew on LinkedIn, or certainly to Lauren on LinkedIn or me on LinkedIn, and we'll make sure you get it. But it will also be in our show notes. Andrew, thank you so much for coming on and sparking this conversation with killer data, and congratulations on the breadth and depth of this survey. It's really impressive.
Andrew Pearl:
Well thank you, Peter, Lauren, thank you so much for the invitation. It has been a real pleasure talking with you. And yeah, look forward to seeing progress over the next year.
Peter Crosby:
Thanks again to Andrew Pearl for bringing the data. Again, the full report is available at a profitero.com/report/benchmark-2022. With a scoop on everything coming out of the DSI, swing on over to digitalshelfinstitute.org and click that Become a Member button. Thanks for being part of our community.
