In terms of IT strategy, Kimberly-Clark’s global CIO, Manoj Kumbhat, makes one thing very clear: this multinational is taking a digital transformation business approach.
The B2C and B2B retailer of branded personal care products and professional healthcare products such as Kleenex handkerchiefs, Scott paper towels and Huggies diapers has been making a big push of hybrid clouds lately, with a Snowflake data lake, a “consumer “. 360 “platform and a number of native cloud and SaaS applications aimed at increasing revenue from consumer channels and giant retail customers alike.
But for Kumbhat, it is the business that drives the IT agenda, not the other way around.
“We’re smart in the cloud, not first in the cloud,” he says. “We actually led the business transformation, and then we did a migration to the cloud as part of it.”
It may seem like a subtle distinction, but as Kumbhat points out, offering digital capabilities like revenue growth management and what he calls “consumer-inspired innovation” to drive business transformation makes all the difference.
“So many companies started with a transformation in the cloud and then selectively drove business transformation. With this approach, IT is driving change and then everyone has to follow it and maybe it’s not the key priority for the company.” , says Kumbhat, who has held the global CIO position at Kimberly-Clark for nearly four years and was one of four finalists for this year’s MIT Sloan CIO Leadership Award.
Instead of jumping into the cloud to force business transformation, Kumbhat and his team “really looked at the value case and made sure we didn’t add a huge cost to moving to the cloud. We’re being smart about it,” he says. on the company’s cloud strategy, which focuses in part around its direct business to the consumer.
“We built what we call business transformation that had everything to do with the front end of our business, which touches the consumer and the customer,” Kumbhat says. “We have completely transformed our front-end capabilities to drive front-line growth.”
Kimberly-Clark’s other major customer segment, B2B2C retail partners, including Wal-Mart and Target, is the other focus of its business transformation.
Leveraging AWS and Azure, Kimberly-Clark was able to refine retail revenue growth management and optimize pricing promotions with partners to maximize front-line growth, he says.
“We use a combination of technologies to create what can traditionally be thought of as a‘ consumer 360, ’” says Kumbhat, referring to a sales and support strategy that aggregates company-wide data to provide a unique vision and complete customer.
The blueprint for business transformation
Kimberly-Clark began her transformation journey in 2017 with a major restructuring that included layoffs and a migration to major robotic process automation (RPA) platforms. To see also : Business Intelligence – how New York’s jets and their corporate partners have evolved. Kimberly-Cark’s move to RPA was very comprehensive, Kumbhat says, adding that automation of the supply chain and financial operations meant hundreds of millions of dollars in savings.
For example, as a major manufacturer, Kimberly-Clark occasionally receives fraudulent complaints from distributors that were often paid for due to lack of tools to detect errors and automate decision making. RPA has fixed this, says Kumbhat.
“Through the restructuring of the process and the implementation of RPA, we actually reduced the outflow to our distributors and improved the management of false claims, because we used to receive many of these,” he notes.
But RPA tools and rules-based automation can only get you this far, Kumbhat says. At some point, “you need to apply AI and machine learning to further improve processing accuracy,” he says, adding that Kimberly-Clark is making that effort as part of a smart automation unit.
Crucial to the company’s business transformation have been several enterprise-wide IT initiatives aimed at building a connected, data-driven supply chain and a “digital core transformation,” in addition to the company’s deployment. RPA, AI and hybrid cloud technologies, he said.
Kumbhat says the company is consolidating five different ERP packages into its five business units in a new single deployment of SAP ERP in Azure, Kumbhat says, and is improving its data analytics capabilities to create a higher level of intimacy with the consumer and the customer, through a customer data platform. (CDP) which provides information on consumer spending patterns.
“Data is at the heart of everything we do,” Kumbhat says. “We have also generated some significant benefits due to process mining tools.”
Kimberly-Clark is also being “removed” from the outdated supply chain and other enterprise process platforms that are used internally in favor of the best native SaaS cloud solutions for purchasing, analytics, and transportation management, e.g. .
Driving change
Still, no transformation, business or otherwise, can be successful without earning the people involved, especially employees and consumers, Kumbhat points out. See the article : How to Establish a Clear Competitive Advantage (and Make Your Business an Attractive Acquisition Target).
The global CIO, whose IT budget is approximately $ 450 million, has the support of the company’s C-suite and has worked with its IT department, which includes 1,200 full-time employees and more of 3,000 contractors, to adopt the platform portfolio and create 14. “Digital Activators”, including cloud, user experience, agility, team talent, AI / ML, DevOps and API platforms.
All of this points to a key mission of Kumbhat: to oversee change management to ensure that all employees are in tune with the company’s transformation mission.
“All facets of our business are being transformed, so it is important not to forget the value creation aspect. My goal is to make sure we don’t forget the people element of change and that the organization is prepared for change management, ”says the global IOC.“ We need to make sure that sequencing and prioritization be right because we could have all these digital capabilities and we want it to come in a way that is useful to the business, without disrupting the business goals. ”
And those goals focus on enhancing privacy with all segments of Kimberly-Clark customers, from home consumers to Wal-Mart executives. Technology is simply the means to the end, says Kumbhat.
“It’s the disruptive digital that really is nothing more than building the one-on-one relationship with the consumer through personalized content,” he says.
The term “digital transformation” refers to the process of adopting digital technologies. A digital transformation strategy can help organizations achieve several goals, such as: Improving business processes and productivity across the organization. Provide a better user experience and employee involvement.
What are the most important steps in developing a long term plan to deliver digital transformation across an Organisation?
What are the essential parts of a digital transformation plan? To see also : 5 Losses to Avoid When Growing or Growing a Business.
- Understand the channel. …
- Set goals for the channel’s future contribution. …
- Identify and prioritize target audiences. …
- Encourage the use of the channel. …
- Create proposals to emphasize differences. …
- Support for integration between channels.
What are the most important elements of digital transformation? The GetSmarter survey finds that the two most crucial ingredients for successful digital transformation are strong leadership and effective change management. Collectively, they ensure that all employees are inspired, motivated and aligned with their business’s digital transformation plan.
What are the 5 domains of digital transformation?
He stated five vital domains of the digital transformation plan which are: customer, competition, data, innovation and value. While these essential elements are well defined, the transformation is not straightforward.
What are the areas of digital transformation? The five domains of digital transformation: customer, competition, data, innovation and value.
What three 3 factors do you consider the most critical for the transformation to take place?
KPMG’s research points to three critical factors that mark the difference between transformations that achieve optimal value and those that fall short: capabilities that enable customer focus, continuous innovation, and agility.
What are the 3 elements for a successful organizational transformation? People, process, technology: the three elements for a successful organizational transformation.
What are the factors that influence the transformation process?
Factors affecting the efficiency of the transformation are the strain of the bacteria, the growth phase of the bacterial colony, the composition of the transformation mixture, and the size and state of the foreign DNA.
What are the three 3 main components of digital transformation?
Executives are digitally transforming three key areas of their businesses: customer experience, operating processes, and business models. And each of these three pillars has three different elements that are changing. These nine elements form a set of building blocks for digital transformation.
What makes a successful digital transformation?
For digital transformations to be successful, all teams and departments must step in. The process requires an open-minded approach, as well as preparation and understanding of how data, design, and technology will affect them across teams: human resources, finance, purchasing, marketing, and even product equipment.
What are the factors needed for a successful digital transformation of a company? According to McKinsey & Company research, leadership, capacity building, employee empowerment, tool upgrades, and communication are critical to a successful transformation.
