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Speaker 1: What I don’t like is to hear one word in

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Speaker 1: this world, and it’s omnichannel. Because when I hear talking

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Speaker 1: about omnichannel from companies, it means that they didn’t understand

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Speaker 1: what is real omnichannel. Because if you need to label it,

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Speaker 1: it means that you don’t have it. Because omnichannel shouldn’t

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Speaker 1: be a buzzword that you can use one day and

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Speaker 1: the other one not. It should be just part of

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Speaker 1: your corporate strategy, right? It should be fully embedded in

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Speaker 1: whatever process, product, business unit, everything. Because it’s not about

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Speaker 1: how we decide to label ourselves. It’s where our consumer is.

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Speaker 1: Consumers are everywhere.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to today’s episode of Brave Commerce. I’m Rachel Tippegraff,

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Speaker 2: the founder and CEO of Micmac.

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Speaker 3: And I’m Sarah Hofstetter, chairwoman of Profitero Plus, and this

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Speaker 3: is a show that talks about what’s relevant in commerce

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Speaker 3: for the world’s biggest brands.

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Speaker 2: Sarah, Profitero’s original business, meaning the founder, it was headquartered

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Speaker 2: in Europe, correct? Correct.

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Speaker 3: The company was founded in Europe. I don’t remember how

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Speaker 3: many years into its existence. I mean, Profitero’s been around

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Speaker 3: 15 years or so. But yes, very much started European-based

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Speaker 3: and then eventually made its way across the Atlantic and

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Speaker 3: then out east and now we’re global. But I think

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Speaker 3: a lot of that came because of tremendous fragmentation. country

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Speaker 3: by country in how their approach to commerce was done,

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Speaker 3: even before the COVID explosion, if you will.

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Speaker 2: Micmac is obviously global. We went from US and then

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Speaker 2: moved across the world. And I would just say, it’s

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Speaker 2: not just how commerce is different, but just even how

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Speaker 2: the customers want to be serviced culturally differs from market

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Speaker 2: to market.

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Speaker 3: Remember my first few months of Profitero, it was a

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Speaker 3: bit of a blur because I started in January of

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Speaker 3: 2020 and then COVID hit like five minutes later. I

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Speaker 3: was trying to get onboarded onto Profitero, but also onto

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Speaker 3: our customers and all that other stuff. And I made

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Speaker 3: the horrible mistake, the horrible mistake of just kind of

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Speaker 3: assuming that e-commerce was the same in every country, just

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Speaker 3: in terms of like consumer behavior. By February, I had

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Speaker 3: been schooled. So I learned a lot. In February, I

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Speaker 3: remember I went to Europe. It happened to have been

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Speaker 3: like right before COVID. You remember like when it started

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Speaker 3: breaking out in like Milan?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, of course.

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Speaker 3: End of February-ish. So that week I was in, London, Paris,

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Speaker 3: and Nuremberg. Visiting customers and listening. And that is how

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Speaker 3: I basically got schooled and miraculously did not get COVID.

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Speaker 2: I was just going to say, I thought the punchline was,

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Speaker 2: and that’s how I got COVID.

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Speaker 3: No, I didn’t get COVID until two years later. Also,

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Speaker 3: first time I got COVID in Europe, but that’s a

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Speaker 3: story for another episode. But then, you know, you kind

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Speaker 3: of understand the difference between how things get priced in

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Speaker 3: brands and the control that store managers have and the

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Speaker 3: way consumers like to shop, the whole click and collect

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Speaker 3: versus last mile delivery. In the US, we were so myopic.

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Speaker 3: I mean, we were so overly simplistic. I got schooled early.

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Speaker 3: I’m so super thankful to Danone and Pernod Ricard for

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Speaker 3: insisting I come and see them.

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Speaker 1: Smart, smart.

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Speaker 2: You know, what I think is interesting just from operating

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Speaker 2: a business is because there’s so much fragmentation in the market,

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Speaker 2: and you can’t take a one size all approach, you

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Speaker 2: have to weigh that against essentially like the GMV of

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Speaker 2: these markets. And there is a tension, which is what

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Speaker 2: the customer wants, whether it’s B2B or B2C, married to

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Speaker 2: the service and delivery model, can put you in a

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Speaker 2: position as a business operator of having an unprofitable business

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Speaker 2: in those markets.

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Speaker 3: It’s why they end up becoming more underserved because the

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Speaker 3: cost to serve becomes that much harder. And there continues

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Speaker 3: to be a massive push pull between how to service regional,

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Speaker 3: local businesses that have theoretically similar assortment, but wildly different behaviors.

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Speaker 2: So we’re about to bring Marco onto the show, who’s

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Speaker 2: overseeing the entire EU market within the home appliance vertical, which,

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Speaker 2: you know, Sarah and I are trying to diversify guests.

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Speaker 2: So we’re super excited to bring Marco onto the show,

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Speaker 2: but he oversees all of Europe. And when you hear

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Speaker 2: his scope of work, you almost think that it’s a

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Speaker 2: global role just because of all the nuances that within

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Speaker 2: that one continent. So without further ado, let’s bring Marco

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Speaker 2: onto the show.

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Speaker 3: Today, we are happy to have Marco Bricado, head of

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Speaker 3: e-commerce for Europe, DTC Transformation at Beko Europe. That was

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Speaker 3: a mouthful. I am so happy to have you. We’ll

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Speaker 3: just get to stick with Marco today. That work for you?

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Speaker 1: I think it’s far away better.

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Speaker 3: Okay, wonderful. Well, let’s keep this cash then. First, let’s

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Speaker 3: just kind of talk a little bit about how you

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Speaker 3: started in Italy and then how that bridged out because

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Speaker 3: we have not had a lot of Italian HQ companies

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Speaker 3: on the podcast. And I think this is going to

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Speaker 3: be an interesting place for us to start, but we’ll

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Speaker 3: see where we go. So you’ve scaled digital commerce across

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Speaker 3: lots of different markets. You launched Ecom in Italy. Then

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Speaker 3: you built this out to broader pan-European strategies. So how

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Speaker 3: do you balance that? regional consistency with the local relevance

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Speaker 3: and how have you dealt with either the tensions or

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Speaker 3: maybe not dealt with, but even like unlocked benefit from

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Speaker 3: the tension. Sometimes with tension comes the best outcome. So

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Speaker 3: I would love your perspective on that.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, definitely, Sarah. So I think this is one of

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Speaker 1: the hardest problems to solve when you are at scale, right?

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Speaker 1: And it’s one of the most biggest frictions that you

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Speaker 1: can have with the markets. So yes, I believe in

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Speaker 1: a concept that is the freedom within a framework. Nothing new,

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Speaker 1: but it’s something that I believe it’s completely important and

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Speaker 1: relevant when it’s about scaling e-commerce. So building a frame

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Speaker 1: means that you need to have global or European structure, strategy, architecture, KPIs, governance.

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Speaker 1: Everything has to be central and has to be the

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Speaker 1: same for everyone. Then you need to allow a lot

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Speaker 1: of local freedoms. And it can’t just be, okay, let’s

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Speaker 1: translate it in the local language. It wouldn’t work. It

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Speaker 1: can’t be working. Even in Europe, the cultural differences between

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Speaker 1: all the markets are so many. And I always do

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Speaker 1: the example of Germany because Germany, it’s a very nice example.

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Speaker 1: When you want to show something to a German consumer,

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Speaker 1: you can’t do it as if it was an Italian one.

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Speaker 1: You need to be much more precise, much more technical.

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Speaker 1: And so you need to adapt probably the UX. You

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Speaker 1: need probably to adapt all the message, all the contents.

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Speaker 1: And so having local freedom, it’s super important. Let’s say

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Speaker 1: I would think about more in general of this concept.

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Speaker 1: What does it mean? It means that you need to

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Speaker 1: standardize not just the outcome. You shouldn’t be standardizing that.

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Speaker 1: You should be standardizing the principle. And so it’s about

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Speaker 1: trusting your local teams, or not. And that’s a super

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Speaker 1: important step. So we really need to have a very,

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Speaker 1: let’s say, control adverse structure that creates principles and leaves

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Speaker 1: the outcome being completely managed from the market.

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Speaker 2: So you talk about the nuances from the buyer side,

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Speaker 2: from country to country. Here you are trying to transform

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Speaker 2: an organization. And at the end of the day, you’re

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Speaker 2: dealing with people. So what type of culture are you

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Speaker 2: trying to build internally while also acknowledging that probably you’re

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Speaker 2: managing a multinational workforce?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I would start from a question that is,

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Speaker 1: how do you nurture an idea? How do you make

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Speaker 1: sure that you are creating appetite for change? And this

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Speaker 1: is the hardest part, I would say, because as humans,

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Speaker 1: I mean, we’re naturally change resistant, right? We wouldn’t change

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Speaker 1: anything if it was on us. But you need to

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Speaker 1: create the preconditions for that. And I think that the

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Speaker 1: preconditions are two mainly. First, you need to create the context.

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Speaker 1: So especially when you talk about digital in general, you

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Speaker 1: need to make sure that whoever is sitting at the table,

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Speaker 1: they do have the same understanding of the topic as

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Speaker 1: you do. And that is not easy, especially when we’re

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Speaker 1: talking about digital. The second one is the gap. You

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Speaker 1: need to show it. And it has to be tangible.

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Speaker 1: And you need to make sure that what I always,

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Speaker 1: let’s say, try to show in a very clear way,

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Speaker 1: the cost of doing nothing. That is so important in digital.

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Speaker 1: Because in digital, there is a cost of inaction. And

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Speaker 1: all of this is about selling the problem rather than

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Speaker 1: the solution. So when you’re trying to do a digital transformation,

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Speaker 1: you don’t have to think about the solution of that.

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Speaker 1: If all the problem is clear to everyone, if the

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Speaker 1: gap is clear, then the solution will come by itself.

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Speaker 1: Because all of us, we do base our decisions based

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Speaker 1: on something, right? That something has to be clear to everyone.

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Speaker 1: So this is the most important part. I would say

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Speaker 1: that also, if you want to digitally transform a company,

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Speaker 1: you need the leadership buy-in. Without that, nothing will ever change.

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Speaker 1: And this is such a big and important step. Having

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Speaker 1: leadership buy-in is the main and most important step.

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Speaker 3: How did you make that part happen?

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Speaker 1: Well, actually, I think that, as I said, you need

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Speaker 1: to create the context. I think that one of the

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Speaker 1: most difficult things is making sure that the people that

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Speaker 1: you have in front do understand what you’re talking about.

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Speaker 1: This is the hardest part today. Whenever you talk about digital,

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Speaker 1: So that is the trick for me. I try to do,

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Speaker 1: for example, I try to do a lot of parallel

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Speaker 1: examples with the offline market. That works always very well.

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Speaker 1: Because when you try to take an idea that people

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Speaker 1: don’t understand or are not used to, and you make

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Speaker 1: a practical example of something that they do understand, So

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Speaker 1: for example, the offline world, that tends to work quite often.

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Speaker 3: This is one of the things that I found organizations

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Speaker 3: are getting better and better at, both top-down asking the questions,

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Speaker 3: but within the role like the one that you have.

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Speaker 3: When you are an e-commerce lead, how do you contextualize

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Speaker 3: the impact of action and almost a little bit of a,

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Speaker 3: We call it the COMO, the cost of missing out,

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Speaker 3: of inaction. And so if you don’t do something, what

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Speaker 3: ends up happening? And who will fill that void? So,

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Speaker 3: you know, that could be insurgents. That could be, it

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Speaker 3: could come from anywhere. Where do you go to get

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Speaker 3: that kind of information to help you make that case?

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Speaker 1: That is one of the hardest parts, I would say.

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Speaker 1: Having a solid base of numbers, sometimes it’s not easy

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Speaker 1: when you deal with digital. And I fully agree with you, Sarah.

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Speaker 1: You need to find the right ways and you need

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Speaker 1: to decide. So simplifying, simplifying in digital is something that

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Speaker 1: pays off. Simplifying and trying to do not get to

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Speaker 1: the lowest level of detail, especially when you’re dealing with

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Speaker 1: something new. If you try to stack yourself into details,

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Speaker 1: you will never get out. So you need to sell

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Speaker 1: the idea, the concept. You need to try to find

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Speaker 1: as much values as you can to give value to

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Speaker 1: that idea, okay? But then what I try to do,

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Speaker 1: and this is why I don’t spend that much time

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Speaker 1: on the solutions, because I always tend to go for

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Speaker 1: a test small, scale fast environment. You need to find ideas, right?

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Speaker 1: You need to find ways that could be working. Most

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Speaker 1: of those do work, but 99% maybe doesn’t, okay? So

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Speaker 1: you need to make sure that what you are saying,

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Speaker 1: it can be data-proof. And how do you do that?

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Speaker 1: With small tests. And if it works, then you do

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Speaker 1: it at scale. That is a way of working. And

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Speaker 1: that is actually a way of working that I’m trying

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Speaker 1: to bring. And I’ve been, let’s say, leveraging a lot

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Speaker 1: in craft times before this experience. And that is super

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Speaker 1: important for me.

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Speaker 2: So question, e-commerce penetration is at a place of maturity,

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Speaker 2: both in Europe and in the U.S. And so totally

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Speaker 2: understand your perspective on change management of bringing a test

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Speaker 2: forward and then leading the fish to a larger pond.

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Speaker 2: But you also don’t want to lose market share from

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Speaker 2: your competition. And I mean, scale is already here, especially

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Speaker 2: in environments like Amazon. So how do you balance protecting

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Speaker 2: the business at scale and then bringing people along for

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Speaker 2: the journey?

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that’s quite complex. What I always say

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Speaker 1: about Amazon are three things and are the three things

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Speaker 1: that Amazon taught me during my career. First, that complexity.

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Speaker 1: It’s a word that has a meaning before you start

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Speaker 1: working with Amazon and after. So it is completely different after.

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Speaker 1: Because Amazon is not a complex customer, right? It’s the

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Speaker 1: most complex customer. Both if you’re working with them in

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Speaker 1: 1P or in 3P, okay? But it also teaches you

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Speaker 1: another thing. That is discipline. Discipline is something that Amazon

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Speaker 1: is forcing you to learn. Why? Because Amazon has its

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Speaker 1: own ways of working. You can’t get out of it.

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Speaker 1: You have to stick to the process and that’s the

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Speaker 1: full stop of it. And then the third part that

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Speaker 1: I see as an enabler is to approach a customer

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Speaker 1: like that one. And so to get the benefits of

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Speaker 1: having scale, because that’s the point of having a huge

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Speaker 1: traffic with the higher conversion rate people. How do you

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Speaker 1: get there? I need to have an IT infrastructure that

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Speaker 1: is actually meant to do that job. And it’s not easy.

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Speaker 1: And it’s not, let’s say, for free. It’s an infrastructure

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Speaker 1: that requires a lot of investments and they do require

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Speaker 1: to avoid whatever kind of manual intervention in the flow,

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Speaker 1: as much as possible, of course. But especially in the

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Speaker 1: feed management and in the order flow, it has to

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Speaker 1: be completely human-free, let’s say. Otherwise, it’s a mess. And

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Speaker 1: that allows you to take the best from a huge market,

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Speaker 1: let’s say an hybrid strategy, that takes the best from

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Speaker 1: customers the marketplaces in general, that is the traffic, right?

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Speaker 1: The distribution, the velocity, the scale of that. And that

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Speaker 1: has to be combined with something else because the beauty

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Speaker 1: of the team that I lead is that we also

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Speaker 1: do manage D2Cs, right? RIPI marketplaces and D2Cs. And so

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Speaker 1: you actually merge the two. You actually merge the learnings

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Speaker 1: from such a big customer and then the customer knowledge.

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Speaker 1: And the two together can really create insights that can

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Speaker 1: be shared across the organization and can be useful and

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Speaker 1: insightful for everyone.

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Speaker 3: Can I click a little bit deeper here? Because you

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Speaker 3: mentioned earlier about your time at Kraft and it’s very

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Speaker 3: interesting just even looking at those two different companies, you know,

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Speaker 3: whatever it was about five years ago, you were at Kraft.

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Speaker 3: I know you were there for many years. It’s almost

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Speaker 3: like at Kraft, you were managing the stuff that goes

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Speaker 3: inside the refrigerator and now you’re managing the refrigerator to

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Speaker 3: a certain degree. But e-com penetration, even when you’re looking

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Speaker 3: at more daily staples versus considered purchase is extremely different.

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Speaker 3: And the relationship that you have with Amazon or DTC

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Speaker 3: is incredibly different as well. So our audience beautifully represent

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Speaker 3: companies like Beko, And companies like Kraft. How would you

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Speaker 3: advise even the people that work here that are listening

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Speaker 3: on what it means to change your mindset? Because I

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Speaker 3: would guess, and please tell me if I’m wrong, that

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Speaker 3: e-com pen for appliances is likely higher than canned beans.

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Speaker 3: But please have our listeners understand a little better.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely. No, you got it. Absolutely. No, it’s far

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Speaker 1: away different. I mean, if you think about e-com penetration

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Speaker 1: in the UK for groceries is around 15%, if I’m

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Speaker 1: not wrong. So if I do recall it well, in

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Speaker 1: the same market for appliances is almost 60%. So six

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Speaker 1: appliances out of 10 are sold online in UK, just

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Speaker 1: to give an example. So yes, it’s completely different. The

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Speaker 1: scale is immensely bigger, I would say. in all the

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Speaker 1: channels what I think about this and I love to

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Speaker 1: say that you said I was working before let’s say

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Speaker 1: for what is inside the fridge and now I do

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Speaker 1: work for the fridge but actually didn’t change much and

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Speaker 1: it won’t change much even in the future because at

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Speaker 1: the end for me the product by itself it’s super

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Speaker 1: important but it doesn’t change the work that you do

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Speaker 1: it changes how you do it so it changes the

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Speaker 1: kind of nuances that you want to provide to the

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Speaker 1: consumer it changes the way that the consumer shops, especially

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Speaker 1: between the two, where we’re talking about, I wouldn’t say

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Speaker 1: commodities at all, but let’s say it’s almost commodities for

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Speaker 1: the both, okay? So it didn’t change dramatically for me.

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Speaker 1: The two companies are completely different by, let’s say, in

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Speaker 1: any case, because two very different styles of corporations. But no,

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Speaker 1: I wouldn’t say that I’ve been feeling a huge difference

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Speaker 1: between the two. And to whoever has to change from

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Speaker 1: one sector to another one, I would say do it.

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Speaker 1: I mean, it’s going to be great. And you’re going

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Speaker 1: to learn so many new things from that.

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Speaker 2: So here you are working at an organization where on average, 60%

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Speaker 2: of sales is going through a digital channel. I don’t

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Speaker 2: know much around how you guys are investing your media dollars,

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Speaker 2: but if that’s the relationship with the end user, digital first,

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Speaker 2: What would be your advice for organizations that are struggling

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Speaker 2: with this legacy mindset, yet have this channel dynamic where

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Speaker 2: the consumer’s already changed? How do you think they should

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Speaker 2: be investing their dollars to drive growth?

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Speaker 1: That’s one of the biggest questions I would say. And

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Speaker 1: I also do understand, let’s say, why some companies are

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Speaker 1: still in a stacked mode, not yet digital, but even

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Speaker 1: though the market is. What I don’t like is to

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Speaker 1: hear one word in this world, and it’s omnichannel. Because

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Speaker 1: when I hear talking about omnichannel from companies, it means

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Speaker 1: that they didn’t understand what is real omnichannel. Because if

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Speaker 1: you need to label it, it means that you don’t

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Speaker 1: have it. Because omnichannel shouldn’t be a buzzword that you

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Speaker 1: can use one day and the other one not. It

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Speaker 1: should be just part of your corporate strategy, right? It

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Speaker 1: should be fully embedded in whatever process, product, business unit

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Speaker 1: everything because it’s not about how we decide to label

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Speaker 1: ourselves it’s where our consumer is consumer are consumers consumers

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Speaker 1: are everywhere an omni-channel should be a dogma okay everyone

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Speaker 1: should have such a such a strategy for everything and

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Speaker 1: the lack of doing that step for me is due

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Speaker 1: to just one factor of course fear but it’s also

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Speaker 1: lack of digital leaders that today is something that is

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Speaker 1: quite hard to find it’s very hard in whatever industry

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Speaker 1: to find real digital leaders that do really understand and

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Speaker 1: embrace the digital channel this is for me one of

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Speaker 1: the biggest things that impact most of the companies. I

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Speaker 1: was saying before, if you think about large appliances manufacturers,

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Speaker 1: that’s the same. Some of them are still not digital.

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Speaker 1: And it’s impossible. How can you do that? One out

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Speaker 1: of three appliances in Europe are sold on digital channels.

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Speaker 1: And on this side, I see Beko investing a lot

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Speaker 1: and completely embracing the digital challenge. And this is absolutely

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Speaker 1: a must. for whatever other corporate that works in whatever space,

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Speaker 1: whatever market, however big or small the digital is. Because

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Speaker 1: even when it’s small, it’s more than 10%.

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Speaker 2: Marco, it seems like you’ve been very brave navigating the

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Speaker 2: European landscape, but we got to ask you our famous

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Speaker 2: last question, which is what is the bravest thing you’ve

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Speaker 2: ever done?

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Speaker 1: So I’ve been thinking a lot of this question, actually.

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Speaker 1: I’ve been hearing a lot from your previous guests of

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Speaker 1: what they said about that. this famous question. But I

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Speaker 1: will go for a principle. And what I think is

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Speaker 1: being brave. Being brave for me is not being afraid

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Speaker 1: of saying yes to whatever new opportunity that pops out.

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Speaker 1: It’s forcing yourself into a discomfort area to get things

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Speaker 1: done and to get out of it and to learn

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Speaker 1: from that. So I think that what I’ve been brave

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Speaker 1: in the last years, personally and professionally, is that I’ve

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Speaker 1: always embraced changes, saying yes to challenges that I had

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Speaker 1: no idea of how to complete those. And then you

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Speaker 1: force yourself in finding the way to get out. So

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Speaker 1: that’s the bravest thing I would say in my personal

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Speaker 1: experience I’ve done.

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Speaker 2: Well, Marco, we’re so appreciative for everything that you shared

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Speaker 2: with us today. especially about learning about the European market.

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Speaker 2: We want to do more of folks who aren’t living

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Speaker 2: in the U.S.

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Speaker 1: And interviewing them.

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Speaker 2: So we really appreciate you spending time with us, especially

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Speaker 2: before the holidays.

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Speaker 1: Thank you very much. And actually, thank you for inviting me.

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Speaker 1: It was a huge pleasure to be here today with

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Speaker 1: you both. So thank you a lot.

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Speaker 2: If you like what you heard and you want to

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Speaker 2: keep on the trend of listening to some of our

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Speaker 2: guests who have recorded with us across the pond, go

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Speaker 2: check out a very recent episode we did with Laura

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Speaker 2: Briggs at Philips, or you can go further into the

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Speaker 2: Brave Commerce archives and check out the chief digital officer

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Speaker 2: from Beiersdorf, Axel Ada, or the global head of commerce

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Speaker 2: at Henkel, our dear friend Boris. And don’t forget, tell

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Speaker 2: a friend, write a review. Thanks for listening.

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Speaker 3: Hi, I’m Jackie Cooper, Global Chief Brand Officer at Edelman

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Speaker 3: and the host of Touch of Truth, a new podcast

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00:23:27,470 –> 00:23:30,939
Speaker 3: launching on the Adweek Podcast Network. My dad gave me

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Speaker 3: this incredibly smart piece of advice. Meet everyone once. As

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Speaker 3: a result, I’ve met some of the most fascinating and

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00:23:37,060 –> 00:23:40,169
Speaker 3: inspiring people on the planet. Now on Touch of Truth,

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Speaker 3: we’re coming centre stage and sharing the mic to experience

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Speaker 3: stories of truth, insights and visions for the future that

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00:23:46,570 –> 00:23:48,110
Speaker 3: will challenge your way of thinking.

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Speaker 1: Touch of Truth is available wherever you listen to podcasts.

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Speaker 3: New episodes come out every Tuesday. I do hope to

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Speaker 3: see you there.