Collaboration ferments digital transformation at Rémy Cointreau
- Summary:
- Collaboration is the catalyst for digital transformation and new ways of working at 300-year old liquor group Rémy Cointreau
As we are selling alcohol, we can't sell it directly to customers. We [sell through] retailers.
This digital transformation gave us the opportunity to have direct contact with the customers. It's a huge opportunity for us to have this direct contact, to have this feedback, and to engage our marketing teams [to] develop new products.
As CTO, Huet is responsible for digital transformation, and works in partnership with the CIO, whose team looks after the existing IT systems. His own digital team is mostly drawn from marketing and works closely with the sales and marketing functions. He sees his role as an evangelist for new ways of working using digital.
I really see myself as a sales guy. I am a sales guy for the IT, going to the business and saying, 'OK, this is what we can do for you, and so give me your [feedback] and we can adapt our product.'
I am also an interface between all of our teams, because business, the digital team, marketing, application development, are not speaking the same language. I try to be the guy who can help everybody to collaborate and to discuss.
Operating in the cloud
The business is changing the way it operates internally, too. Most of Rémy Cointreau's IT is now in the cloud, with the main hold-out being its SAP ERP system, which is likely to move to Amazon infrastructure next year. Being in the cloud means the company can move faster, for example opening a local office in a new country in just two days whereas the same process used to take six months.
Now we have everything in the cloud. Basically we just need Internet connections, we can buy a computer at the shop on the corner and get ready with a secure system — because we also have a lot of cloud security.
We have this agility in the business, we can be more efficient. If we need to close the office tomorrow because the business is not there, we can do it also very quickly, without any suffering.
It means the company can contemplate projects such as new store openings on timescales that five years ago would have been "just impossible."
In this new world, Rémy Cointreau has two main goals, says Huet:
First one is to become more giant, because we are a smaller company. We are two thousand people around the world. Our competitors are ten times bigger than us, so we can't survive if we can't be more giant, more smart. And the second one is tools to help the business to go faster.
Collaboration enables transformation
One of those tools is Box's cloud collaboration platform, which the company has rolled out globally. By the end of the year its use will become mandatory and other collaboration tools will be phased out, as Huet explains.
Especially in the marketing, on our package design, we work with a lot of external companies. And before that we had plenty of solutions, everybody used their own, and now everybody uses the same. We have trustability, which we didn't have before.
The CEO is a sponsor of the Box roll-out, says Huet, because it's seen as enabling a new way of working within the company.
Box is part of this picture, because the idea is also to help people to be more effective, to share very easily. We have teams all over the world, so for them it was a nightmare just to share a file.
Now we can collaborate. It's not a tool, it's really a company transformation. It's really asking people to change the way they are working.
For example, sales teams have started using Box's image capture function to instantly share and discuss photos taken on a smartphone. Without knowing what the product was, the CEO praised this capability to Huet, which he sees as a sign that it's the right approach to focus on outcomes rather than the underlying technology.
So this is really interesting because it's really what we try to achieve. Not pushing the tools, but pushing the processes and the way of working and everything.
Process innovation
This kind of organic process innovation is also a new departure. Previously, a process change would have been carefully mapped out before being implemented. Now, individual teams are encouraged to try out new ways of using the tools and their learnings are shared with others around the company.
This is really an improvement loop, and it's really interesting, like you do in [software] development with agile methods.
One challenge is striking the right balance between the workstyles of young new recruits and the working habits of company veterans. The company has been learning to accommodate the more flexible mindset of millennials, he says.
In the end I don't care how you work, what I care is the result, and for you to be engaged in the company. So we have to change our way to think of this — but we have also to manage all of these kinds of ways of working, because everybody won't change in that way.
I have people in my team that have been working for the company for forty years. I have to also not reject them, and find a way for them to be a part of the trip.
My take
Every enterprise today must become a digital native, no matter how physical or historic its products and processes. In embracing this transformation, Rémy Cognac provides an example of how to evolve to seize the opportunities of this latest evolution in three centuries of doing business.