Empowering Global Growth
As Chief Information & Process Officer, Mark Dajani’s goal is to power up Mondelez International for growth — through the streamlining of processes, empowering its people with capabilities and future-proofing its technology. Before beginning its recent Winning In Sales Execution (WiSE) program, the company had taken a market-specific approach to the processes and tools, which supported its field sales organization. In this exclusive interview, CGT sits down with Dajani to discuss this initiative and the impact it has had on streamlining processes to minimize regional differences.
What are the drivers that led to the WiSE project?
Dajani: In a lot of cases, we didn’t have local capability or simply used pen and paper because we did not know where to start. As a result, we were not leveraging our scale and struggling to have transparency of our performance across markets. Thanks to our WiSE program, we’re standardizing our sales processes and KPI metrics based on the latest technology — which will improve our sales rep efficiency and effectiveness at the point of sale.
As we began to drive our Perfect Store agenda, it was clear that we did not have the tools to sustain the revenue growth opportunities we knew were out there. Our processes and metrics were defined differently in each market and in many cases our sales force automation (SFA) systems were outdated, or sometimes, not even present, requiring significant investment. As we explored the market for an off-the-shelf solution, it was clear that StayinFront’s offering met the needs of our business — both in the near term — and for our longer term vision.
What is the six-step Perfect Store Methodology?
Dajani: We created our six-step process with input from our five operating regions. Now, with every sales call we apply our Perfect Store principles to maximize selling opportunities, ensuring that we can deliver the correct merchandising for our brands, providing the consumer with the appropriate brand interaction.
The six steps are: identify the plan and prepare, open the call, determine customer needs, recommend solutions and follow through actions of a call. It’s a process that applies to all customers worldwide and has been the base for our software development.
How have business processes changed at Mondelez as a result of this project?
Dajani: We did change our processes to support our in-field execution. We needed to ensure that our sales teams were able to receive the correct information at the right time in a consistent way to maximize all opportunities. This has meant driving change in the sales back office ensuring common ways of working are adopted across markets. As you can imagine, on a global platform, this has brought a number of challenges, but with clear communication and common training, the teams have adapted well.
Were there any challenges specific to certain regions?
Dajani: We’ve delivered our program in a consistent manner that has minimized regional differences. One of our biggest keys to success was the standardization of processes and consistency in delivery!
As a global company, how do you approach regional differences in technology?
Dajani: We quickly established a methodology to define changes as either core (applicable to all markets), extended core (the same for all markets where the requirement exists), or local (unique to the market). Using this approach we’ve been able to limit the amount of local changes and focus on consolidating business requirements into configuration changes that support multiple markets.
What are some of the benefits of this initiative and using this solution?
Dajani: The benefits come from taking a common approach across markets. It benefits both our field sales teams and back office teams. Focusing on our six key metrics means we covered efficiency and effectiveness from calls per day/ effective calls per day/compliance to agreed product ranges in store, and even sales order values.
What are some best practices for adopting a global strategy?
Dajani: For Mondelez International, our key to success was the mix of discipline in program management with a pace needed to drive the deployment across markets. Being able to demonstrate results quickly in our test-and-learn phase helped us to move quickly to rapidly deploy our solution.
Is internal collaboration important?
Dajani: WiSE is the first global initiative where Sales and IS have partnered together at Mondelez International in such a big way. Much of the success comes from the alignment around shared goals for the company and tight governance around this to keep it in sync. When colleagues from outside the program interact with WiSE, they often comment on how it is hard to differentiate which employee is in IS, and which one is in Sales, which I feel is a great sign of the close collaboration between our teams.
What are the future plans and/or opportunities for WiSE?
Dajani: We are seeing great results from our live markets so our intention is to deploy the solution across all our significant markets to ensure we enforce our standardized six steps to a call process. We’re also looking at how this platform could offer additional benefits like corporate apps, upgrades and e-learning at a low cost.
Tools for Success
Mondelez is capitalizing on key technology pillars
What are the drivers that led to the WiSE project?
Dajani: In a lot of cases, we didn’t have local capability or simply used pen and paper because we did not know where to start. As a result, we were not leveraging our scale and struggling to have transparency of our performance across markets. Thanks to our WiSE program, we’re standardizing our sales processes and KPI metrics based on the latest technology — which will improve our sales rep efficiency and effectiveness at the point of sale.
As we began to drive our Perfect Store agenda, it was clear that we did not have the tools to sustain the revenue growth opportunities we knew were out there. Our processes and metrics were defined differently in each market and in many cases our sales force automation (SFA) systems were outdated, or sometimes, not even present, requiring significant investment. As we explored the market for an off-the-shelf solution, it was clear that StayinFront’s offering met the needs of our business — both in the near term — and for our longer term vision.
What is the six-step Perfect Store Methodology?
Dajani: We created our six-step process with input from our five operating regions. Now, with every sales call we apply our Perfect Store principles to maximize selling opportunities, ensuring that we can deliver the correct merchandising for our brands, providing the consumer with the appropriate brand interaction.
The six steps are: identify the plan and prepare, open the call, determine customer needs, recommend solutions and follow through actions of a call. It’s a process that applies to all customers worldwide and has been the base for our software development.
How have business processes changed at Mondelez as a result of this project?
Dajani: We did change our processes to support our in-field execution. We needed to ensure that our sales teams were able to receive the correct information at the right time in a consistent way to maximize all opportunities. This has meant driving change in the sales back office ensuring common ways of working are adopted across markets. As you can imagine, on a global platform, this has brought a number of challenges, but with clear communication and common training, the teams have adapted well.
Were there any challenges specific to certain regions?
Dajani: We’ve delivered our program in a consistent manner that has minimized regional differences. One of our biggest keys to success was the standardization of processes and consistency in delivery!
As a global company, how do you approach regional differences in technology?
Dajani: We quickly established a methodology to define changes as either core (applicable to all markets), extended core (the same for all markets where the requirement exists), or local (unique to the market). Using this approach we’ve been able to limit the amount of local changes and focus on consolidating business requirements into configuration changes that support multiple markets.
What are some of the benefits of this initiative and using this solution?
Dajani: The benefits come from taking a common approach across markets. It benefits both our field sales teams and back office teams. Focusing on our six key metrics means we covered efficiency and effectiveness from calls per day/ effective calls per day/compliance to agreed product ranges in store, and even sales order values.
What are some best practices for adopting a global strategy?
Dajani: For Mondelez International, our key to success was the mix of discipline in program management with a pace needed to drive the deployment across markets. Being able to demonstrate results quickly in our test-and-learn phase helped us to move quickly to rapidly deploy our solution.
Is internal collaboration important?
Dajani: WiSE is the first global initiative where Sales and IS have partnered together at Mondelez International in such a big way. Much of the success comes from the alignment around shared goals for the company and tight governance around this to keep it in sync. When colleagues from outside the program interact with WiSE, they often comment on how it is hard to differentiate which employee is in IS, and which one is in Sales, which I feel is a great sign of the close collaboration between our teams.
What are the future plans and/or opportunities for WiSE?
Dajani: We are seeing great results from our live markets so our intention is to deploy the solution across all our significant markets to ensure we enforce our standardized six steps to a call process. We’re also looking at how this platform could offer additional benefits like corporate apps, upgrades and e-learning at a low cost.
Tools for Success
Mondelez is capitalizing on key technology pillars
- Consumer mobile technology (smartphones and tablets, cloud-based StayinFront, productivity apps): in order to ease experience, training and efficiency for reps.
- Latest generation SAP Business Intelligence reporting (DSim on HANA): in order to create local, regional and global KPIs by Route to Market.
- A global plug and play integration platform: to collect, real time, all reps’ data (orders and audits) and cascade all new in-store activities.
- A cloud-based Distributors Management System (mini-ERPs with offline browser functions): to extend process harmonization to stores managed by third-party distributors.