“What If?” is the question that starts the innovation process, confessed Kathy Fish, Chief Research, Development and Innovation Officer at Procter & Gamble (P&G).
Every business today is hooked on the need to innovate to stay relevant. Relevance can be achieved through any number of things. For P&G, the direction goes towards “providing branded products and services of superior quality and value that improve the lives of the world’s consumers, now and for generations to come.”
This translates to efforts to understand consumer behaviour and be aligned to those changes. To be certain, technology will play a central role in understanding how minds and culture changes. The challenge for Sanjay Singh, chief information officer (CIO) & director for P&G’s Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa operations, is to make sure the IT organisation supports the company’s innovation strategies.
As a global organization, how are technology strategies developed and deployed? Within APAC, ME and Africa (AMA) how do you ensure that technology strategies are relevant to each of the markets P&G does business in?
Sanjay Singh: At P&G, everything we do starts and ends with our consumers. Technology plays an integral role in ensuring this is done in the most efficient and effective way possible. As a multinational company, we leverage scale where we can in our strategies and executions. At the same time, we believe it is just as important to empower the organization to adapt these strategies as needed for nuances in each market.
As a company that is more than 180 years old, innovation is a critical growth driver for us. We believe in “constructive disruption” – innovating to drive growth and create value for the people we serve and for the categories in which we compete. This must be done at all levels and everywhere we operate.
Technology is an enabler to address specific business challenges. It is critical to our success that how we use technology helps us better serve consumers everywhere we operate.
We’ve seen consultant reports that suggest CIO get involved in achieving better customer experience, pursue product personalization, acknowledge and protect customer privacy. Are these relevant to P&G and how does the IT team realize these objectives?
Sanjay Singh: In the competitive Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) industry, every interaction with our consumers is an opportunity to strengthen our relationship and build trust with our consumers. Everyone in P&G, regardless of function, works diligently to win with our consumers.
Our IT team is constantly finding new ways to improve the consumer experience and to leverage technology to solve business challenges. For example, P&G was at the global Consumer Electronics Show in 2019 where we showcased our product innovations which integrate technology into everyday products and services to improve lives. Here in AMA, we are using big data, artificial intelligence and machine learning to better understand our consumers and to improve their shopping experience in our P&G E-Centre.
Our IT team is also driving the digital upskilling of our organization. They build broader capability on cutting-edge technology they can apply to their businesses. They help P&G protect data privacy at every stage. Put together, these enable us to strengthen our relationship and build trust with our consumers.
How is your organization responding to COVID-19?
Sanjay Singh: At P&G, we often talk about being a force for good and a force for growth. In such unprecedented times, we remain committed to protecting P&G people, serving consumers, and supporting communities:
- The health of P&G employees and safety of our workplaces is our top priority. We are constantly evaluating and updating the robust measures we already have in place to help our people work confidently.
- We are maximizing the availability of products that help people and their families with their health, hygiene and cleaning needs.
- We have a long history of supporting communities in times of need – and this is no exception. Millions of P&G products are being donated to help ensure that families have basic access to everyday essentials. In AMA alone, we are donating US$7 million in P&G products, personal protective equipment, face masks and ventilators for our communities.
Which technology strategy will get accelerated deployment as a result of COVID-19?
Sanjay Singh: This unprecedented situation has highlighted the essential role IT plays in developing and executing our Business Continuity Plans. As an organization which already offered Work From Home (WFH) arrangements to our employees pre-COVID-19, we were more prepared than others in transitioning to a full WFH arrangement. We had the right infrastructure and tools to support our employees seamlessly transition to remote working.
As a result of COVID-19, many organizations including our own are evaluating how we can better use technology to enable not only productivity but also stronger sense of connection & community.
As a CIO, what has been your biggest challenge to date [aside from COVID-19]?
Sanjay Singh: Becoming digital has been my focus from day one. To ensure we remain as close to or ahead of the curve, we have been leveraging digital connectivity solutions to both run the virtual collaboration and create business metrics dashboards to ensure we stay on top of the business opportunities in front of us. More agile supply chains and distribution operations have enabled us to continue serving our consumers even in this unprecedented time.
We are living in a time of mass disruption where technology is constantly transforming, shaping consumer demands and expectations. Consumer needs in some areas will leapfrog what may have taken 10 years for such needs to evolve.
Technology has become an even more important enabler for consumers to navigate these changes, and this presents challenges and opportunities for companies like P&G to be at forefront of new business models and provide solutions and services through digital that will delight the consumers.
As a CIO, what do you recall as your biggest achievement?
Sanjay Singh: I have been with P&G for 26 years now, and I have many memorable and unique achievements through my experience working in various geographies across the organization. The one that I feel most proud of now is making a difference to P&G and our people in the connected architecture we have been developing, through S-curve innovations and solutions.
In today’s digital era, the need for digitization by all business segments is high, but in most cases, one sees few success stories. I believe that a disconnected digitization model will not be able to unlock the full potential of a digital future. A true digital enterprise is when these become pervasive and hyper connected to match the speed of the business.
Over the last few years, we have enabled digitization to be at the forefront of every business domain at P&G. Examples include our Go-to-Market with Smart Sales Systems that spans across store channels, media systems, supply chain systems, digital consumer and brand business model systems, connected data and decision-making dashboards.
These are driven by our cloud-based platforms as centre to the strategy, data science driven algorithms working on data lakes and hubs, each connected to actions which are to be taken by each employee in P&G through user delightful, extreme automation applications.
The results are showing, directly growing business sales, truly enabling simplification for our people and reducing costs in different business domains. This is now pervasive across teams as a culture where innovation is extremely agile, and proven ideas and systems are built to scale where it matters to make the biggest value for P&G.
This is creating a true competitive advantage and it is here to stay as it is now our culture and DNA. It is a valuable achievement that will fuel the next decade of digitally led growth for P&G.
What is your advice for those who aspire to the CIO/CTO position?
Sanjay Singh: In today’s digital climate, the role of a CIO greatly transcends running IT systems. We have witnessed how digital technology has transformed the shopping experience not only in e-Commerce, but across channels. The role of a CIO, more than ever, has evolved to focus on business growth, as interventions in bringing digitalization is essential in giving a company the edge over its competitors.
To become CIO, it is important that you fully immerse yourself and have a good understanding of every aspect of the business, to be able to pinpoint ways technology can add value and solve business challenges. These skills go a long way in putting you on the path to becoming a CIO in the future.
