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The FODcast
In the FODcast (The Future of #DigitalCommerce) we explore the real career stories of the people who have made it to the very top of the sector and those who are working at the cutting edge of innovation and change right now. Listeners to the podcast gain insight into the journeys industry leaders have taken to be where they are today, the challenges they are facing now and their aims for the future.
The FODcast
Modernising Clarks for Tomorrow's Retail Landscape | S6, Ep4 - Meriel Neighbour
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What are the future-proof strategies every retailer needs to adopt?
For Episode 4 of the current season of the FODcast, we were joined by multi-award-winning digital commerce leader, Meriel Neighbour, Head of Global Digital Product Delivery and Transformation at Clarks who shared with us the transformational journey of the iconic footwear brand.
With extensive experience from her tenure at Ted Baker, the Post Office, Selfridges, and Matches Fashion, Meriel discusses the critical need for Clarks to modernise its technology landscape.
Discover how the adoption of composable commerce and headless architecture is setting Clarks up for long-term success by providing flexibility and resilience in their digital operations.
Plus, lots more insight as we talk about the brand’s challenges and triumphs as they progressed through this transformative journey, how they are poised for future growth, and ready to meet the evolving demands of the digital commerce landscape.
#RetailTech #DigitalTransformation #Clarks #TheFODcast #DigitalCommerce #RetailInnovation
Simply Commerce is the leading supplier of talent into digital commerce across technology, digital marketing, product, sales, and leadership.
Find our more about our approach and our services within digital commerce recruitment here: https://simply-commerce.co.uk/
Future of Digital Commerce Insights
SPEAKER_02Welcome to the latest series of the Fodcast, where we bring you the latest insights into the future of digital commerce. In season six, we continue to interview some of the most respected professionals in the industry as we broaden the topic to cover what it takes to build a business within e-commerce, navigating through business change, as well as the future of technology within digital commerce. As we continue our journey to have one of the best podcasts within commerce, we ask you to like and share within your network if you enjoy our content. Hello and welcome to episode four. How are we here already? Today's guest is fresh from her. Hi, how are you? I'm good, thank you. And yourself?
SPEAKER_00Very well, thank you very much. Very well.
SPEAKER_02Good, thank you for joining me today. Do you want to quickly run through your background sort of pre-Clarks?
SPEAKER_00Uh yeah, very much so. Uh so always been in the retail space over the past sort of uh 18 plus years, directly before um I was with Ted Baker doing a transformation program with them before that, introducing API services to the post office of all places before that, more transformations in the personalized space of uh single view of customer and single view of stock at Selfridges, and lots of other retail before that, uh, that started with matches fashion. So, way back when.
SPEAKER_02Okay, nice. I know we've been speaking for some time and uh obviously plenty of other gigs that you didn't mention, like Selfridges and Summers. And yeah, they're certainly very well versed when it comes to retail and digital transformation in particular. So I'm really looking forward to having this conversation. Um, I guess now's probably as good a time as ever to be recording this, um, given your uh your keynote at Mac Free last week. How did you find it?
SPEAKER_00It was a fantastic event. I mean, obviously, New York is very special to be a as a venue, and we were right down on the Hudson River, so fantastic location. Quite whistle stop. It was literally spent over a couple of nights, a couple of days, but fantastic event in terms of the type of people that were there. Um, a good mixture of clients like myself, brands, industries, and and not just in retail. So it was spit across manufacturing, healthcare, FMCG, etc. Um, and lots of really interesting keynote speeches, workshops, um, panel chats, etc. So fantastic event, and uh definitely all with the common theme of the technology that is part of the Mac Alliance.
SPEAKER_02Nice. I've uh I've only heard good things. My my newsfeed has been absolutely flooded with with Mac 3 feedback and comments and and pictures, and uh and it look, it looks it looks awesome, um, bigger and better than the previous two. And I expect Mac4 will be uh along those lines as well. Perhaps one day I might be able to find myself a seat at the table.
SPEAKER_00I'll try and beg you an invite. There you go.
SPEAKER_02I look forward to it. I might even hold you to it. Um, but um look, let's um let's jump in. Uh see today we're going to be speaking about business transformation, and we're going to focus primarily um um at your role within Clarks over the last couple of years. Uh, I'm sure there'll be some some references and uh a bit of uh uh cross-examination with some of the previous roles you've had within retail as well.
SPEAKER_00Um so um, yeah, so I guess what precipitated the transformation at Clarks in its truest and most transparent sense, there'd be a lack of investment um in Clarks in terms of technology. Um and after sort of 20 plus years of the same technology in stores and online, um, essentially we were coming to end of life with our econ platform, literally end of life, end of extended support. And someone was going to come and switch off the light switch. We were on-premise hosted as well, so literally physically go and switch it off, which meant stop trading, full stop. Um, in the POS world, compliance risk um precipitated everything that we had to do in the POS world as well. So um it wasn't about necessarily just upgrading, it was literally change or stop.
SPEAKER_02Okay, that uh explains the title of the keynote last week, then. Um I I I often hear um sat this side of the phone or what have you, um, that companies take 15, 20, 25 years um on a technology before they decide to upgrade it. And it always feels like it's a few years too long. Why do you think that is?
SPEAKER_00I think people want to sweat their assets and and just get as much out of it as possible. Um, and technology over the past, I don't know, 10, 15 years has moved at such a pace that if you put it in today, you'll be out of date in five years' time. So you've got to really think about strategically when is the right time to put that new technology in place that is going to be able to last as long as you need it. And the beauty of the technology that Clark's chose is the fact that it is part of the Mac Alliance, and part of that is in the title in terms of composable commerce. It's it is headless, and it's about being able to slot in and take back out and slot the next bit in so that you can completely keep extending the life of the products that you've selected, so that you don't have that huge monolith that, as you say, people want to sweat and you keep perhaps a few years too long. Now you can put your backbone in, but you can keep plugging in different components and just create what you want to create. And if something comes to an end of life or is modernized by something else, you put the next version in and you can take it the old version out, and it's much easier to do. Um, so I think that's probably why um people have done it in the past because it it's a big thing to do, yeah? Overhaul a monolith um and put in new technology, it's a big transformation program.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it certainly is. And you touched upon the technology element, you've also got the whole business change element as well, which I'm sure we'll talk about in detail later on in the conversation. Um, do you do you feel as though there's any kind of an awareness issue as well? Because um there is, I mean, as you mentioned, so there's been such uh vast developments within technology over the last 15 years. Is do you do you feel as though um the the people at the top struggle to keep up with it and are aware of what technology actually can do nowadays?
SPEAKER_00People at the top, in terms of CEOs and things like that, I don't think they really need to know the nuts and bolts of the technology, but certainly at CIO, CTO, they're very much more in touch. And now you've got choice. There are so many startup companies as well that are bringing new technology, new innovation, new ideas to the table that actually you need somebody who does know the ins and outs of the technology so that you can complete an RFI, RFP process effectively and choose the right technology. But prior to all of that, the business have got to tell you what they want to enable as part of that journey. Because otherwise, you could you risk going and choosing technology that actually doesn't satisfy what the build business wants to do and is not the strategic direction of travel for the for the business moving forward.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, okay. It's um yeah, it's for me I find it really interesting that like the just the the the available options businesses have now when it comes to breaking down the different components, tens of different pims and um CMSs, OMSs, you name it, go back 10, 15 years. And yes, there was choice, but maybe limited two, two or three, yeah, limited uh at best. Um so it is interesting seeing how they differ and and all that kind of stuff. But it is obviously hard to stay up and up to date with it and obviously understand which one is going to be best suited for your business. Uh, that also takes time to go through those processes as well.
SPEAKER_00Um but again with the SaaS technology that there is today, you choose the products that you want, but they continually evolve. So if you choose the products wisely, that company, that product has a roadmap of development. So they can also keep up with that evolving technology, what's happening out in the big wide world to make sure that they stay relevant uh and stay on that journey with you so that you likewise can keep those assets for longer because they're doing everything that you need them to do.
SPEAKER_02Okay. Okay, so but before we um before we um jump further into it, I think what would be really useful is to give a quick uh highlight or a high-level overview of of the Clarks business itself and just the scale, because I know when I first started to understand the business, it's uh substantially larger than I expected it to be.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so Clarks has a global reach. Um, in the store world, we have a mixture of full-price stores, outlet stores, and franchise stores. Depending on where you are in the world, that mix changes. So China, for example, is very much franchise-oriented, but we are opening more and more stores that are owned by Clarks. In the UK, we have a fairly equal split. In the US, they're probably more heavily led towards outlet stores, so cheaper price stores rather than the full price. Within Clarks, you also have different brands. So you have the original brands, um, you have the um things like the wallabies and the desert boots and things like that. You have core staples, work shoes, that sort of thing. You have a big range of kids' shoes, um, and then you have, believe it or not, the biggest seller of flip-flops in California is Clark's. So there's one thing that you probably didn't know. In terms of reach, store-wise, we have probably nigh on, with all the franchises over in China, probably nigh on a thousand stores across the globe that stretch from everything from Puerto Rico and Canada into the UK and Ireland, across Europe, and as I say, all the way out through Japan and China, um, through Malaysia. Ecom, um, again, all the way from North America, South America, across the UK and Europe. But again, we've had third parties that trade some of our sites that are further over to the east. Um, and part of the transformation that we've undertaken is now being able to then look at when we strategically bring those back in-house under the umbrella that we've created.
SPEAKER_02Okay. So, yep, very large. Then when I think of Clarks as a brand, I think of kids' school shoes. Yeah, I would I've only recently found out that actually that's quite a small market for Clarks because it's UK specific and anything outside of the UK um doesn't have set sort of school uniforms now, such as doesn't have a requirement for the specific shoes. 100%.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_02So there we go. Okay. Um, I'm also aware that the transformation you've just undergone is has been one of the largest for some time. Uh very complex, covered a whole host of different areas in the business. Do you want to quickly run through exactly the areas that you covered and how you went around it?
Setting Up for E-Commerce Success
SPEAKER_00Yeah, sure. So literally my first day within Clarks, um, I had a meeting with potential SI partners. We went through the products that we were looking at in terms of selecting and choosing to undertake the transformation with. We had a design agency in there because our old website was really dreary and brown, and we wanted to make it vibrant and interesting and consumer-led. Um, so we were in that room, we selected the products and which products played well with one another from the Mac Alliance. We decided we wanted that composable commerce so that we can plug and play and be flexible as we went through our lifetime with the with the products. We had SI partners in there, so we debated who had the best knowledge of who had implemented which products before, time and time again. So they were the right people to play that part with us. Um, the design agency, as I say, was in there because we wanted to redo the whole of the design of the website and also create that brand consistency. So that design was also taken across stores as well as we went through the store evolution. Um, and before we left the building, we set our go live date. So we were on May the 2nd, 2022. We had switch off December 31st, 2023. Working back from that, you obviously have at that period of time of year, you've got sale period, Black Friday, Cyber Monday. You need a period of hyper care after you go live with any such transformation. So we got to a window of September 2023. But September 2023, if you go too close to the beginning of it, it's still in that back-to-school period, as you mentioned. So we couldn't crash into that. So we literally only had a two-week window in September 2023 with which to go live. So our date was set and it was fixed. And if we didn't hit that date, goodness knows what would have happened, but we would have stopped trading effectively, or we wouldn't have given ourselves a hypercare period or testing period or whatever. But we had to hit that date.
SPEAKER_01There would have been a compromise of some sort. So what was that approximately six sixteen months, if my math is correct on the fly?
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00So from the 2nd of May, we then had to go and recruit teams. Clarks didn't have development teams. Obviously, we recruited SIs, but they didn't necessarily have the teams that they needed. So, and we needed to go and contract with the products that we'd bought that we wanted to buy and put in place. So we spent the remainder of May, June, and early July recruiting the right teams, putting the contracts in place, doing the negotiations, all of that sort of thing. Um, and then we were up and running 1st of August with our discovery phase, did that for August and September. We were at sprint zero, uh, first week of October, and then we were at gold build, 20th of June 2023, leaving ourselves three months of testing because I will never compromise on testing. And then we hit go live. So that was our window. So we had 12 years of monolith of uh to do development in nine months, effectively, yeah. Um, in to be able to serve up like for like, but also adding in Apple Pay, Google Pay, and social login, which everybody expects in this day and age, but Clarks didn't have historically.
SPEAKER_02Okay, so that sounds like some task, but um just a just a few bits to get done in nine months. Um what impact do you think that had, given it seems to be a pretty short uh period of time?
SPEAKER_00So if you take it right down to this grassroots laser focus, so everybody had to have the shared common goal. Um, everybody had to be on the journey right from the get-go. And you mentioned earlier on business change, so that included business change for us. The business had to be taken on the journey right from the get-go because they were going to be changing everything, their ways of working, the tooling that they used for everything that they did, um whether it be during our e-commerce transformation or during the POS transformation. So business change was absolutely paramount in everything we did. We had to give ourselves a fighting chance. Clarks historically was a waterfall way of working. We had to absolutely bring in agile principles. That was all right with the SIs, they were in that space already. But for Clarks, it was again a totally new way of working. So we brought agile coaches in to coach the business and coach technology so that we had literally a chance of being able to hit that go live window. Um and we aligned all of our work to the customer journey. So if you think about when you go on a website, for example, you go in first of all, land on a home page, you want to search for some products. So we had one work stream that literally looked after that. And then as you moved through the customer journey, we aligned the work streams to those areas. Integration, hugely important, especially in the composable commerce world. Everything's got to integrate with everything else very smoothly. Um, and then PIM, as you mentioned earlier, we didn't have a PIM in Clarks at all. And we were putting PIM in, and PIM is going to be your backbone of your data. It holds the product information and the price. So, core, if you don't get that bit right, what are you going to sell? It won't appear on your website. So we aligned those verticals and then we had horizontals that sat across the top. So testing, testing sat across all areas, architecture, enterprise architecture sat across all areas. We had specific architects that would sit in a specific area of the customer journey. So POS, for example, we had architects that were very focused in that area, and then business change that sat across the whole lot, and then over an arching, all of that, the agile coaches, and then literally the business were aligned in the same verticals so that everything was absolutely in tune. And the same with our partners as well. Everybody aligned to that customer journey as we went through.
SPEAKER_02Okay, perfect. The the setup you've just described, is that is that always the plan, or did you have to make any compromises uh in order to have that uh as you wanted?
SPEAKER_00Um, I think it was the case of the fact that I was brought in to do the job, and so I was given the ability to do what needed to be done given the timeline that we had ahead of us to set ourselves up for success. And having, as you said before, been through transformations before and taken learnings from what I'd done before, that was the only way that we were going to be able to achieve the deadlines that we were set and be able to go live. So I was given the opportunity to set things up and run the way I was used to running and that I know had worked historically with previous uh transformations that I'd undertaken. So literally off I went and given free reign to uh put in place what was required to be put in place, and it involved an awful lot of communication. Um, because without communication and that collaboration that you've got to establish right from the beginning, you won't set yourself up for success. So there was a lot of talking.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I can I can imagine it's it's certainly one of the most important factors. And given some of the previous um conversations I've had in seasons four and five, a lot of them talk about business change, they talk about communication both internally and externally. Um so yeah, I'm I'm completely with you on that one. I guess that leads nicely into um like setting yourself up for success. Um outside of being given the authority to do what you need to do, because that's kind of apparent, um, although it seems at the minute maybe it's uh it's not always a given. Um, what are the key factors um behind making a trans making a transformation like this a success? And then how did you um set yourself and clerks up for success?
Navigating Transformation Challenges and Success
SPEAKER_00So key things I think are very much understanding the products that you're going to have to deal with and put in place, understanding how they all join together, so what integrations are required. Um, for me, it's about the team that you build as well. So people thought I was probably a bit weird, but in your interview techniques, it's about the questions that you ask to make sure that as you build that team and the people you bring on, um, you know that they're going to work with one another properly, the characteristics, their behaviors, the cultural fit, and all of that sort of thing. And we had a huge kickoff that brought everybody together from wherever they were, external, internal. Um, and again, it was all about building that relationship with one another and creating that team so that nobody was scared to raise their hands and ask questions. And it doesn't matter what type of question it is, um, we're all in the same place with the same goal, fighting for being able to deliver it. Um, so that whole thing, first and foremost, is key to setting yourself up for success. Then, as I say, in terms of transformations, previously aligning yourself to your deliverables, 100% dependencies, so you know what you're dependent on, who you're dependent on, which team you're dependent on, and when. And again, that articulation and collaboration so that everybody knows what's required of them by when. Celebrating little wins and successes as you go through. Um, we had demos with the business so that the business started to believe that we were actually going to deliver what we were going to deliver. Historically, things had failed with Clarks, and so there was little um belief in technology was going to deliver this huge transformation. So we demonstrated where we had built to date so they could actually start to see website come alive and things like that. Um, and I think again, choosing your partners strategically so that they know your current product, they know your journey to your new product, they bring thought leadership to it so they know, having done that sort of transformation before, which order you should build something in. Um, and you have to have that ultimate trust between everybody. So difficult conversation is going to be had along the journey, and you can't fall out because you've got such a laser focus on your goal and what you've got to achieve. So trust is absolutely power, trust, paramount, relationships, and collaboration.
SPEAKER_02Okay. A long list of uh a long list of important criteria. Um, a lot of it though boils down to communication, collaboration, trust, people being accountable for getting the job done, and obviously uh a number of the points that you mentioned as well. One of the one of the topics you touched upon near the start of that was um hiring and being like really diligent with hiring the Right individuals for the team. I'm aware that the the clerk's transformation did involve a number of third parties of who also had a number of um either full-time or contract employees uh fulfilling their duties. Were you involved in those interviews as well to a certain extent, or did you leave that down to the third parties to ensure that they hired the right people?
SPEAKER_00Across between the two. So the delivery leads for those third parties were hugely important because they played into the clerks teams. So it was really important that those relationships were good right from the get-go. There was no no point in having people that would get each other's backs up and things like that. So um we in one partner we swapped out delivery leads twice. So if you if you do make a mistake or it doesn't go quite according to plan, you've got to have the guts to be able to have that conversation and swap people in and out without impact, obviously, on the program, um, which is a really difficult A conversation to have and B decision to make. Because as I say, when you've got such a tight timeline, you can't afford anything to impact that. Um, so there were one or two changes that we had to make, but again, have that conversation, be open and transparent, try and make it work. If it doesn't, ultimately for the good of the program, you have to make that change.
SPEAKER_02That's it. And like you said, there's not a huge amount of uh wiggle room either because of the because of the tight time scale. So quick decisions.
SPEAKER_00100%.
SPEAKER_02Okay. Do you um let me phrase that again? Was there any points um during the transformation where you were questioned if you were going to reach that delivery date?
SPEAKER_00So we actually, the because of the historical nature of projects not being delivered by technology, um, the board actually brought in an external consultancy to come and check on us. So um a third party came in and could have been really disruptive because they wanted to interview not only the clerk's personnel, myself, um, but all the external partners as well, to make sure that we were all doing the right thing in the right order with the right technology, the right tools, um, that we'd bought the right technology, that we had the right budget in place, that we were applying agile ways of working.
SPEAKER_02Oh, and this is like halfway through.
SPEAKER_00After the first two months of development.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_00So literally, as the curveball came in to do pause, we were also doing the consultancy to check that we were doing everything right in the e-commer world. So we had to fit all of that around continuing to develop as well. Um, they actually came in and said, No, everything's okay. This bit's better than that bit, could make an improvement here or there, but nothing glaringly that was going to set us up for failure. Um, and they actually said that budget-wise, we should add an extra million in. But obviously, I said, okay, fine, thank you, I'll go shopping, but I didn't actually spend it.
SPEAKER_02Okay, okay. Yeah, I can see uh I can see why they would want to do that, but at the same time, you've also got to be really careful with okay, we've already run into really tight timescales, and taking everyone out of that team for however long, even if it's just an hour a person, that adds up to a lot of a lot of hours out of the project where work isn't being delivered or meetings are being missed or whatever it might be. So it's risky, but I mean, it it doesn't matter now, I guess, because you the deadline didn't move and you got it delivered when you need it to.
SPEAKER_00So and they gave us a clean bill of health and said we were doing the right thing. So you breathe breath breathed a sigh of relief after that one, eh?
SPEAKER_02That's that's it. Yeah, I guess it makes it a little bit easier for you moving forward as well, then, because the the trust is definitely there from the boards. Yeah, 100%. You uh you you're obviously seasoned in in this, and uh like you said, you you were given the reins to do it how you wanted to do it, but but um what was the biggest challenge that arose that maybe you didn't see coming and then and how did you deal with it? Uh outside of what you've just said, actually, because that's probably going to be your answer.
SPEAKER_00No, no, I think the biggest challenge was probably um twofold. So, right at the beginning, as I say, my first day we were looking at the products and the the implementers and things like that. So I didn't have a chance to even meet people in the business. So I had no idea who worked in what teams, what the responsibilities were, who should attend which discovery sessions and things like that. Um, so I think that um was probably one of the biggest challenges in the discovery period, first of August to 30th of September, was having the right people in the room to tell you how the current website operated and therefore what we had to replicate in the new website. That was probably one of the biggest challenges. And then I think the other part was definitely about getting the business on board because of historically technology failing the business and not enabling them through the projects that had been put out and failed or not worked or had to be rolled back or whatever. Um, the business obviously were very hesitant about whether we were going to do what we were saying we were going to do. And so, therefore, until they sort of woke up, despite the cajoling and everything else that we tried to do to take them on the journey, it wasn't until a little bit later in, and after we'd done a few of those demos, um, that they suddenly perhaps woke up and went, oh, it is gonna happen. Oh, we better get on the bus, or we better join in, oh, we better do our training, oh, we better learn about the products, oh, we better know how to do everything. And suddenly there was that, as I say, it was almost an awakening of the business teams, um, which then put again perhaps more pressure on people like the business change team because that window of where we had started to take them on that journey suddenly became a shorter window to get them to start to do stuff. Um, and there are always unknown unknowns. When you open the box, you want to close the lid again very, very quickly because you don't want to you don't like the look of what's inside. Um, and but until you do that, you don't know what's going to come and bite you. Um, and then you just got to face into it and crack on and get it done.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, you you spoke about business change team there and obviously how the window shrunk for getting the business on board. I know from tens of conversations that business change is one of the biggest uh factors for transformations that that get delayed or ultimately possibly fail. Um in your point of view, what is the importance of getting business change right?
SPEAKER_00Goodness gracious me. So if you don't, you run the risk of you've got all of these lovely new shiny tools, but nobody knows how to actually use them and implement them and carry on with their BAU. And if you don't bring them on that journey and help them understand why and how, because it's not just the fact, oh, here's a new tool, off you go, fill your boots, get it done, play with it, get it working. You've got to show them the the reasoning behind why you're changing from A to B. You've then got to show them how B works, you've then got to enable them to do what they want to do with that product so that they can then feel comfortable with it. And that's a big piece of work. And if you don't do it, and people then you start off with this lovely, shiny new website or POS system in the stores, but you then don't explain how they can perpetuate that journey and how they can make that live and bring it to life after you've gone live. All of a sudden you'll be back to your own old ways of working and we'll have a brown and dreary site again. And you won't be able to put promotions on there or know how to go into sale period or um promote products on their pages to top slots and things like that. So hugely, hugely important to trade, enable the team to trade their site. And if you don't, the answer is your sales or just go like that.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Something that risk. Okay, okay. And no, I'm going to ask you another question about that in a minute. But what something that we see often with with big traditional retail brands, particularly ones that are based in locations outside of London where there's not a bigger talent pool, is that people join those organizations and they stay there for 10, 15, 20 years in some cases, and they get stuck in their ways. And when you're trying to convince somebody in any function of the business to change what they're doing after they've been doing that same thing the same way for the last 15 years is tough. So, um, how uh how how did you ensure that the change wasn't just communicated at the start, it was communicated on an ongoing basis. And then I guess post-go live as well, it needs to remain to be communicated to ensure it is continue to do the best possible way.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so as you say, it is a big change, and Clark's is very like that, where people have been in the business 20 plus years, and they've all been always been used to doing what they do in the same way day in, day out. So taking them on the journey right from the start, hugely important. So they were part of the product selection process, so they were part of choosing the tool which they thought best fit what they would need to do and how they would need to operate once we were went live. Then business change actually, there were no documented processes in terms of how we do stuff today versus how we were going to do stuff tomorrow, and therefore being able to identify the change between now and tomorrow. So business change worked with the business. So they started to develop that relationship right from the go in terms of asking about current processes. Business change then have to do an awful lot of work behind the scenes to understand the new products and the new tooling and the new ways of working, being able to then do that impact assessment between old and new, being able to then communicate that out with the business teams, being able to understand what tooling is available from the products themselves, because these days the modern SAS products have academies online where you can do some self-teaching, self-learning. Um, and then they put together training material associated with it. They did tracking to make sure people went through and passed their little tests online to say that they'd undertaken that academy training and stuff. And then they did checkbacks and then we did hand holding with the UAT training. So they helped write all the scripting together in terms of what the UAT testing was going to be. Um, and then they were there helping them set up the content, making sure that that was being tracked in terms of it would all be ready on time for go live, looking beautiful, etc. Um, and then they were there to hold their hands afterwards in terms of getting them used to that tooling. And if they had problems going, oh, I've forgotten how to set up a promotion, they were there to help them. And they were there to then educate them in terms of, okay, we'll help you first time you forget, second time you forget, where are you going to go to find out how to do that promotion? So taking them on the journey, because when they weren't there, those people would need to then refer to that documentation, training material, little podcasts that we did, video little things links and things like that that we did for them, um, so that they could self-serve um once we've gone past the hypercare period. So hugely important, absolutely intrinsic for any kind of transformation, small or large.
Evolving Retail Experience With Technology
SPEAKER_02Yeah, the one thing I took from that is that there's there's so many different areas that you covered, and all of them are as important as each other. Um so I think when businesses look to cut costs uh when it comes to business change, I think it's really important that they don't because as you mentioned, ultimately what will happen is it from one reason or another, sales will drop off, whether that's because they don't have to use the systems or whatever it might be, it doesn't really make a difference if you're not investing in your staff to understand what they're doing moving forward with the new technology and making the most of that technology as well, because it can do far more than the previous one that's 15 years old, then you're missing out. Um, so okay, so before we move on to uh to um the next topic, if there was one thing that you took from this transformation, one one lesson that you learned, what what would it be?
SPEAKER_00Goodness gracious. I think I would have stood my ground a little bit more with one of the SI partners um because I said they should do build checkout first. Um and they said no, it's not first in the customer journey, because we wanted to align to the customer journey in terms of our build. And I perhaps should have stood firmer, having been through transformations before, um, because we should have built checkout first. It is the most complex place with all the different um payment methods that you have and the different nuances, split payments, split baskets, all things that we hadn't done before that we were now introducing, should have done pay that first. That was the one thing that could have upset the Apple cart in terms of our go live day.
SPEAKER_02So okay, and then that's just because of the complexity behind it and making sure you would have had enough time to do it to how we needed to do it. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00We still hit our gold date, don't get me wrong, but it was a case of me then having to throw a little bit more resource at it to enable us to hit that deadline. So you could argue that it cost me a little bit more in that regard. It was within budget still, don't get me wrong, but should have hit checkout first. It's probably where I would go.
SPEAKER_02It's good to know. And this is some it's um um some some some wisdom for anybody else that's about to go on this journey as well. Don't just look at what might be the standard A to B. Look at okay, what's actually going to take up the most time, the most resources, what's the most complex? Maybe hit that first and then refer back to the plan or whatever. So cool. Okay, so look, the I guess the idea of going composable is to modernize technology um and to potentially future-proof the business. Um the question I have for you is is future-proofing a retail business even possible?
SPEAKER_00Yes, um, because of the fact that we've chosen that composable stack, we have future proof. So we move to the cloud as well at the same time. So we changed our whole infrastructure setup, um, which means that we now have that elasticity in terms of peak and trough of trade that moves with us. Um, we put in um what we call Confluent, um, which is an event streaming which gives you real-time data so that you can use that to inform any decisions that you need to make in terms of trading. Um, the ability to trade the site. So if you wake up in the morning and it's raining outside, what do you do when you first come in? You can now use your commerce to put your boots at the top of the home page and PLP pages so that people see those rather than the flip-flops, even though it's the height of summer. So the technology that we've put in enables all of that sort of functionality. And then if you want to now go and look at, I don't know, personalization, for example. So that's the next stage of your journey to start making it really individual for your customers. You don't have to try and unbolt a big monolith or anything else. You can plug in something else and it doesn't automatically play. But through that API connection and the integrations, it is very much easier to slot new technology in. You then have to obviously work with your relationships with your products you have bought, and you need to try and influence the roadmap, but it's in the product's best interest as well, being a SaaS products, that they keep up with the Joneses and the new technology that's coming year in, year out, and that they evolve their product as well. And you should drive those relationships post-implementation because you want to influence that. What do I want from my customers at Clarks? Okay, let's go and talk to product A, product A, how are you gonna help me change that, influence that journey and what I'm gonna deliver for my customers as a change to their experience or an update to their experience, et cetera, et cetera?
SPEAKER_02I think you raise a good point there about the the product responsibility as well. They're gonna obviously want to make sure their product is staying at the cutting edge of retail in this case. So they're they're doing what you've just said. Um okay, I find the whole personalization piece really interesting. And I know I'm looking at it from a very uneducated point of view, but uh even seeing the developments in person over the last two or three two or three years in particular has been huge when I have some conversations and you start looking at getting generative AI involved and what that can do. I'm really, really interested to see how that develops over the next five years.
SPEAKER_00I think AI in a retail space, um, it'll be an interesting one to follow. We are all different, yeah. You're unique, I'm unique, and the way you like to shop, I like to shop, and the next person is all very, very different. And so, therefore, I think in retail particularly, you've got to keep that element of customer experience, personalization, brand loyalty, brand identity, um, and getting to know your customers because that's what builds that relationship with them. AI can enable you to do that, but it can't replace that personal relationship that you create with your customer. Um, and it should never replace that because that's what's unique to you, your brand, um, and the experience that you create for your customers, whether it's in-store or online. Um, but what AI can do is help inform the decision-making process behind the scenes in terms of what you do and what you enable to make sure that you keep that progress moving and keep that brand loyalty and personalization with your customers to keep them coming back again and again and again.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, and I I definitely agree. Enhance, yes, um, replace, definitely no. Um and that's not just retail, that's in every every industry. That's got a customer-centric approach. Um outside of retail, there's a obviously a hot topic about AI replacing recruiters, and yeah, I'm I'm furning the cap that that won't add.
SPEAKER_00Even if you how often do you go? I don't know, you go online and and you all you get is a chat bot. Yeah. And actually, what you want to do is speak to somebody.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00I mean, I absolutely agree.
SPEAKER_02I think there's some really good chatbots out there, but there are some really bad ones, and I'm not gonna name drop them now, but yeah, they're they can be like super frustrating when you just want to speak to somebody. Um okay, so um quickly then, how do you um think retail is gonna look in sort of 10 to 15 years from now?
Revolutionising Retail for Gen Z
SPEAKER_00I think COVID taught us a lesson to be fair. Um, and everybody thought everyone would jump on the online bus during COVID times. And don't get me wrong, people wanted to shop and so therefore they did. But as soon as shops opened up again and that retail space opened up again, everyone wanted to go back out into the shops. And they want to see and touch and feel and smell products rather than just have it all online. So I think retail will remain, I think bricks and mortar will remain. Um, but I do think that retail will involve in terms of, as I say, I hate to harp on about it, but it is very much that personal interaction and creating a lifestyle and an aspiration. I want to have that pair of Clark shoes because it says something about me as a person, to my peers, to my colleagues, to the event I'm attending, whatever it happens to be. Um, and so that's where I think retail really needs to focus as you go through. Now, interestingly, you've got um what we refer to as the Gen Z people who want everything at their fingertips. So they're very much in the use of a mobile to order, use apps, etc., etc. But interestingly, they still want to go into a store and see a product because you don't images on a mobile or whatever don't really lend themselves to that touch and feel of a cloth or a shoe or a perfume or whatever it happens to be. But while they're in the store, they won't necessarily speak to a store person because that's not the Gen Z way. The Gen Z way is to do it on your tablet or your mobile or whatever. So they could even just sit in your store and order the product that they've gone in and seen and touched while they're in the store because they don't talk to people per se. So uh I do think retail is going to evolve somewhat in terms of how we deliver stuff at people's fingertips, but we create that lifestyle and aspiration still by having bricks and mortar. And I think we've got to still, all the way through my journey in retail, being able to deliver stuff in the timeline that people want it. People want it now, yeah. And I don't think that's going to get any better. People are still gonna want it now, now, now, now, now. So I think we've got to improve our delivery offers and returns and exchanges again has been one of those things in my lifetime that I've always wanted to get better at Clarks. We've definitely made inroads into that, being able to offer exchanges, not just refunds and things like that. And because we've now gone unified commerce, so that omni word, um, you can do all of that very much more easily. Um, but for me, having everything at the fingertips is going to become absolutely at the forefront, and composable commerce lends itself to that, providing you keep yourself up to date.
SPEAKER_02Okay, I um yeah, I think you again you spoke spoke a lot about a lot of a lot of areas there. I 100% agree with having everything at your fingertips. I think I look at myself and my friendship group and my family, like you you order something, you want it there, and then if you don't want it, you want to be able to take it back or you want to be able to send it back easily. What I find interesting though is whilst um I would imagine the majority of people like to send their. Their products back via route of every Royal Merle, etc. You look at brands like Next, for example, and Zara, who are very pro on taking your returns back to in store, they're also doing extremely well and ahead of um many other retail brands that don't offer that struggle in that era. So I find that quite interesting as well, how certain brands can educate their customers to do things to benefit the brand's profit margin, essentially.
SPEAKER_00And again, it's something that Clarks recognized as part of our transformation. So we wanted that fully joined up journey from a customer point of view. It's very convenient for people to walk past a store on their way to work or way back to work or wherever they happen to be going. And in olden days, if I can refer to them that way, um, Omni meant the fact that you could take your online order back into a store, but the store would still have to send it back to the DC for the DC to process it for you to get your refund. With our unified journey, it means you can take that into the store and you get your refund straight away.
SPEAKER_02Okay.
SPEAKER_00And it goes back into store stock. It doesn't get sent back to the DC. And so, therefore, from a customer perspective, you are getting your refund right there, right now. Or I can encourage you to exchange your product for something else, or I could sell you another product anyway. And that's where you benefit from that unified journey rather than, as I say, old-fashioned Omni, as it were, if I can refer to it that way.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. Well, that's it. And how certain brands have seemed to hit the nail on the head with that, is is really um I find it really good. And uh hopefully more can do that as well, because not only does it benefit the brand, you've obviously got the impact on the environment and sustainability and all that kind of stuff as well, which I know is really important, not just to brands, but to a lot of consumers now as well, particularly some of the Gen Z and what have you, too, as you touched upon. So um nice. Well, I think we should probably call it there, shouldn't we, Meryl? Um, thank you very much for your time. Um, I know that you're inundated with requests similar to this. You're doing a lot of talks at the minute following the gig with Clarks. Um, so um, yeah, I really do appreciate it. Um, and yeah, who has ever had a first day like you?
SPEAKER_00Who would ever want a first day like me?
SPEAKER_02That would be more of the question. It's certainly not one you're gonna forget anytime soon, is it?
SPEAKER_00No, not at all. But it's been a great, great experience. And just a shout out to the whole team that we've worked with, internally and externally. They were an amazing team on this transformation, really amazing. Um we wouldn't have been able to achieve it without them.
Delivering Results for Future Growth
SPEAKER_02But it sounds like they've done a good job. It was very tight, tight time scale. She got it delivered, and I'm sure the business is going to benefit over the next two, three, four, five years and so on and so forth. Um, so look, thank you very much, Mariel. And to our listeners, thank you for listening again. I hope you found this uh episode insightful. And uh, please do continue to listen. Please do like, share, spread across your network so we can spread these episodes far and wide. And if they help anyone with their education on transformations, the move to composable, or anything to do with the future of digital commerce, it is doing its job. Thanks again, and we'll see you soon.
