New video: Unilever reflects on their analytics maturity journeyCOMPANY CONFIDENTIAL. DO NOT DISCLOSE.
During Discovery Summit Europe in Manchester this year, I had the pleasure of interviewing two individuals from Unilever's Home Care division: R&D Director Thorsten Schoeppner and Process Development Engineer Ewan Cook. While the stated purpose of this project was (and still is) to create a video that can be used to promote JMP and analytics initiatives within Unilever, I've decided to release a longer-form company confidential version to share within JMP.
In their interview, Thorsten and Ewan were very forthcoming about the types of ROI and business value messaging that resonated with their leadership. Since it’s not often we get to hear these kinds of examples (especially on camera), I opted for a bit of a longer format than usual – it’s just under 14 minutes.
My key takeaways are as follows:
- Analytics advocates shouldn’t underestimate the importance of starting small and getting some early wins that can be documented. Unilever started by assigning one team of two people working on a single formulation with DOE. After a period treating this as a special project, Thorsten says, “We came to that point where there was a return on investment. We got these technology insights that we had not seen before…. And then suddenly there was momentum.”
- The pilot project helped to develop best practices that were then rolled out to more teams. That group became a community of practice, with expectations and job requirements set accordingly; “By the way, it’s part of your target now.”
- There is more than one way to think about ROI. Examples shared in this video include: "multimillion Euro savings," a new formulation that outperforms competitors, 10% material savings, solving a problem that would have been impossible to solve without DOE in JMP, and avoiding the cost of postponing a launch. Says Thorsten: “[Analytics] makes quite a significant impact in multiple dimensions.”
- Once the process development division had achieved significant returns on investment, Thorsten explains, they brought it to Unilever senior leadership, aligning ROI with the executive agenda. “This is when people start listening,” he says.
- The urgent imperative to develop sustainable products and adopt clean business practices is a powerful driver of change. Analytics is enabling organizations like Unilever to do more with less. As this video surely demonstrates, sustainability and DOE are very much in alignment.
Please remember this story is company confidential.
Customer Success StoriesInside Sales NewsRe: New video: Unilever reflects on their analytics maturity journeyLoved it Meg - Great interview. When Thorsten said "that's when the music plays", I laughed out loud! Thanks for documenting the takeaways.
Re: New video: Unilever reflects on their analytics maturity journeyHi all,
although this amazing video is company confidential, Ewan will be giving a talk on April 18th during the Online Discovery Summit: www.jmp.com/dse-online.
Registration is free and people will have the chance to ask questions. Please invite your Users in EMEA (14:00 CEST) and US (08:00 am ET).
Thanks!
Re: New video: Unilever reflects on their analytics maturity journeyIf you have advocate users in need of ideas for quantifying the value of JMP to drive further expansion, then please encourage them to register and watch/listen to the Unilever presentation by Ewan on 18 April at 14:00 (CEST) in the above link from Maria. In addition to the high-level statement of JMP helping deliver better performing products at lower cost with higher sustainability, I expect Ewan will re-state what he said at Europe Discovery in-person. JMP helps deliver:
- Double digit €Ms in material savings (including the reduction of process temperature which has a sustainability impact through lower energy consumption).
- 26% reduction in batch cycle time to increase factory capacity and avoid the need for CAPEX to build additional production capacity.
- 21% reduction in non-biodegradable polymer to reduce product cost while maintaining product performance and improving product sustainability.
These metrics are getting attention higher up the management chain to gain support for expanded use of JMP. A big thanks to @MarcoSalfi and @edgarbeere0 for their coaching support with Ewan in helping him communicate these impact messages.
