Tech Transformation Podcast: Kellogg’s Manish Sharma On the Evolution to Omnicommerce

8/4/2023

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Today's consumer behavior shifts are only growing more complex, making it a challenge for both manufacturers and retailers to meet shoppers whenever they are. We’re talking with Manish Sharma, VP of omni and e-commerce for Kellogg Company, about the consumer goods company’s evolution into omnicommerce and the changes they're making across their business.

Listen to learn:

The most recent consumer behavior changes they’re monitoring and responding to
How they define personalization and how it’s evolved
How the transformation from e-commerce to omni-commerce drives holistic success of their businesses
The industry’s willingness to cooperate for data sharing today and where more work is needed
Where they see the potential of data clean rooms
The role of generative AI in the consumer goods industry
What retailers should know about becoming stronger trading partners

Excerpts

On the evolution of personalization: “As an omnicommerce lead, my biggest job is to drive conversions at the bottom of the funnel. So, in the past, the biggest job of personalization was very transactional. It was just to drive conversions. It has evolved from being transactional to much more [about] building experiences and trusted partnerships with our consumer by directing the right message at the right time. That helps reduce friction in the buying journey. That helps them make the right decision. …

“And there are three forces of this evolution that are taking this forward. Number one is advanced technology. We have seen a surge in AI and ML — that is a big force of driving personalization, because now you can synthesize large data, and then use that to truly understand where the consumers are, what they want, and then create those messages for them.

“The second thing is the widespread availability and accessibility of data that was not there in the past. And that data is much more behavioral, so we can really understand what consumers really want versus what we thought in the past they want. And the last is ever-changing consumer behavior, and the intersection of all those three is where the personalization is.”

On transforming to omnicommerce: “The biggest jobs to be done for our business is to build seamless and consistent experiences across various touchpoints, both offline and online, with a goal to reduce the friction in the buying journey to deliver satisfaction and to meet the needs of our consumer so we can gain more than fair share of their basket.

“In this fragmented world, building more integrated experiences, not only in online commerce and in-store, but also in all through our social commerce or through the path to purchase, enabling commerce full funnel is going to be important. Addressing the experiential need through immersive, and our content strategy is playing a big role in that. We are trying to work through short form video as a way to build baskets [and] drive experiences for our consumers, and we have more plans to leverage social media in that realm. …

“We are using a lot of AI and ML to then help us build those integrated and immersive experiences through the use of technology so we can make it more meaningful for our consumers.”

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