Adaptability and Agility are Key to Success During Crisis
In this exclusive interview with MarTech Vibe Middle East, Pawel Dabrowski, Head of Omni-channel, Nahdi Medical KSA talks about adaptability, advantages of having an agile team, data and analytics strategies and his approach towards investing in technology. Online shopping is witnessing a surge due to COVID 19. Do you think it will change the way […]
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In this exclusive interview with MarTech Vibe Middle East, Pawel Dabrowski, Head of Omni-channel, Nahdi Medical KSA talks about adaptability, advantages of having an agile team, data and analytics strategies and his approach towards investing in technology.
Online shopping is witnessing a surge due to COVID 19. Do you think it will change the way people shop?
Of course, it will. Even after we come back to normal life after COVID19, the experiences people gained during lockdown and quarantine will have a reflection on their shopping behaviour.
First of all, many of them will learn and get used to ordering online and getting their supplies. They will see how convenient this can be and how much time is saved.
On the other hand, what consumers buy will change as well.
A general sense of insecurity will most likely make people focus on purchasing the essential products, and we will see a significant decrease in purchasing luxury brands or any “nice to have” items.
Share some personal experiences to grow the online business. What are the do’s and don’ts marketers should focus on?
That’s a broad topic, so will focus on experiences with Covid19.
The success in online operations was due to the agility team showed across all functions: Omnichannel, IT, Operations and Marketing Communication.
But in fact, the best marketing was quick scaling up in all areas (systems, delivery capability, guest centre) and being able to provide the guests with the proper level of service and to meet their expectations.
Caring for the Guests and their needs proved to be the best marketing you could get under challenging times.
What has been your biggest challenge & how have you overcome it?
I would say, accelerating e-commerce systems, building delivery and guest care systems during the lockdown was a significant challenge.
We had to service ten times higher traffic and a number of orders on all business levels.
As mentioned before the agility of Nahdi teams, thinking out of the box, finding unexpected solutions and team dedication made us succeed and get to proper capacity in around one week.
It proved our position e-commerce / omnichannel; we were able to keep delivering the majority of placed orders within 2-4 hours.
Also Read – Omnichannel Marketing Can Help Boost Your Marketing Campaign
Tell us more about your data and analytics strategy?
There is never enough data, but at the same time, and what is more important, there is never enough people to analyse it.
A first and critical step is to define what you need to understand about your business.
Then you build analytical capabilities that will get you to your desired understanding.
It has to build in all critical areas – related to revenue, traffic, UX, products, customer and technical (systems performance)
Each of these will give you many answers on your business performance, especially when something goes wrong.
The next step will be to select the KPIs that you will be checking on a daily, weekly or monthly basis.
Plus the ones that are critical to analysing sudden changes in business results (promotions? Website not accessible? Wrong UX? Etc.)
The selection process has to consider both business needs and your teams capacity. If the capacity is not enough, you either automate analytics or hire more people.
Personalisation and smart recommendations are key for retailers. What technology solutions work for you?
There are many of them. Some are native to the e-commerce platform we use; some are related to ERP.
At this moment, I consider our search engine as a critical solution for recommendations and personalisation.
The major reason is that most user journeys start from search. Guests leave so much information about their needs, desired products, problems just by using the search engine.
We analyse that data to provide best-personalised experience.
What has been your approach been towards investing in technology?
We have so many solutions to personalise on both segment level and individual level.
The e-commerce platform, marketing automation tool, ERP, search engine and a few others deliver features that allow us to provide personalised experience/communication either individual guests or groups of guests.
Our approach is – first define a business need, then find a solution that fulfils this, not necessarily buying a dedicated tool.
Each of these approaches depends on the business size, guest databases, and product variety. I never thought in terms of separating anything.
ENDS
Pawel has 12-years of experience in developing and managing e-commerce/omnichannel solutions in the retail industry.
Pawel leads the Omnichannel Department at Nahdi Medical Company. He has previously worked on global e-commerce projects for Nestle and has built several omnichannel solutions for luxury fashion brands.
A passionate teacher and lecturer, he loves to support others in building and monetising their online presence.
