Danny Krivoshey 0:00:09.8:
So my name is Danny. I'm chief digital officer of Unilever International Group, and let's have fun a little bit, and obviously I'm just sharing my experience. I see a lot of technical people here. Obviously, by far cleverer than myself. So, who are we? Unilever is obviously a soap and soup company, one of the biggest in the world. As simple as it is, we're serving 3.4 billion customers every day, and Unilever International is actually opening the markets for Unilever. As strange as it is, because a lot of consumers and businesses are underserved, the biggest business of Unilever, like Dove, is sold only 50 per cent of the market. Why this is happening? So Unilever International is basically serving the underserved, who we are focusing on, make me beautiful. If you're taking the picture, it make me look beautiful now. Not great. Thank you. So serving the underserved, first is consumers and people say, what do you mean? There is five per cent of global population, which is around 500 million people, right, are [unclear words 0:01:18.3] consumers. And, as you can see, living in Singapore.
Danny Krivoshey 0:01:26.1:
Before that, I lived four years in India. Before that, I was living in China and Japan. I was born in Lithuania and about five per cent of global population, which is exactly like me. Five hundred million multiplied by €7 per person for Unilever products, brings you to a 3.55 billion opportunity, if you do it right for attracting diaspora consumers. This is only one opportunity. Unilever has 400 brands, and if you're looking in the markets, Unilever operates usually within ten, twenty top brands. We are specialized in seeding the brands in the markets and bringing more and scaling the businesses. This is what we do. We're opening new channels because we are looking on consumer journeys during the day. I was flying from Singapore to London and I saw, oh great, I am in the hotel. Can I use Unilever products? Because this is exactly matching my journey, and Unilever was not present there. So this is what we do. Finally, if you operate in small economies, small islands in Pacific, Mongolia, Maldives.
Danny Krivoshey 0:02:41.7:
Some countries are very nice, like Maldives. Some countries in Africa, for example, like Nigeria, you cannot even enter. You need to know how to operate. We were able to build the new operational business models allowing us to work in these markets around the world. Well, I was a finance head of a business, so I built economies for that, and then I was fired because the business was 200 million, it went up within two years to one billion, and people said how it's possible that finance takes so many risks. So I was fired from finance. They said, 'Okay, if you're so strange…' By the way, you will see I have this black sheep on me. I'm thinking differently. They sent me to work in India to build the operations. In operations, it was very interesting piece. Unilever International operates globally across markets. We don't operate in one market. We work with 150 brands, 150 countries, 120 sourcing units and 1000 ships in the sea in the given moment. So the business model to serve underserved is one of the most complex businesses in the world.
Danny Krivoshey 0:03:56.7:
Now, how many of you did MBA? I think most of you. Or something similar like economics. When you're doing a business, one thing what people are being told, usually, you need to focus on 20 per cent of the things which deliver 80 per cent of the value. Correct? This is what all of you do, including myself. This is the biggest mistake. Why are you doing 20 per cent focus? Because you don't have solutions to manage the rest. So you're leaving the rest to me. Great. So if I know to operate the complexity I'm gaining, so continue to do MBA and I will do the money. This is basically the basic business model. So how to do that. When I realized, okay good, it's kind of nice, how we make it that. So I went to India and I asked, okay let us put the processes in place, and I got the huge world much bigger than Anaplan here, and this is only ten per cent of the processes. The yellow thing is semi-manual, is kind of Excel-based, and the pink one is super, is manual, and this is just ten per cent, and this is what people were doing. So entire process to manage all this complexity was literally ticked by these stickers. This is how people worked.
Danny Krivoshey 0:05:17.1:
So if you want to do something you go to this world, you did what you need to do, and you do it in Excel. If people wanted to chat about some problems, we opened the WhatsApp groups, as usually, and then blame each other, which is the best, like this is the best thing to do. Eventually, your success in the business is defined by how many times you're blaming someone else, which is a great thing. Then we obviously had like this comment here. Most of the business was connected with this amazing tool, which is good for personal productivity. The only problem here, which once in a time you're getting that, and when you like, it's like my version, final version number 22. You know that the final version, number 22, which you're saving, what is was saved under saved, and when you start fighting with yourself, where is this latest file? And you're realizing this is not the latest. So this is what we did, and I said, 'Okay, how I'm going to manage this business because it's kind of we have an opportunity, but it's impossible to manage.'
Danny Krivoshey 0:06:19.9
So you looking from that from negative perspective, and then one of the biggest changes, what we did is let us think about it from different angle. Can we expand our horizons? If you're solving these problems, can we take more businesses? Can we bring more business models? And answer was yes. Great. The second thing is, when you're going in the morning, especially sorry, like a man in the morning and you want to go to work, you want to feel the vibe of energy, like vroom. This is why the men are buying Formula 1 cars, just to feel the vibe. Sorry, guys. So for me, it was Harley-Davidson. I realized when I want to go to work, I need to do this, vroom. When you're going back to work and you feel, oh, it was quite nice. I realized, why should not business behave like that? Why should not we have engines which support the business operations which make it fun to work?
Danny Krivoshey 0:07:20.3:
Lastly, can we service to delight our customers and teams? This is the three points what we said. Once we realized what the potential is by far bigger than the problem, and this is just the results with Anaplan. By the way, once we realized that the business is the fastest growing FMCG business in the world, we are closing a couple of billions already from 200 million a few years ago. We are going to become one of the biggest Unilever entities in the world, and this is only for Anaplan, what you see now, in the last three months. Five per cent service improvement. Consider that this is your sales improvement by five per cent, off of a billion, let's say of 2 billion. You can imagine what is the incremental contribution. We are speaking about 90 per cent reduction of planning cycles in fact is wrong. It's from 45 days to 4 minutes, and I will show you soon. We achieve ten times operational scale because we are able to manage entire operations of Unilever planning within one platform. Adoption of 90 per cent, 2 minutes integration of data, which previously was taking around 4 weeks to 5 weeks, now taking 2 minutes.
Danny Krivoshey 0:08:38.3:
Across the world, 300 million records, plus/minus, and of course, we were able to build new business models which we are now expanding to. What I'm showing to you guys is three months from the launch. So we are not yet into the full potential. But now the point here is how to do that. What is the magic behind it? I call it the three Cs of connecting to success. The first thing is connect with empathy. I have two kids and I'm flying a lot. Actually, I was flying, I was speaking with my wife in the last couple of years, 15 years I'm working in global trade, and I was flying around 10 years, and I wasn't able to see my kids, and this is unfortunately the case with this decision for life. One day, I came back home and I opened the fridge, it was night, and I saw my son put the cookie there, for my dad. This is the cookie.
Danny Krivoshey 0:09:38.8:
He ate everything else, but at least he kept one, and when he stopped me, just a second, if you are approaching the thing with empathy and you understand the journey of a person next to you, this is the key to make anything successful, this number one. You need to understand the journey. Which when you connect your journey with right technology and data and your people, and if you do that, you bring the people with you to grow with you. This is not about technology. This is about how we are treating our people in our business, and connecting back to technology. Let us go a little bit to the details and it's interesting, what every business, and we just saw an example from the bank, this is what happens guys. Whatever, if you see level person you don't even aware sometimes what this is what is reality is for people. With 99 per cent of the time people spending on very interesting thing. Guys, you know what is this? Can you raise your hand? Raise your hands, guys. Raise your hands. Some.
Danny Krivoshey 0:10:46.7:
Let us do some aerobics. You like sitting so much. Raise your hands. Do this with me. Do you know what is this? It's called control C. Control V? This is the biggest technological achievement of a world presented by Microsoft. If you do it with two hands like that and you start dancing, it's amazing. It works like magic and people are coming, what is my job? You do this. Now even when you're growing up, you're getting even more things. You're doing this. It's not my fault, it's your fault. So we naturally becoming doing this, and this is what our people did, and the most critical piece here, what our people were demotivated. Completely lost. People don't want to do the job. Any success of a business starts with health of your teams. Not about data, not about technology. It's not about anything. First of all, make your team healthy. Then the success will come. So this is one, understanding what is the problem, what we need to do and why we want to change. So once we realized what is the problem, then we did the Anaplan Connect., which is one starting with prepare stage.
Danny Krivoshey 0:12:04.6:
Take all the data around the world, which is absolutely huge, and bring it in into one system. Clean it automatically. Add AI on top of that, so everything is flawlessly seen in one place within two minutes. Create the trust, so people don't even judge whether the numbers are right or not. The second thing is plan. Once you have data, we're creating fundamentals of statistical forecasting. Guys, it's 300 million records, right? It's thousands of customers around the world. How to do statistical forecasting. But when you have tools and solutions which are able to do it at scale and fast, you can do it. So you're creating a baseline for people to collaborate at scale, not on WhatsApp, but literally look at the numbers. Finally, once everything is ready, everything is instantly available to the leadership team for decisions for everyone, with management reporting. So what you see now within these three things, takes four minutes. Guys, it was taking forty-five days. What we see here is four minutes.
Danny Krivoshey 0:13:12.8:
I want to show you how it works, and it's really simple. Can we just show video. The project what we did is the project is here, and connecting with the future, and let us go through that. So three phases, what we discussed about that. First is prepare. Is about your calendar linked with data, plan with statistical forecast and inputs, which then perform with management reporting instantly available for you. Let us go step by step. Prepare stage. Guys, 300 million records, right? How it works. So first of all, we're getting zero-touch data integration into the system, 100 per cent accurate. Instantly. Two minutes time. The system automatically updates the relevant events and adjustments on the data. Zero touch. The next pillar is once the data is cleaned, we are looking for outliers, by the book. If instantly cleaned for 300 million records, and once this is done, you have basic statistical data ready for your forecast. This is done by machine, not touched by the human, which now allows us to do the planning.
Danny Krivoshey 0:14:27.8:
Once the statistical data is ready, the planning starts with statistical machinery. Predictive AI is running across entire ecosystem and creates a forecast within minutes, which then user can collaborate. Simple interface works like magic. Just click in, select what you want to update as a collaboration in terms of your inputs. Update your outliers, if necessary, because there will be some events which statistics cannot predict. So you do collaborative thinking together. Instantly see all the forecast what you're working on. So you know what are the numbers, what you're talking about, and if necessary, you collaborate, communicate instantly within the same platform, which saves a lot of money and time just to find people, and look on your next quarter so you know what you need to deliver within the next couple of months. Now, what we're also working on now, is scenario planning, which is already part of our working process, and AI, generative AI, which helps us instantly to find information and update it. Now, once everything is ready, we are moving to perform stage, and perform stage is super ready immediately.
Danny Krivoshey 0:15:43.1:
There is no Power BIs, there is nothing. It is just ready. We have management reporting for the top leadership to slice and dice and understand the forecast instantly. This is how it looks like. The beauty of this, this is just available, you don't need to do any extra thing. You have all the summary minutes documented in one place. So you guys are sharing the same insight and same things what you need to do. You have full insights instantly available for the business directors, business VPs and CEOs and everyone who wants to track and trace that, and obviously you can see the performance over here, split to any level what you want, and continue your work and literally focus just on what really matters, and this is about taking decisions. Now guys, this is, for a business like ours, when we have seven countries, around thousands of people, getting one place of trusted information and forecast to take decisions is super critical. This is why we are now moving to the next solutions like forecasting, finance and P&L and the SN&P full cycles, and we are creating a future of connecting the dots.
Danny Krivoshey 0:16:55.1:
So this was the system. So we discussed about empathy. We discussed about the system, and people said, Danny, you were working six months for that, and this is so simple. Behind simplicity there is hard work, guys. This is really simple. What you just saw, the four minutes of the video, this is the life cycle of a person today. This is what people do. It takes really four minutes to complete the planning cycle for the business. How to make it, well again, let us go back to basics. First, we listen a lot to the users. We understand what happened and we involve them into design. We are getting into the mud, and this is a very interesting point. I'm speaking a lot of times with CEOs and people saying there is a lot of problems in this project, we should cancel it. Guys, if you have a lot of problems in this project, amazing. You should continue. Because if you don't have problems in your project, your project is going nowhere.
Danny Krivoshey 0:17:40.0:
Mud is part of a job. Getting into the problem means you literally know who the people you're working with. You know why you're doing these things. You know who is your real partner. What is interesting when you're getting into problems, eventually, a lot of people who are supporting you will disappear. These are not supporters. The true supporters are people who are working with you in this challenge. You're going to co-creation cycle, building and testing your platform, train and monitor and champion. In fact, with step five, we created very short videos for people to learn on their mobile, and we insisted that everyone has to complete. So within one month, we got 90 per cent of the people completed the trainings, which then allowed us to cut the cord. Leadership change, which basically says, guys, we are not going to continue as we work, and we have to cut the cord. You are not happy. Sorry, you have no choice.
Danny Krivoshey 0:18:55.4:
Either you do the new ways of working or you should not work here. Tough, isn't it? But we are saving people, guys. In fact, this is the most global business in terms of resources today, because people want to work here, and people want to adjust to the change. So when we're cutting the cord, we're ensuring that instead of firing people, we're bringing more people because we want to see new ways of working in practice, and firing is never nice, but we really care that the people have a future, and if you don't move, then it becomes a challenge. But the benefits are huge, and obviously, we're doing step seven, which is our scale. So it looks beautiful right? You see it, show it again. Wow! Especially the slides with Yoda there on the plane, it looks nice. Reality. When you start, and with a project, you're so enthusiastic what you're going to make fun with Anaplan. Reality is, within two months, you're realizing it's not, because you don't have the data. You get everyone complaining about you, which is absolutely fine because, well, my wife is Jewish, she always complains, so it's okay.
Danny Krivoshey 0:20:09.8:
The point here is, you're always getting these complaints and you're like, okay, can we continue? Shall we continue? Shall we not? And then you're starting to see can we find some solution? And it goes left, right pocket, and you have no clue what is really happening. The reality is no one really knows how the process should work in the organization until you are really discovering that, and then finally you're kind of happy, three months later, and half dead you're arriving to let us build and test. Then you're speaking to someone who is building and testing and sits maybe 2000 kilometers from you. His motivation to do the project for you is similar to my motivation now to fly kites. So how to motivate this guy. How to work with him to make this happening. So you need to work with him. When you're realizing, when you're building and testing, you're going left to right and pocket, and you're just understanding what you really want to do. But what you need to understand, you have this determination, what we will make this happen. Great. We completed that. We start the trainings. Most of the people resistant to change, 90 per cent of people resistant to it.
Danny Krivoshey 0:21:14.0:
In fact, 99 per cent of people are resistant to change. No one likes to make change. Even when I ask you, can you do this? Only one person did that and everyone followed. This is what it is, reality. So you need to think about psychology of things, and then it becomes even more frustrating because you come to the leadership and you say, guys, you finally have a project ready, let us cut the cord. Hu-hu. This is what you get. The leadership, who is supposed to cut the cord and decide, guys, we are moving through the change, usually takes this approach, puts the chair around you, and usually takes that. I'm not around. This is your leadership check, and if your leaders aren't ready to cut the cord, nothing will work, and this takes time. Which, finally, we can scale. But you need to take this pill, and reality is like that. Guys, whatever who tells you what the life is simple to do the change. Bullshit. It's so difficult. This is why I lost my hair. The key learnings, first of all, the baseline. I like the point from the bank about leadership, commitment, prioritization and focus.
Danny Krivoshey 0:22:34.4:
Your leaders have to be committed to that. It's clear. But then you have to build an agile team which is focusing only on this project. This is my learning. This is why we call the digital intelligence team, and our job is to connect all the dots of a project. Not just technology, but also the change management and leadership and problem statement. We define everything. We have a pioneering team which defines the product and builds the product within the organization. There is no split you IT, I'm in charge. No. There is one team which defines to drive a project. Fundamentals, of course, is accurate data and a technology. Once we do that, we invest a lot in demand and discovery. Understanding the problem statement. I read a lot of books on demand planning, and I'm expecting everyone in my team to do that. We move to design of technology, which when we convert to development and deployment, delivery, which is our change management, 21 days of building habits, which people have to complete the trainings.
Danny Krivoshey 0:23:36.1:
Then we implement the drive continuous improvement, and only then value realization comes. So when you think about - I usually speak with finance people - what is my business case? There is no business case. Business case is just a number which I will deliver if these steps are successful. There will be no business case if you are not able to do it right. If you don't have accurate data, no technology will work. There will be no business case. So stop thinking about business cases. Start thinking about design thinking to create value. Interesting. What is next for Unilever International? First is because we are developing new business models, we are moving to make to stock. You solve a complexity of 150 markets. With Anaplan, we are able to start planning inventory around the world. No one deliver it before. We are moving to the full, no silos connected integrated planning with all the domains linked together, and we literally pioneering in artificial intelligence and Anaplan intelligent piece. We are already working hard on data integration and accuracy, statistical AI modeling, and now we are pioneering with generative AI, and finally agenetic solution. So they will be coming next.
Danny Krivoshey 0:24:54.5:
The story was, that I was telling to you, is about very complex business, guys. But the story here is about also perseverance, to make things happen despite the challenges, to understand the problems, right. Now, if we were able to make it with 150 markets and 150 brands and 1000 chips in VC, and people who basically just look when you are failing and you're still making that, I'm confident what many of you can do it as well. This is why if you connect with your purpose and split it to the empathy, connecting the dots with technology and connecting to evolve with your teams, confident success will come with you as well. Thank you.