A Consumer Goods MNC Expands to Digital Commerce with Agile Teams

Challenge

Growing Digital Commerce

Customer behavior has been evolving for a few years now but the pandemic accelerated a new age of retail that is largely digital. Today’s customer values convenience more than ever and expects an omnichannel, cross-device shopping experience. This shift presents an opportunity for retail brands to grow their customer base and gain customer loyalty.

A multinational consumer goods company wanted to build new revenue streams by improving the digital commerce experience for its global brands. They were actively looking for partners to drive this commerce expansion, in the areas of product development and eCommerce marketing. While internal teams are at the forefront of this initiative, with multiple stakeholders and moving parts, they need an experienced team to support them with agility, faster turnaround times, and digital expertise.

Traditional recruiters are less experienced digitally or offered subpar talent matches. The company also scrapped the idea of recruiting a new team to support this initiative as it would take a lot of time and recruitment resources that the company did not have to launch their programs. Additionally, outsourcing to external agencies needed well-defined scopes, and it was harder to ensure agility and scalability with agencies across the different functions in digital commerce. The consumer goods conglomerate opted to enhance its in-house digital capabilities by contracting an experienced multi-talent freelance team from Hire Digital.

The company onboarded Hire Digital to build teams that could work with different brand teams to generate demand, optimize customer experiences, and empower the core workforce.

Solution

Improving Speed to Market

Through discovery calls with the client, Hire Digital understood the digital scope of the initiative and identified the gaps in capabilities. Building on the brief from the company, Hire Digital offered a team structure that could leverage new on-demand teams optimally. The company could also build new process efficiencies with the help of these teams that included the following:

Hire Digital matched talents and assembled curated teams within a week of the first discovery call. The talent had not only deep expertise in digital skills but also experience in companies like Shopify, eBay, Unilever, Groupon, Walmart, Etsy, and BestBuy. The on-demand teams were ready to begin working full-time within the specified time zones. A 97% match success rate facilitated faster time-to-market and greater flexibility.

This was faster than working with an external agency or hiring in-house. Moreover, the company saw an estimated cost savings of 30% by building in-house capabilities with on-demand teams compared to traditional alternatives.

Benefit

Building Seamless Digital Experiences

The on-demand teams showed promise in leading initiatives and required little onboarding and training. Leveraging their rich experience, the talent could propose efficient processes and best practises for faster turnaround times. The planning cycles were expedited.

The company achieved global workforce mobility with these teams that acted as the powerhouses of the digital initiative for their respective brands. The teams had prior experience in the regional markets they were targeting that allowed them to be true champions of customer expectations and build seamless digital commerce experiences. The workforce was also much more flexible than traditional alternatives allowing the company to focus on faster delivery.

Impact

Unlocking Digital Revenue Streams

While the marketing team helped the company activate new sources of revenue across different regions globally, the product development team ensured smooth user experience across all channels and devices.

The on-demand teams leveraged their understanding of the customer experience in the local markets to meet customers where they were. They optimized cross-platform customer experiences and ensured a strong presence on all the channels that their customers were using in those markets. Through this digital commerce transformation, the consumer goods company could create data-driven, personalized experiences for their customers.

Future Outlook

Winning Capabilities with On Demand Teams

As a consumer goods company, it has to keep up with changing customer demands and market trends. By leveraging on-demand teams, the company could build winning capabilities for its workforce to transform digital commerce.

The expertise of these teams can offer actionable insights and help reimagine the roles of traditional marketing and sales. The company is looking forward to creating more centers of excellence in its organizational structure with Hire Digital’s on-demand teams.