Data Unleashed: Navigating the Brave New World of Consumer Data
Key Takeaways from Pernod Ricard, Fetch, Tiffany & Co. & Walmart
Question: Isn’t every week “TechWeek” in San Francisco?
Answer: Yes and no — Silicon Valley has long been the epicenter for tech, but it’s not every week the city sees 200+ local events that brings the community together. A very much welcomed reprieve in the midst of downtown’s COVID recovery.
We took the SF TechWeek opportunity to not only connect in person once again, but to gather a curated group of investors, startups and experts from leading corporations and brands to discuss one of the hottest topics of today: consumer data.
More specifically, we wanted to explore how consumer-focused companies are leveraging data to both optimize and transform businesses. A question that’s top of mind not only for startups, but to some of the biggest brands — such as Pernod Ricard, the world’s second-largest wine and spirits producer, and its venture arm Convivialité Ventures — long time partners and investors in our funds. Co-hosted by Cathay Innovation and Convivialite Ventures, the Data Unleashed event brought together the consumer ecosystem at San Francisco’s Minna Gallery to share insights and mingle over bites and (of course) cocktails from Pernod Ricard’s most loved brands.
We kicked things off with Denis Barrier, Co-Founder & CEO of Cathay Innovation, and Stephane Longuet, Managing Partner at Convivialité Ventures, who welcomed the crowd and highlighted the importance of bringing industry leaders, founders and VCs together to learn and collaborate.
Two panels were held featuring consumer data experts including Charles McColgan, CIO of Fetch (a Convivialité Ventures portfolio company); Jonathon Kostranchuk, Director, International Deployment of Key Digital Programs at Pernod Ricard; Bruno Delahaye, Advisor to Cathay Innovation and formerly Walmart Connect’s Head of Analytics; and Chiara Di Fonzo, Global Data Strategy and Analytics Director at Tiffany & Co. Both conversations were moderated by Ghadi Hobeika, Managing Partner at data and AI consulting company Artefact (a portfolio company of our PE arm Cathay Capital). We share highlights from each session below.
Session I: Fetch & Pernod Ricard talk data “behind the scenes”
Charles McColgan, CIO at Fetch | On data challenges, quality and management…
Fetch is America’s leading consumer-engagement platform that rewards shoppers for buying the brands they love. The Fetch app gives users the easiest way to save on everyday purchases by simply scanning their receipts.
The Volume…
We have about 18M monthly active users, over 5M daily, with folks scanning about 10M receipts every day. Receipts have anywhere from a total of 100M to 250M line items daily — leading to an ingestion of around 2 terabytes of data a day going through both a real time pipeline as well as into our data warehouse and data lake, which has ~6 petabytes of data…so there’s a lot.
The Quality…
Data quality and consistency are key. The challenge lies in accurately processing and extracting information, especially considering the variations of types of receipts and pictures of them. We’ve developed our own OCR technology and data mapping processes to match scanned receipts to line items and catalog entries. Ensuring data lineage is correct is no small feat — from the original picture of receipt to a production service, pipeline, using Airflow and DBT, merging data and ending up in Snowflake — it’s important to understand the manipulations. The core success of our app depends on the data being high quality — and ensuring consistency over time is paramount to CPGs who rely on data to understand user behavior.
Jonathon Kostranchuk, Director, International Deployment of Key Digital Programs at Pernod Ricard | On using data strategically…
Pernod Ricard is the №2 worldwide producer of wines and spirits, distributing across 160+ markets. Pernod Ricard, which owns 16 of the Top 100 Spirits Brands, holds one of the most prestigious and comprehensive brand portfolios in the industry, including Absolut Vodka, Chivas Regal, Jameson Irish whiskey, Martell cognac, Mumm and Perrier-Jouët champagnes.
The Strategy…
Pernod Ricard is not a data or technology company. We are “créateurs de convivialité”, which means we are in the business of human connection. For us, it’s important to use both data and AI to drive collaboration, innovation and creativity — allowing executives to make better, faster decisions. We’ve implemented 4 key digital programs: Rev Up (revenue growth management), D Star (data-driven sales organization), Maestria (understanding consumer demand and moments of conviviality), and Matrix (marketing effectiveness and A&P fund allocation). These programs serve as AI copilots for commercial teams and help drive digital transformation.
The Scale…
Digital transformation programs are about data, insight and action. Starting with data — quality can be a challenge given different geos have different levels of data maturity. Next is insight — with competing priorities between technical and commercial teams, determine speed (how fast to deploy / scale), depth (how deep on a single topic) and breadth (how many topics). Lastly, action is about having an effective change management program to embed the practice in the culture of your business.
Session II: (ex)Walmart & Tiffany & Co. talk data transformation
Bruno Delahaye, Advisor to Cathay Innovation and formerly Walmart Connect’s Head of Analytics | On building a multibillion-dollar business around data…
Walmart Connect is the closed-loop media business of America’s largest omnichannel retailer Walmart, serving 90% of U.S. households & employing over 1.5M associates nationwide.
The Potential of Retail Media…
Retail media is one of the hottest markets, enabling CPGs (for example) to use a retailer for ads — essentially a b2b business within a retailer. The larger impact of retail media is underestimated as it has the potential to enable the b2b revenue of a company to become larger than b2c — completely reversing the value chain of retailers. In this world, the true customers would be the suppliers rather than the end-consumer.
The Principles for Growth…
At Walmart Connect, we did this within one of the world’s largest companies. Today, it’s a multibillion dollar business — and with a high double digit margin, it’s highly impactful.
Start small & simple: when you’re building something new, you’re not delivering value yet. We started by only providing banners to a limited number of advertisers. This allowed us to quickly evaluate the product market fit as well as create a revenue stream right away.
Be value-driven: ask yourself how will I be able to show tangible value to internal and external stakeholders? If you can’t, don’t go there.
Corporate alignment: CEO and executive committee alignment and support is needed to survive and thrive.
Continuous Innovation: you need to continuously evolve, innovate, iterate and accept being wrong.
Machines for scale: It’s crucial to build a machine that delivers and has a repeatable process.
Talent-centric: with scale comes evolving customer needs — you’ll need to be both broader and deeper, requiring a recruitment machine. You need to build an organization that is extremely resilient, with built in trust…and hire fast.
Chiara Di Fonzo, Global Data Strategy and Analytics Director at Tiffany & Co. | On using data to transform business….
Tiffany & Co., founded in 1837 in New York City, is one of the world’s most storied luxury design houses recognized globally for its innovative jewelry design, extraordinary craftsmanship and unparalleled creativity.
The Situation…
With Tiffany’s being acquired by LVMH, the entire company has been undergoing a massive transformation across departments including data. We faced a lot of challenges: 2 data warehouses, multiple ERPs and POS systems and so on. Our goals were finding the right operating model, team size and balance between off the shelf solutions and custom built to allow us to create a new data platform, modern stack and BI on top, while making data governance a priority.
The Buy-In & Need for Cross-Functional Collaboration…
It’s helpful when you have several voices preaching the importance of treating data as a strategic asset. You need to find the right champions, typically CIOs, COOs or GMs and HR. These champions make sure we have a roadmap and track progress across teams — because data exists to be a shared center of excellence for the rest of the organization. Alone, data is not going to create any value. It can only be done by co-creating with business teams that are accountable — cross functional organization and collaboration are key.
That’s a Wrap
We’ll continue to dig into the brave new world of consumer data with our network of startups, investors, corporates and brands. Stay tuned for more topical insights and events on the horizon.
Until then, check out some other resources below:
