Lalo Luna, global head of strategy and insights at Heineken, is a person on a mission. Having developed a spread of information management abilities at blue-chip companies, his precedence now’s to make use of that data to assist the brewing large take advantage of of rising applied sciences and the treasure trove of data the corporate holds.
“Now we have a mantra right here within the insights workforce: ‘Study, share and reapply’,” he says. “And these are the essential pillars for every part that we’re doing.”
Luna has been with Heineken since March 2018, having beforehand been with Colgate, Palmolive and Mondelez Worldwide. He began working for the corporate in Mexico, earlier than shifting to Amsterdam throughout 2020. Luna has been in his present function since April 2023.
“I used to be on the lookout for a much bigger problem – and it is a massive firm,” he says, pondering again to his transfer to Heineken. “Now we have highly effective global manufacturers, however the firm additionally has greater than 1,000 native manufacturers. Now we have a fairly decentralised enterprise and we have to take that into consideration in our work.”
Sharing data
Luna says decentralisation is an important factor of the broader organisation’s construction and his workforce’s efforts to make information obtainable to line-of-business staff.
“Our global manufacturers are very properly structured and data travels sooner,” he says. “However if you find yourself speaking about native manufacturers, all people’s working on the native degree. So, we have to work in these two realities. We want, of course, to start out sharing extra – we have to reuse, to study, and to reapply. And it’s an enormous problem working throughout this dimension of firm.”
As global head of strategy and insights, Luna describe his function as consultative, the place he acts as a job mannequin for the organisation and establishes sturdy data-sharing rules. His goal is to assist the remaining of the enterprise develop sturdy information abilities.
“Half of this work is to develop capabilities within the groups,” he says. “That effort contains every part associated to instruments and options that might assist us to make the analysis course of simpler and higher. On a day-to-day foundation, I’m serving to the groups to make use of global frameworks and attempting to lift the ceiling in phrases of the insights we’re creating.”
Luna says one of the issues he initiated when he first took on a global function three years in the past was to create a brand-new insights ecosystem. He says this ecosystem makes use of software-as-a-service (SaaS) know-how and Stravito’s enterprise insights platform to supply easy but strong digital options to the information challenges the remaining of the enterprise faces.
“We’re attempting to embed all this know-how within the analysis course of,” he says. “The event of this ecosystem is probably the most transformational work that I’ve been doing right here at Heineken.”
Democratising insights
At the moment, Heineken is utilizing Stravito’s know-how to share insights by means of an internally branded platform, often known as Data & Perception Administration (KIM).
Heineken lately launched a two-year Evergreen Strategy for its enterprise that’s centered on the creation of a consumer-centric mindset throughout the organisation. Luna says KIM is a core part of this strategy and the platform democratises entry to information, making it simpler for inner customers to get maintain of key insights rapidly and successfully.
“After we’re speaking concerning the embedding of know-how, we will now be sooner into the market,” he says. “We’re decreasing the occasions for the analysis course of. However one other key profit is financial savings – and not solely financial savings in phrases of cash, but additionally in phrases of the time of the individuals who work for our firm.”
Luna says his workforce’s information strategy and their implementation of KIM means staff spend extra of their working day fascinated about find out how to use insights to enhance enterprise processes, corresponding to inner operations or buyer experiences. The strategy additionally helps guarantee perception is shared globally and not hidden away regionally.
“We’re centered on perception democratisation, which we’re selling through the use of all these instruments now as a result of we’re centralising data,” he says.
“We try to create harmonisation world wide. And, on the finish, we’re capable of share data to democratise all these learnings, not solely within the insights neighborhood, but additionally throughout the enterprise.”
Supporting change
Luna says his workforce has a sequence of priorities. The primary factor is to consider carefully about how the enterprise can use information to reply to macro-economic challenges, corresponding to excessive inflation within the post-Covid age.
“We’re doing quite a bit of analysis world wide,” he says. “On the subject of capabilities, we’re nonetheless how we will embed extra know-how within the course of. That’s about attempting to leap quick into AI, generative AI and all these developments that we’re seeing available in the market proper now. So, we’re very busy and attempting to know what instruments might be useful.”
Luna recognises that staying one step forward of macroeconomic and technological change is a giant problem, notably given the dimensions of the enterprise, which incorporates greater than 90 working firms world wide.
“We have to reuse, to study, and to reapply. And it’s an enormous problem working throughout this dimension of firm”
Lalo Luna, Heineken
“As I discussed, Heineken could be very decentralised,” he says. “The global workforce wants to have the ability to act as a guide with the market. We have to persuade them and we have to affect them in lots of, some ways. So, it’s not a straightforward activity, however the powerful occasions we’re in require quite a bit of effort.”
Luna’s preparatory efforts in phrases of cloud-based functions and perception administration platforms implies that many of the digital methods and companies are already in place. In some ways, it’s a well-known chorus – know-how is the straightforward half. The true problem comes from guaranteeing everybody across the enterprise understands the worth of information.
“As I at all times say, it’s about cultural change,” he says. “We’re partnering with senior stakeholders on this journey as a result of, as with all different change programme, it wants to start out from the highest. On this kind of massive organisation, we’re going to wish stakeholder help. And luckily, we’ve got companions which are serving to us to unfold the phrase round our enterprise.”
Embracing AI
The important thing message, due to this fact, is that Luna has heavyweight help for his continued efforts to take advantage of of information. Whereas some blue-chip enterprises may concern being left behind by the speedy tempo of change attributable to fast-emerging applied sciences, Luna and his workforce are being inspired to maintain pushing their insights-led strategy to digitisation.
“As half of the Evergreen Strategy, there are some iconic goals for us associated to information. As an information analytics operate, we’re gathering all this data. The long-term goal is to embed all this information into the decision-making course of, and that’s why we’ve got quite a bit of stakeholders supporting this journey.”
Within the first 12 months since going dwell, Luna says KIM has reached 1,300 customers, 30% of whom log in and use the platform each month. On daily basis, folks world wide are logging in to search out analysis and are sharing and reusing insights.
Stravito introduced lately that it has added a proprietary generative AI engine to enhance the search expertise on its platform. Luna says these varieties of developments will assist his workforce to maintain refining their strategy.
“Our journey to construct these insights and develop a best-in-class know-how ecosystem is an ongoing effort,” he says.
“The plan is to make KIM the residing coronary heart of this ecosystem. We wish to work with all our platforms to consider find out how to maximise the advantages of AI. How can we begin utilizing generative AI and enable folks to digest the data in 1000’s of stories simpler?”
Staying forward
With new developments referring to AI showing every single day, it may be powerful work – even for an skilled information chief like Luna – to maintain tempo with the know-how market. Nevertheless, it’s a problem he relishes.
“For me, any more, it’s going to be all about how we will keep up to date and related,” he says. “New applied sciences and new options are aggressive benefits. So, it’s very clear that the businesses which are adopting know-how as half of their key strategic pillars at the moment are performing higher.”
Luna says the actually profitable information leaders will give attention to delivering simplification in difficult occasions. Sensible firms will use the instruments at their disposal to translate disparate enterprise data into easy, clear suggestions.
“Now, with generative AI, we’re going to have instruments that present easy methods to digest all of the qualitative and quantitative information data,” he says. “So, ensuring our folks get sufficient data is, for me, essential.”
