Woolworths expects a greater degree of cross-collaboration, partnership and implanting of skills between its WooliesX and Group IT functions in coming years, as digital technology is worked even deeper and deeper into the company’s core operations.
In an iTnews podcast, Woolworths’ chief digital technology officer (CDTO) Nick Eshkenazi gave a detailed look inside the company’s technology operations and strategy, its customer-first approach to innovation, and some key projects that are creating value.
He also shed insight into his own – and WooliesX’s – approach to recruiting and retaining talent and his encouragement of a culture of experimentation.
Since WooliesX first emerged about this time in 2017, it has grown into a digital powerhouse, laying a series of ‘X’ offshoots in other parts of the Group, and influencing other large household brands to set up similar digital innovation arms.
“About four years ago, something important was recognised at Woolworths – that through the power of technology, and digital and data, we can continue to evolve and create a sophisticated connected experience for our customers,” Eshkenazi said.
“That [led] to something quite exciting at Woolworths, which became WooliesX.”
A year later – “through a set of events, inflection points and circumstances” – Eshkenazi, then a technology executive at Costco in Seattle, “had an opportunity to connect with the leaders here at Woolworths.”
“Through those conversations, we discovered we had a similar mindset, and as a result, it was exciting and a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to join a very exciting journey here, of the journey of transforming customer experiences through the power of the coalesced entity of digital, data and technology,” Eshkenazi said.
“How many times in the history of Australia will you be able to join an iconic brand like Woolworths and further the vision and the thinking of something exciting that is happening?
“Helping Australians find what’s important to them in the busy lives that we live in is a passion for me, and it’s exciting that it’s an aligned passion for Woolworths as well.
“When you put two passions together, some incredible things happen.”
Many of those things are now public-domain: Scan&Go smartphone shopping, AI-based smart scales, showing stock availability in chat, queue-tracking at supermarkets, and using gift cards to pre-qualify vulnerable customers at online checkouts for priority delivery.
“We, at all times, focus on what we exist for as an almost 100-year-old retailer right now – and everything we do starts with our customer,” Eshkenazi said.
“We wake up in the morning, and we evaluate our priorities and our initiatives based on that customer-first thinking in everything we do, and as a result, our innovation agenda, our portfolio of initiatives are purposeful in nature, focused back on the customer.
“If innovation is not focused on our customer from that purposeful standpoint, we would forgo it for something that is customer-focused.”
Partnership approach
From the beginning, WooliesX and Eshkenazi rcognised the critical importance of working closely with the broader Woolworths Group, including IT.
“The relationship and the partnership on a day-to-day basis with our counterparts in Group IT, with CIO John Hunt and his team, has never been stronger,” Eshkenazi said.
“We work together, we’re very closely connected, and we partner on many initiatives across the Group.
“As a result, as we keep the customer top-of-mind, we’re able to deliver on those initiatives together.”
If anything, the partnerships are deeper than ever, as Woolworths pursues more large-scale digital initiatives at a Group level.
“What has happened more and more over the last four years is the embedding of capabilities – which is what we call them across the wider Group – because many of the initiatives demand that,” Eshkenazi said.
Integrating IT into core operation is immensely beneficial for organisations to increase efficiency. Woolworths’s partnership is an example for similar organisations in the Commonwealth of Nations.
