Neil George

Managing Director, NIVEA India

Driving digitalization forward:
A key transformation journey for NIVEA India

The pandemic has accelerated digital transformation which was underway for decades. Digital transformation has reinvented the way the businesses are operating today and has created change waves across sectors. It’s no secret how digital transformation has helped organizations across consumer touchpoints, supply chain, internal operations, ecommerce, employee management, etc. during and post the pandemic. The pandemic has accelerated the digital transformation across the globe and has uncovered new opportunities across sectors.

Digitalization is re-writing all the rules on how consumers engage with brands and how brands engage with consumers. We at NIVEA India aim to leverage today's digital transformation and exponential innovation speed for creating true value for consumers. The pandemic has enabled organizations to adopt technological innovation moving forward that give way to several opportunities.

NIVEA India - Digital @ Heart!

For years, countless experts, numerous organizations and scores of “Gurus” had emphasized on how Digitalization and Digitization will change the way we approach our life, work & beyond. The change was inevitable. Driven by the goal of providing superior digital skin care solutions for everyone, we are accelerating our digital transformation journey. For us at NIVEA India our objective is clear – To Live Digital! This is a key focus within our teams, across partners, with our shoppers & customers and above all our consumers. As we embarked on this journey to evolve into a ‘Digital First’ organization we mapped out a clear agenda focusing on the following

  1. Building Culture: A digital culture empowers people to deliver results faster with focus on greater customer centricity, silo-less organization and attracting digital savvy talent.
  2. Upgrading Capacity: Establishing relevant organizational structure in line with the evolution of our consumer, shopper, channel etc.
  3. Nurturing Capabilities: Empower teams to via e-learning modules, expert sessions, to continuously learn, apply and deliver results.

Digitalizing the internal NIVEA India team

The focus of the entire organization was on digital and we created a shared understanding of how it affects our key business priorities along with a celebration of ongoing digital endeavors & shared learnings from both inside and outside the organization. This year, in continuation to our digital capability strategy, we wanted to broad base digital capabilities and bridge the capability gaps which existed within the organization. With an aim to uplift everyone’s understanding and appreciation of digital transformation in a uniform way, we launched the Digital Literacy Initiative. The program focused on 500+ employees through this initiative orienting them to the top 25 digital tools and processes we have adopted at NIVEA India. This initiative was spread over 5 months, consisting of email campaigns, virtual training sessions and even quizzes in between to create positive excitement and encourage learning. All employees had to undergo mandatory assessment at the end of the initiative and 72% of the employees cleared this assessment.

Digital Innovations

NIVEA India has been ranked as #1 Trusted skincare brand by TRA*. Therefore, we have converted our branding strategy into a digital strategy, considering today´s typical customer journey. We have worked hard to understand which touchpoints play what role. We also rely on technology to create innovations across some of the digital campaigns we run. For example, our recent initiative called NIVEA Soft Fresh Batch 2022 had up to 10,000 lucky participants get a personalized message from brand ambassador and leading Bollywood celebrity - Taapsee Pannu via WhatsApp and email. Focused on the Gen Z audiences who aspire to be influencers, the intent was to create an impactful consumer journey with customization. This delivered a unique AI experience for the end user enabling them to feel more connected to the brand. Every message was personalized with the name of the participant and the persona they represented through their entry.

Similarly, for NIVEA’s Gel Body lotion, we are also looking to launch a WhatsApp chat bot - a destination for the consumer to learn about the brand journey which will, in turn, enable the consumer to assimilate a full-fledged NIVEA journey.

Precision Marketing

We commissioned the Precision Marketing charter for NIVEA India in early 2021. Through Precision Marketing we elevated our data and audience practice, deployed best in class execution and a continuous test, and learn mindset to stay ahead of the curve.

Implementing data driven marketing across all our digital initiatives for delivering personalized consumer journeys across the funnel, in-flight optimization, reporting and dashboarding and integrations with on-platform e-commerce efforts, we were able to ultimately deliver a superior consumer experience across Digital touchpoints. By embedding Precision Marketing across our Digital efforts, we were able to bring about significant Media efficiencies and saw proven business impact, both online as well as offline.

Conclusion

Today’s consumers are looking at omnichannel sophistication and personalized brand experiences which therefore encourages organizations to relook at their strategy and put their best forward. True transformation relies on restructuring specific organizational characteristics to meet evolving consumer demands and create a lasting change. We at NIVEA India are putting efforts towards designing our organization for an omni-channel future. Digital transformation has not only aided in a digital first mindset at the organization but significantly contributed to the organizational growth, product and campaign innovations, Ecommerce, and supply chain agility and therefore, overall output.

*Basis TRA’s Brand Trust Report – India Study March 2022, in 16 cities