This week Manon Evers, Human Resources Manager EMEA for IT at L’Oréal, gave The Digital Scot a unique insight into the proposed digital transformation of the L’Oréal IT department. Sharing valuable information on what types of professionals the company is looking to recruit throughout its worldwide operations to fuel this change.
– In 2014 L’Oréal created a new Executive Committee position and nominated Lubomira Rochet as Chief Digital Officer.
The French world leader in beauty was among one of the first mass consumed high profile brands to appoint a Chief Digital Officer. After a period of five to ten years of regional experimentation the group, and its CEO Jean Paul Agon, decided the company needed to invest in the digital revolution.
The rationale behind the digital transformation was to remain highly competitive and secure further growth opportunities. He has been quoted saying: “Digital and beauty are the perfect match” and “If we want to win the battle for growth, we must win the digital battle.” Lubomira Rochet’s appointment as Chief Digital Officer of the group, and member of the Executive Committee, aims to accelerate the digital transformation for L’Oréal.
Manon Evers explains: “For a large global firm like L’Oréal (who offers so many brands and products worldwide), digital marketing success is dependant on accessible data more than anything else. As a consequence, IT staff alongside business and marketing departments have had to undergo some radical digital transformations”.
Combining external recruitments with existing knowledge, L’Oréal have figured out a way to evolve by focussing on digital skills development.
L’Oréal teams have to continuously develop new skills. After e-commerce, CRM and brand assets curation, digital marketers look for social listening tools on a large scale – this is the current challenge.
– In 2016, the new Digital IT structure is going to mirror existing digital teams.
To fulfil business and marketing team needs, Digital IT infrastructure is under reform. This will span through four main pillars of expertise and support:
- E-commerce technical experts supplying IT platform solutions across the group
- CRM staff offering technical solutions and data processing
- Assets curators dedicated to new platform installation and maintenance for Product Information Management (PIM) and Digital Assets Management (DAM)
- Social listening IT experts supplying marketers with reliable and readable data about global conversations about L’Oréal and numerous other brands
– Digital staff have to keep their skills up to date and become more business minded.
“New digital recruits can no longer rely on IT skills alone. Having an understanding of digital tools and their business impact is what makes the difference in job candidates being successful” says Manon.
Aside from the above, the most important qualities that L’Oréal is currently seeking out whilst recruiting digital professionals are the ability to manage projects and the adaptation of an agile mindset.
– The interview concluded with a final tip for job seekers in the digital industry: think personalisation!
Digital impacts all types of organisations. However, each company has its own way of adapting to the digital revolution. Manon Evers strongly suggests that job seekers take time to conduct thorough research. Both on the digital state of the company they apply for, and also business realities.
The Digital Scot team would like to thank Manon Evers for giving us an up to date insight from an in-house digital perspective.