CR101: The legacy of three centuries of innovation with Sandeep Seeripat, CIO at Twinings

Traditional businesses are transforming to enhance consumer engagement and operational efficiency by integrating advanced technologies, helping them stay competitive in the digital age; how can technology best support this transformation?

This week, Dave, Esmee and Rob talk to Sandeep Seeripat, CIO at Twinings about how the 300-year-old tea company is undergoing a business transformation. They explore strategies to enhance consumer engagement and operational efficiency, and how Twinings is repositioning itself in the digital world.

TLDR
00:40 Introduction of Sandeep Seeripat
04:03 Rob is confused about by the AI's overly sycophantic behavior
07:20 Conversation with Sandeep about three Centuries of Innovation at Twinings
43:18 What if brands created with the sensitivity of an artist?
53:25 Capture that perfect picture in South Africa

Guest
Sandeep Seeripat: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandeepseeripat/

Hosts
Dave Chapman: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chapmandr/
Esmee van de Giessen: https://www.linkedin.com/in/esmeevandegiessen/
Rob Kernahan: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rob-kernahan/

Production
Marcel van der Burg: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marcel-vd-burg/
Dave Chapman: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chapmandr/

Sound
Ben Corbett: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ben-corbett-3b6a11135/
Louis Corbett:  https://www.linkedin.com/in/louis-corbett-087250264/

'Cloud Realities' is an original podcast from Capgemini

Creators and Guests

Host

Dave Chapman

Chief Cloud Evangelist with nearly 30 years of global experience in strategic development, transformation, program delivery, and operations, I bring a wealth of expertise to the world of cloud innovation. In addition to my professional expertise, I’m the creator and main host of the Cloud Realities podcast, where we explore the transformative power of cloud technology.

Host

Esmee van de Giessen

Principal Consultant Enterprise Transformation and Cloud Realities podcast host, bridges gaps to drive impactful change. With expertise in agile, value delivery, culture, and user adoption, she empowers teams and leaders to ensure technology enhances agility, resilience, and sustainable growth across ecosystems.

Host

Rob Kernahan

VP Chief Architect for Cloud and Cloud Realities podcast host, drives digital transformation by combining deep technical expertise with exceptional client engagement. Passionate about high-performance cultures, he leverages cloud and modern operating models to create low-friction, high-velocity environments that fuel business growth and empower people to thrive.

Producer

Marcel van der Burg

VP Global Marketing and producer of the Cloud Realities podcast, is a strategic marketing leader with 33+ years of experience. He drives global cloud marketing strategies, leveraging creativity, multi-channel expertise, and problem-solving to deliver impactful business growth in complex environments.

What is Cloud Realities?

Exploring the practical and exciting alternate realities that can be unleashed through cloud driven transformation and cloud native living and working.

Each episode, our hosts Dave, Esmee & Rob talk to Cloud leaders and practitioners to understand how previously untapped business value can be released, how to deal with the challenges and risks that come with bold ventures and how does human experience factor into all of this?

They cover Intelligent Industry, Customer Experience, Sustainability, AI, Data and Insight, Cyber, Cost, Leadership, Talent and, of course, Tech.

Together, Dave, Esmee & Rob have over 80 years of cloud and transformation experience and act as our guides though a new reality each week.

Web - https://www.capgemini.com/insights/research-library/cloud-realities-podcast/
Email - [e-mail]

CR101: The Legacy of Three Centuries of Innovation with Sandeep Seeripat, CIO at Twinings
[00:00:00] Just talking about how beautiful the sunsets are gonna be, that Oh, yeah's that too. And the sun sunsets are beautiful, but Dave, uh, Africa, is not for sissies. So my, my strong advice is please be careful, would like you to come back.
Welcome to Cloud Realities, an original podcast from Capgemini. And this week we're looking at how you reposition traditional business for a digital world. I'm Dave Chapman. I'm Esmee van de Giessen and I'm Rob Kernahan.
And I'm delighted to say that joining us today to discuss that subject is Sandeep Seeripat, the GM of Business Transformation and Tech at Twinings Sandeep. How are you today and whereabouts in the world are you? Hi Dave. Thanks for having me on the podcast. I am in sunny South Africa. Oh, amazing. Whereabouts?
Um, Johannesburg actually. Oh, beautiful. Yeah, you've probably got better weather than [00:01:00] we have here. Chilly, though. It was nice for about three days, wasn't it? We had that little, a little burst of summer, and now it's gone back to being pretty chilly. Bright but chilly. Bright, but chilly. A bit like you, Rob
Sandeep. Tell us a little bit about your role. Okay, so my role is bringing two functions together. The one function is around technology, which is I guess a traditional CIO CTO sort of role, and looking at business transformation and making sure that the two play very nicely together because I guess in the world today, transformation is definitely driven and enabled by technology.
So important to nip those two things together. And I think the, the conversation we're gonna have today, I think is gonna illustrate that very well Indeed. And, and before we move on with the show, though, a big congratulations on a recent award, which is connected to today's conversation. So why don't you tell us about that?
Sure. So the, the award is the customer success story from SAP uk, uh, which was awarded to us fact on [00:02:00] the 8th of. May, which is really amazing and we are lots of participants. We were also the finalists in the SAP Global Innovation Award. I think both kind of represents the hard work that the team had gone through, the way we delivered the program, the way we're still delivering the program.
And I think the impact that we are making to our business, well, many congratulations and we will get into that deep transformational story very shortly. But before that. Esme and Robert, how are you doing today? Esme, you are, you are coming from an office, not your, not your home room? No. Office. Office because I have a client meeting directly after, so, uh, yeah, from the office. Very good. And actually it might sound a bit bad, but I have a very good day because I haven't been shit on the head by a dove. I mean, I mean, honestly that's a good start to any day, isn't it? I mean, if I had a list of things to qualify my day, I am not sure that would be on my list.
There you go. Although if it did happen to you, you, you're very disappointed. Yes. And we have quite a large back, uh, yard and a large trees, and then the dove [00:03:00] sets exactly above my head. Right. And it happened while I was reading a book. And to be, no, there's, there's a backstory there because I actually believe that, I've been saying this for four years now, that, uh, the doves are, uh, reincarnated family members and one didn't like you.
What did you do to them? What's the backstory there? Who have you robbed in your family? This is a, that's not a big question. Who was it? Who was, and what have I done? So I have a, I'm having a good day. I was once in London and there was a guy stood there outside a pub holding his pints and the birds, um, did its thing and it landed perfectly in the middle of the pint, and he didn't spot it.
And it was like he went to drinking everyone. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. It was, that's even worse shot. Yeah. Yeah. Then you really did something terrible in modern times, if you'd have caught that on your camera, Robert, that could have gone viral. Oh yeah. Yeah. Who've been a social media sensation, social media sense.
Millions of views in TikTok get 25 quid for it. Brilliant. Exactly. [00:04:00] Exactly. Anyway, what's confusing you this week, Robert? Um, have you seen the news about the AI that became all sycophantic? I. I have seen that. Uh, are we, are we, is it remaining nameless or are you gonna call it out? Which one it was? Uh, well it was, um, it was the new model from chat GPT that they That's right.
They launched and, um, they, they discovered that it would just agree with anything you said. I. And that it would egg you on and say, you were amazing and great, and all this stuff started to occur and people have had an issue with this. Well, yeah. What? Well, it got a bit serious. Can't see the problem. Do you As when PE people started asking questions like, should I stop taking my medication?
It went, yeah, you go for it. And things like this. So it was like, it was clearly, it was clearly just completely and totally on one side of being sycophantic and, um, they had to. Withdraw it, obviously, but it just goes to, I mean, the bit I'm confused about is that's a, they never intended that to happen.
It's so, so as we're releasing these [00:05:00] models and we go further and further down the rabbit hole of ai Mm uh, these unintended consequences are starting to occur. And I just think, for me, it was another example of. How do we control it so that these things don't happen? Or maybe we can't, maybe there is so much chaos in the system that actually we just have to accept that these are gonna happen.
We have to withdraw it and redeploy it. But I was confused about the testing, didn't pick it up. It obviously, if it had it, it wouldn't have got released. 'cause quite embarrassing, it was global press, you know, everybody wants to jump on it and I'm like, whoa, how many more of these are gonna happen? And they're just gonna get bigger, badder, and worse I reckon.
You know, we've talked a few times, and I know you are, you were at least initially in this camp, Rob. I don't know whether you still are of like, it's all just a large language model. There's nothing really going on in there that is kind of new thought. It's all, it's all stuff that's based on stuff that's in its.
Database, yada, yada, yada, you know, that whole thing. Yeah, yeah. So therefore it's not real intelligence. [00:06:00] And then you have these unpredictable things that happen that I'm not, I'm not seeing are indicators of intelligence. In fact, in this particular case it is kind of the opposite. Yeah. Um, but it was still, it was still unknowable at the time that this thing went out.
So you, you're right. There is something in that for me, that, that says. You know, at some point, is the unknowable thing going to be an interesting thing rather than just an embarrassing thing? Yeah. And it's the, I think there's, there's depth and complexity in the way the models work and all the perms and comms are very difficult to con control and understand.
So it is chaos. Mm. Reigning. And I think that have we got proper control over what these models are and what they do. 'cause we can't really understand why they did what they did other than we can judge the answer for its efficacy. Um, and yeah, so, so I'm like, I'm still of the, this is probably an example that says models won't get us to intelligence.
It's going to have to be models plus, um, other [00:07:00] things that we augment with it. Mm. So I, it kind of put me more in the camp, which you suggest I was in. I think it was a good example of actually maybe there is a thing where the models will top out eventually. So yeah, I'm probably there. Great. So, uh, I think we'll continue probably to investigate that emergence of the unknowable in the world of ai, Robert, as we go forward.
But I think for today, let's move on to our main subject where we're going to explore how one can reposition, uh, a very traditional organization, but make it fit for purpose of the modern world and Sandeep. Um, let's start with what the main catalyst was from your perspective. The main catalyst for the transformation that we started off at Twinings was the world's changing as we know that in every possible way as consumers ourselves.
And part of that definition is how we want to see our products, how we want to experience our products, the, the health dimensions of our products and all of those dimensions were quite important in us [00:08:00] re-looking at how do we as an. When people look at twenties, actually two brands. We have Twinnings and twenties Ovaltine.
So the Ovaltine brand has a similar sort of story around heritage, but also around health. So being able to pivot to a more health and wellbeing brand and therefore the products that represent that was quite important for us. And therefore, understanding the technology that needs to be embedded to ensure that we can connect with the consumer and accelerate that philosophy of being a wellness brand and being able to deliver against the cons consumer's expectations.
What's kind of the start of the journey, right? And, and, and give us an insight into what was the leadership conversation like at that time? Was it that the leadership team had fully got their heads around what was going to be needed? Or was it we just need to get started with something or something in between those two points?
Sure. Um, the journey actually started with the fact when I joined the company back in 2019 was we know that, uh. [00:09:00] My CEO at the time and CFO at the time were very clear that change was required and we knew that digital was gonna be a key part of this change. What it. Or the definition thereof was not very clear.
Mm. So when I joined, what we were trying to do, and again, just to give you some context around how Twinings operates, we, we are 10 different business units, right? And every single business unit is very autonomous. So everybody has their own p and l. Everybody's empowered to drive certain engagements that actually help drive profit, and then also at the same time drive that consumer engagement.
So, so that's the history of our organization. Very federated, very independent. And, and and driven to, to ensure that those objectives around profit and consumer were very at the heart of what we do. And when we started having conversation around could we do things differently and could we, for example, look at our supply chain differently or, or look at our procurement processes or our finance processes differently and it differently, mm, could we have a different value proposition that enabled us to look at the things that were [00:10:00] not core to our business, that were not our competitive advantage and make that more standardized.
But the things that were really, really close to us, our brand, really, really important to us. The way our route to market's really important to us and engaging with the consumer is really important to us. Mm-hmm. If those things are, are really kind of the, the magic source that makes 20 zine who we are and as successful as we have been for the last 300 years, then what's the things that's left?
And the things that were left were things like procurement, things like finance, things like supply chain. And we said, well, could we do that differently? And then the hypothesis was, if we can do it differently, what enables that different? And what had happened very clear was we needed to have technology to connect the dots to ensure that we can get an end-to-end visibility of our business.
Simplify where it made sense, drive efficiencies where it made sense, and then create the opportunity to be able to link to the consumer in a very different way, was kind of. The journey that we took all of our leaders through. And when you have that, when you have an organization like yours, which is [00:11:00] global, lots of different banners, brands, et cetera, and there's a lot of heritage as you say, 300 years, what was the initial conversation like with the markets and the sort of the different businesses, banners, et cetera?
How, how, how are they thinking about it? Because what you're saying is we might want to standardize where it makes sense, but. Keep the freedom where, you know, you need to be free and they, they'll be used to a huge amount of autonomy and how they operate and they just can do what they want to do. What, what was the initial conversation like?
Were they onboard really quickly or did they have to get the value prop behind it and say, that's actually, there's a really good reason why we'd want to do this, you'll get benefit, et cetera. I think when I look back at the success that we've had today, the part of, part of the success has been the, the journey of the leaders understanding where we are and where we need to go.
And that was not an overnight journey by any means, but the effort and the time spent in making sure that everybody's level set around the why. Was really, really critical. It took us probably a better past of a year to get people on that journey to believe in the story and then to support the story.
Because my view as always, I'm doing this on your behalf. [00:12:00] This is not me coming to the organization and wanting to change the organization. If we believe as a, as a business to be competitive. In, in the world that we experiencing, how do we do that? Therefore, technology plays an important part of it. So for people to internalize that and understand what does it mean for my business in Australia?
What does it mean for business in China? What does it mean for my business in North America? Was a hard journey, but I think I. When people started to understand the things that were not competitive, the things that needed to, to kind of spare up capacity. 'cause again, we are an extremely lead organization.
When, when my finance team are worrying about it or, and my procurement team are dealing with trying to procure, when we can procure globally or supply chain team looking at how you plan when those things are happening at every single market level, then it becomes a problem. You, you we're not utilizing the things that's really special to us.
And therefore the conversation was, well, if we truly believe those things could be done, firstly, you've gotta have the credibility to say it can be done differently. I think choosing [00:13:00] SAP was one version of that because it was a very well known, tried and tested technology in the world, so mm-hmm. Proof point around that was, yes, it works great.
The second thing is that other CPGs in our. In, in our, in our sector, have done it for many years. So that's confidence around that. Then the question was how do you internalize what other people have done to make us successful? And that was the journey. So once, once the decision was made, we're gonna do this, the next question was how we're gonna do it?
What was the history of change within the company? 'cause, you know, past experiences usually build up towards, uh, the future. Was there a lot of resistance? So as a, as a company. The tea business has gone through some sort of, some sort of consolidation. So we, we've been able to consolidate our manufacturing to two key plants, one in Poland and one in the uk.
Um, so they've, they've been able to kind of figure out how do you operate in a global world. The old team businesses, not so much, but what this brought was a, brought a common language. [00:14:00] To the entire business, right? How are we gonna look at certain KPIs? How are we gonna look at certain processes? And then how do you start looking at efficiencies, like something like planning instead of every single business unit being trying to figure out planning by themselves.
Yeah. We found a way and a mechanism to say, well, we'll do the baseline forecast and cascade that. Down to each business. But the change around this fundamental change from being very federated to being more global is and still continues to be a challenge because it, it cuts across, or, or it's attacks the DNA of who we are as organization, but I've gotta give courage to, to the leadership, believing that by finding this commonality where it made sense is gonna speed up growth, it's gonna speed up efficiency, it's gonna speed up that connection back to the consumer because the logic being.
If I build something, for example, in my UK market, I can now cascade that across the entire globe. Whereas in the past, I'd have to do that 10 different times and therefore I lose speed, I lose, it becomes more expensive. So when that [00:15:00] narrative started becoming reality, it becomes, the sales becomes quite easy.
But the journey to convince people that. The part that we have chosen, the tools we have chosen, and the, the patterns that we've chosen that those were right, that was hard. And, and that's that proof point, isn't it? That you, they, you're seeding control away from where you had control. So there's gotta be a lot of trust in the correct, in the model.
But to build trust, it's that what's the demonstration to say, look, you are now centralizing planning and forecasting at a baseline, and then the markets tweak it. Or improve on it. Mm-hmm. There's that. You've got to go through that. They've got to see that it's actually going to work and then you get this realization and it felt like maybe there was a flywheel effect that was going on in the organization.
Is that, is that fair to say that they got confidence and it built and trust was there and then it went that way? Or was the, you know, early trust off the back of a few big successes? No, so I think, I think your point was very valid, Rob, is that when I look at, when I started this organization. We, we needed to create a strategy.
We didn't have a strategy [00:16:00] before. And the opening point of the strategy was kind of, well, one, we needed to redefine ourselves who, who, who are we as a tech function? And I remember we were being called an IS function at the time. And I said, well, this at the heart of what we do, we are a business function.
We are not a, we're not technology for technology six. So we rebranded ourselves to a organization called BizTech, which is Business first, technology second. And I wanted to remind everybody you come to work not because of tech in itself. We come to work because we sell over team. We, we make team, we, we engage with consumers.
We are business people first and foremost. The second dimension, we, we've gotta be proud of the fact that we are technologists at heart. So changing that name created a very different language across the entire organization around saying these guys are not just kinda. And I remember using the term firefighters, you know, we just fixed up because it's broken.
How do we change it? The next thing we did was we created a branding, which was EC partners that deliver well. And so what I wanted to do was kind of bring certain, certain language and mindsets to my team, but also to the broader business. And, and the [00:17:00] first one was around partner. I wanted to into the narrative around saying, you always just come and give me stuff to do.
Well, hold on. Right? I, I wanna be able to help influence your thoughts. I wanna help kind of show you possibilities. I. But you can't do that if it's a transaction. So let's do this through a partnership. And so that was the first kind of change around, set the dimension around partnership. The next thing we said, you could talk a really good talk, put up really pretty PowerPoint slides, but you can't translate that to deliver.
Then you got a problem. So front and the center for what my team needed to do is we need to deliver what we said we're gonna do. And I introduced this concept around Wow. And I'm sure when you hear the word, wow, it has different sort of emotions. And by the way, it's not ways of working, but what it is, it's an emotion that touches you, that if I ask every one of you around what does wow mean?
You'll have different versions of it. Yeah. But by understanding that and then being able to deliver against your expectation, what I've done is I've pushed the bar on delivery. And every single time that I ask the question on what is your wow, [00:18:00] what I'm doing is I'm pushing the boundaries around how am I gonna deliver the next great thing.
I think there's something in what you're saying there about the reset of language. Yeah. Can Mexican's important, can help you reset expectation and it can help you reset ambition, I think. Absolutely. Couldn't agree with you more. It really, and, and to me that was the change and come the point around delivery because we then set a whole program around how do you get the basics right?
And because we deliver the basics right, it gave them confidence around you could do things differently. Because I don't think I would've been able to win, win the hearts and minds of my leadership if I didn't prove that what we said we are gonna do, we've done properly. I I I wanna just quickly summarize it where I think we are and, and then just ask you, um, an another scoping.
Uh, thought. So from what, what I think I understand is a global group, but with very independent and distributed brands, both in terms of brand ownership and geography, uh, geographical ownership, that in the background you're using structural technologies [00:19:00] like, uh, ERP to sort of align and make more efficient and effective the backend so that the planning processes, I'm sure elements of supply chain, um, just and generally probably how your BPO is running at the back.
I wonder, I wonder then if, if below that you've still got the independent brands and the independent brands going to market, and then you've got the consumer who is then kind of sort of interpreting that brand and kind of consuming that brand in, in whatever, in whatever way. I wonder how much you were thinking about that front end consumer aspect of this, or was it predominantly focused on the efficiency and effectiveness of the backend?
Definitely the consumer F front and center, and I'll give you an example of why that's case. If you've got 10 different markets and you wanna roll out a CRM solution, or you wanna be able to build an app that allows you to get close to the consumer if you want to be able to build a website close to the consumer, all of that kind of.
Connects back into a, a connected system. So if [00:20:00] you're not thinking about what's the consumer, what are we gonna do with the consumer? And then start building efficiencies inside and then not realize you need to connect the two, it's a problem. So the vision was always, it's about the consumer first and.
First and foremost, then the question was, well, how do we, how do we kind of figure out what's the steps to do that? And the first step was we need to get some efficiency without losing the architecture. And then the strategy that it's about the consumer, whether it's around data, whether it's around systems or processes.
Got you. And in terms of my experience as the consumer then, uh, following the change, what does that look like? How is it different? So how is it showing up to me as the consumer? So we kicked up multiple programs inside this journey of transformation. One of them was around the internal program called Optimus.
We did another program around the consumer technology was around Catalyst. And what we are gonna be seeing from a consumer perspective is that one, a lot more responsiveness to the consumer being, you know, being able to connect with the consumer more real time in, in a, in a far more engaging manner in materials and [00:21:00] content that they need.
I think you're gonna see a lot more kind of, uh. Materials that's gonna be generated around using technology. And we we're all talking about AI these days around how are we gonna use AI to help facilitate that? And it's something like ai, it becomes a bit of a, a challenge when you don't have a platform on which you're gonna put the AI on.
You know, everything needs data. If the data's not consistent and the data's not clean, then all the stuff that you wanna. Whether it's internal or external to the consumers becomes quite hard. So what you're gonna see in in the coming years is definitely a lot more digital presence within the Twining Zer team brand.
Okay, so we've looked at the backend layer a little bit. We've looked at the front end consumer a bit, the middle layer, which is sort of like the brand ownership, brand positioning organizations that are then kinda running the brands either globally or in individual market. How was the change absorbed by them?
Like how did they react to it and how were you managing to keep the show on the road whilst going through what is a pretty complex globalization [00:22:00] exercise? I think having that clear mindset around what are you really good at? So when we had, when we started doing our design workshops, we were looking at how we, how we build this, this tool, this program called Optimus.
What became very clear was that the things that are not gonna be core, we, we didn't touch, for example, things related to the consumer. We said we're not gonna touch that now, but we know the architects are required. So the teams that were in market selling, coming up with new innovations, being able to look at.
Engaging with our customers differently. That continued without there being any disruption to them, what we were then focusing around again, let's get the internal engine tool be really efficient as as possible. So that delineation between being very clear around. Magic sauce, you're not gonna touch, which we said we're not gonna do, but we are gonna enable that in some form and let's focus on the internal stuff.
To get that right was a very clear, and it made the journey and, and we, we haven't completed the journey, but the journey to date has been quite positive in the sense that [00:23:00] because we have been focused around what do we need to do and what we're not gonna do. Yeah, with such a complicated system, it always, it's always that balance in my head around where do we allow deviation for a brand or a market because it's legally required or actually it's the right thing to do versus the where should we standardize?
And that tension in that conversation is, is a long old road, isn't it? To get that balance striking. The balance. Where do you think you are on, on that journey Enough? You know, balancing freedom and autonomy with the sort of, we want to keep the core clean 'cause actually you'll get more value out of it.
Is there a, do you think that you're halfway there, you're almost there. That type of, um, view would be interesting to hear about. There's a lot of things that I'm kind of proud of with the program that we embarked on, but one of the things I'm really, really proud of, and I'm sure you all would've heard this, that everybody tries to endeavor to keep the, the core clean.
And we always talk about, you know, technology run. I don't wanna do customization, so forth. And I'm really proud to say that we've done three, three outta the four waves that we've completed. And I've had one [00:24:00] customization that was forced upon us because of legal requirement in Poland, but we've got zero customizations inside my entire journey.
And that, again, that's most people talk about as philosophy. Most people like have an ambition. That's a good, that is not a philosophy. It was an ambition. We actually executing that. Because the, the supporting narrative to that principle was that if you wanna accelerate growth, if you wanna accelerate the new functionality, if you want to be able to connect the consumer, there's a basic understanding that the SAP world is gonna be upgraded on, on a daily basis, weekly basis, monthly basis, if we want to take some of that capability and use it.
But if you gotta customize. Everything to make sure that you want that special thing for you in a market, well, you're gonna lose that opportunity. So ask yourself a question around, is that thing that you're asking for is gonna help me sell more? Make more, deliver more, yeah. And be able to get consumer.
If the answer's yes, that it is absolutely competitive, but do it in a different way. Don't touch my call. And we delivered against that, which I'm really proud of. Cool. I think the creation of a [00:25:00] system of record. Like that, that's, that's robust and you can kind of keep evergreen as a result of what you just said.
Also allows you then the space to, to disaggregate what really differentiates into a layer above that, that either is, you know, kind of custom code or it's specialist applications are are. PAs or S or, or, or in future it could be agentic, right? So the agentic layer can run across the top of the, of the system of record.
So like absolute. Solid agreement on that as the architecture. I wonder if you also did a third layer, which was based on experience, whether that be consumer experience or whether that be employee experience. What, what were you, what were you thinking in those terms? Gotta be honest, it was not critical in terms of our starting point around.
Experience both the consumer experience or the the employee experience as a, as a reason why we wanna keep the core clean. But what we were quite clear about is that when we [00:26:00] start looking at things like the employee experience and the consumer experience, that if everybody did a version of something that is different, then I couldn't build once and deploy many.
And that's been the philosophy that we've had, is that we've always wanted to build once, deploy as many as you can, as quickly as you can so people get the, the advantage of it. So it was kind of an unintended. I guess positive outcome of the strategy that we took, and I think it's gonna bear fruit in many, many years to come.
I wonder if we just take a step back from it and think about the design of the change journey that you guys have been on. Um, I. There is, there is lots of, uh, evidence to say that actually trying to over design a macro change of this, of the magnitude you're describing can really hamper your progress.
You either are starting really linearly or you're not responsive enough to what's, to what's actually going on with it, whether it's in your organization or within a market, but actually when you're deploying something like a system of record. In the [00:27:00] very robust way you're, you've been describing that's quite noble and quite understandable, so I wonder how you are balancing what you can crack on with because it's been done before and there's, and there's good practice with the unknowable aspects of what you're doing, whether it be in the business or how markets are responding, and how you created flex within the program.
So I, I mean, to use a concept called multimodal delivery in my organization. Mm. And the concept behind multimodal delivery is that the days are doing things in a linear fashion. We have to do this, then this, then that is gone. One, because the world is not in a linear fashion in that manner. So when we set up this program, what was clear around there were clear systems of record.
We said, right, let's go out and let's fix that. In parallel for that, we also knew that we need to get exposed to consumer. So we kicked up at a different program around how do you engage with the consumer? Parallel to that, we said, well, we need to set up a new organization around, um, how do you look at shared service centers?
And we call them our, our, our hub. So we knew that there were some process changes. We [00:28:00] knew we need to get close to consumer. We knew we needed to look at, look at the, the system, the record, and figure out how we enabled that. But all of those things we're kind of very clearly defined as being a transformation program because it was, if you, if you listen to any of my, my.
My podcasts or my engagements with people there, there's never a mention of the word ERP or systems A record, because to me that's all secondary to what's the transformation journey. 20 zero over 14 is going through and because we understood what the transformation was and what's the priority of each one and was, and what's the link between each one, because I think a lot of companies would do one and then do something else and then do something else.
We thought, well, and they, they sort of out of, out of phase, but they were all connected. So my system record is connected to my shared service center, which is connected to my ability to look at my consumer. So each of these programs, Hmm, are, are well understood and well connected, and therefore the change around that I do change once.
I doing the change for one [00:29:00] and then stop and do a change for another one. Stop and do a change the next. So the, the impact of change, I think is, I guess the positive side of it is that I'm going through this change journey with the organization once, and it is, it is overwhelming. There's no two, two ways about that because there's a lot of change.
Mm-hmm. But at least people know that the end is sight and they can see the value behind the end, and therefore the buy-in to that becomes a lot easier. So I, I wanted to dig in a bit to, um, to critical success factors. So I think that's a, that's a, a good bridge to it. When you were setting this out, were they, were they relatively straightforward and clear to establish and get alignment around?
Uh, or were there some of them that were more ambiguous that have had to evolve and emerge as you've gone along? I think it's, it's a combination of both. I think the business case and. The one thing we were very clear when we started off this program, um, Optimus needed to have a business case that stands on its own two feet.
Mm-hmm. And through that there were some very clear business case objectives that we said, this is when we go live. This is what we need to [00:30:00] achieve. And the really positive side of that is that we've set. Those, those metrics, each of the business general managers have signed off against those business benefits.
They've all looked at their p and ls and that's impacted in their p and ls. So that was, that was a clear thing about there was a buy-in. It's a buy-in from the top, driven by my CEO. My CFO being said, that's what we're gonna do. That gets cascaded onto all business units. But that was just, just start of the journey.
So the, the next part of the journey is how do you drive adoption? Because you could put a business case together and say that's what you wanna do. But if you're not making sure that people utilize the system in the way that it was designed to give you the benefit, you have a problem. So we introduce this concept of the three A's, which is, the first one is, is you gotta.
Adapt your processes to that, then you need to adopt the solution and then you need to accelerate the value. Mm-hmm. And what that did was it kind of said, well, in every one of the, the KPIs we talk about, here's why we are doing it. Well, you can't get to value if you're not adopting and you're not adopting, we are not gonna change your processes.
You need to adapt your processes to that, and then you need to [00:31:00] accelerate what we delivered, how we delivered it to get the value that we're talking about. So it made, it made the story very, very clear to all of my stakeholders. And the business units. What, what kind of period did it take you to get to that level of crispness in what you were intending to do again?
Did you like explore your way to that over a period or did you go and wrap a hot towel around your head and kind of try and kinda write it all down in a weekend sort of thing? I, I wish it was, it was the latter. I wish it was the case of me sitting there and saying, hold on. In fact, we, I know what it's, we, we, we, we spent so many time with organizations saying, tell us, tell us this magic thing because we, this is not the first time we are doing it.
There's other people have done this before, so let's goth and just get the information. And what we found was actually hard. It's very difficult to do that. So my team's been probably better part of two years. Really synthesizing this down to very specific KPIs, very specific actions, and very specific ownership, because this won't be coming up with KPI, but there's no ownership against that.
That's a [00:32:00] problem. So we set up a whole new transformation organization to enable what I just described, because again, I think a lot of these programs, you go live and everybody forgets and gets excited about go live, and then we say, well, let's just move on. Mm-hmm. What we've committed as an organization is that we're gonna invest in the people to drive that transformation, drive the adoption, to make sure that the business case gets realized.
How do you make sure that it's not a, a parallel world? 'cause I see that a lot, a lot of transformation offices being set up, but then it seems like they're the new, uh, ivory tower, right. Besides the exit Co. And besides real life, how do you make that connection? So part of that is that the teams actually embedded inside the business units.
So even though they report to me as a transformation function, they belong into business units. So my procurement leads will sit in procurement planning, would sit in planning and, and so forth. So, so they, they belong, they have a whole as in the transformation function, but the execution of the accountability is actually within each, each business unit to, to address that particular problem.
Because what I don't wanna do [00:33:00] is to say, well. We are telling you all the problems. We're not showing you how to fix it. We're actually we, we are saying, we are telling you the problems. We actually help you fix it. And we've seen the results of that. So just stepping back though. Really interesting what you're saying there about the having to work through ambiguity to, to get to the clarity that that can then get everybody kind of very purposefully aligned.
I wonder why it is a process for every single organization. Is it, do you think, just because as humans we're pretty terrible at writing this stuff down. You know, in the old days, we're not even very good at commenting code, nevermind sort of writing down and synthesizing complex human systems really. So is it that and we just, we just keep forgetting?
Or is it the fact that it actually is so contextual to an organization? Its culture, its age, its direction, its ambition that it requires that work every time. I dunno whether you've considered that Sandy. I. So we went out and we spent a fair amount of time and money to [00:34:00] kind of look at what's the leading KPIs out out there.
Again. So KPIs are not something that's new. Everybody has a KPI and most of most businesses it's about profit. That's the large thing. Make sure that you do things in a, in a sustainable manner. Make sure that, that you are doing things at driving efficiency organization. So at the highest level, pretty much.
All organizations have got the same, the same objective. I think the nuances to your point, and I think it's culture around how do I look at profit, is different to how another organization looks at profit or the way we dimension it. And then I think each business unit, so the challenge I've got is that every, if I've got 10 business units, say like 10 different organizations or wanting to demand their version of a KPI, and so part of the journey was to standardize wherever we can.
And that's, that's still a hard journey. So I haven't got that right yet. But what, what I think is happening is that. My challenge back to all of my leaders around saying, so tell me that particular KPI that you wanted in that particular way, what decision are you making that's gonna help you sell more, make more [00:35:00] deliverable?
Hmm. If you can explain that to me in a way that is really meaningful, then I'm happy to go and build it. And I think having those honest conversations, whereas I think, you know, traditional IT organizations have always been, you want that KPI, Igon build it in my organization and myself. I'm saying, hold on, let's have a conversation around why that is important.
I'm not saying. I, I, I won't build it. Um, all I'm saying is that, let's go through the, the conversation first. Alright. Can you dimension why that is the case? And what you find a lot of times is that, well, my predecessor had it and my predecessor before them had it. Mm. And therefore it just become, become the KPI to measure yet the decisions around what you do with that and how often do you use it.
I mean, I, I'll give you an example. Recently we had one of the reports where the guy say I needed real time. So I said, is that every second. He said, yeah, no, no, I need it at least every minute. I said, great. Fantastic. What decision are you making on a daily basis when all your stock comes to you? Once a week?
Uh, you go, yeah, you go, are you changing your mind once a minute. Right. Are you pivoting? Yeah. It's like, why do you [00:36:00] need that? And it's that sort of stuff. You not, if you don't go to that level of questioning, we'll build a report that we need to give him an, an update every minute to make something. I mean, it's a very good point.
I mean, to make something real time. Can be very expensive when you actually implement it. It can cost you a lot of money. Now there might be huge validity in operational controls that need to be real time. Yep. But then there's another thing about, like you say, well, it's only arriving once a week, so maybe we need to have a little chat about this and see what the, the, you know, 'cause there are some big implications associated with those types of requirements.
Maybe the business don't understand it's tick speed stuff for me, which is. Tick speed is, is about how your whole organizational human system functions together and including your supply chains, your partnerships, all of those sorts of things. So changing one element in a system ain't gonna make the entire system work, you know, fast.
If you're gonna, if you want to do something in real time, then you better be sure you understand the system and that the system is recalibrated for real time [00:37:00] work. And I think that's a. A, a big thing that like many organizations miss when they think they're kind of moving into the sort of digital age or digital speed, is that it's so incumbent on their governance, their leadership decision cadence, their partnerships, the contracts that they sign, and then as well as all of the logistics and things that go with that.
How, how deep did you have to go? How deep did you have to go Sandeep, or where are you up to, I guess, in terms of that speed journey? It's still a journey. Still a journey. I mean, it, I think one of the, one of the interesting things is that we always, when we started this, this journey around Optimus, what we were saying is that you got these 10 business units that stand on their own two feet.
That. But if you wanna connect them all together, the unintended consequence when somebody sneezes in China, it cuts across the entire organization. So, so putting the right checks and balances around real time has a consequence to it because if you want something real time, that means somebody elsewhere in the world needs to [00:38:00] do that transaction in real time to make sure you make a real time decision.
So we didn't explicitly have the timing conversation, but what we we're quite explicit about, the consequence of could being connected. And what's the checks and balances do we need to put in place to be connected? Because if you wanna live in a truly automated world, well then I don't want anybody to touch the transaction from the time you do it to the time you receive it.
Yeah. But for that to happen, there's a lot of things that need to happen in between. And I think as, as an organization, we are on that journey to get there. But we are not there yet. Absolutely not. No. I mean, I think, I, I think that's definitely an unknowable part of the scale of transformation, isn't it?
You can get. Some main building blocks in place, like, uh, like, like your system of record, like some of your cultures, like some of the questioning you're doing, but actually you're constantly going to be exploring your way through the nooks and crannies of that, uh, until, until ultimately you step back maybe in a few years time and go, actually, you know what?
When you take stock of this, now we've automated [00:39:00] that that process is running in whittled real time, et cetera, et cetera, but that then becomes the job of work of a digit organization, doesn't it? That constant iteration and refinement of everything. And That's right. You, I think the job of a transformation officer, the dancer of transformation, doesn't stop.
I think you're just transforming different elements of it, but your base has to be right to transform. And I think for us exactly that was the journey is that get the base right and every bit of the, the cleverness and the exponential technology that comes after that should become a lot easier. I wonder maybe just as, as a way to sort of bring such a sort of multi-threaded conversation to a bit of a close, at least for today, um, I just wanted to touch on like leadership.
Um, both from a point of view of what, what sort of styles of leadership were required for this. 'cause I don't think just standing at the front of the room and going, everybody follow me, probably would've would've cut it. So I'm sure you had to use multiple tools here. Come on, we're on a journey. I've got, I've got the answer.
A trumpet, Dave. They have to have a trumpet when they want to lead [00:40:00] everyone. Yeah, I've got the answer. That's good. Old, old school inspirational leadership. At its best, best, you know, number one, use trumpet. Um, and then, and then, yeah, and then also as part of finding what that was, what was that journey like for you personally?
Um, you know, kind of these things are not straightforward, are there, so what, what kind of learnings have you brought away from it? It's a really complex question because I think as we evolved in this, I, I wish I had a recipe around exactly, I'm engaging this way and therefore I'm gonna do it this way.
But let me try to synthesize it in some form to, to convince with people why change is important. My, my starting point has always been around define a why that is so compelling that it's hard to argue the why. In this journey, the why was if we are gonna become competitive in this new world and look at our consumers differently and look at our products differently and look at what's competitive to us, do we buy into that narrative?
And the answer is yes. The how we [00:41:00] execute that becomes next. So the first part was trying to, trying to take something that's complex. And I think the problem, again, a lot of it leaders do is we talk tech when at the end of the day, we are business people first and foremost, so, so at no time did I talk about ERPs, at no time did you talk about architecture.
We spoke about this is how we wanna run our business. So I think being able to change the language. To the audience was probably my first lesson around you. You've gotta be able to, to do that. Just talk in a way that the influencers understand. Nobody wants to care about what, how many servers and what networks and all of that Very cool stuff.
They, all they wanna know is around. I wanna make more, sell more, deliver more, and get the consumer to, to be excited. So I think the language for me choose that language was important. I think the next thing is understanding the culture of the organization. It's very easy to come in from the outset when I first came into have all these very clever ideas and see how people have done this and, and just ram a concept down people's throat, which I think I would've been, had a very short career in twenties.
But understanding the culture, [00:42:00] then understanding which buttons to push when was quite important because. You know, I had no right to challenge a 300 year old business to say, well, you don't know what you're doing, because that's, you know, that's arrogance. Second to none. Yeah. Yeah. But being able to appreciate and respect that culture, but also know when to push it in a way to agitate the thinking was the next thing.
And I think that required a case of truly understanding what drives this organization, but also understanding how the organization be driven forward. And I think the last, one of the other parts I felt quite important was storytelling. I think being able to tell, tell the story in a way that people understand across from China all the way to North America was a, was a.
Was a skillset that I think that was really important to be able to, it's not a one size fits all. It's actually the ability to be able to navigate that. I think the last part of that is, is another, a lot of resilience, I think if you don't have a belief system in yourself, and for me, that is my biggest learning thing.
If I don't believe in why we are doing this, everybody else that looks [00:43:00] up to me is gonna look at this and says, son, have you got a fraud? Flawed believe. Why should we follow you? I think that's been probably my biggest learning point.
Esmee. What's going on? Yeah, so I'm, I've been thinking about this. We've called it in, uh, one of the previous episodes, the emotional intelligent age. Uh, you know, what makes the heart tick, and we're talking about brands here as well. Um, so what if brands created with the sensitivity of an artist? I love going to, uh, museums and, uh, see what digital artists are making as well.
Uh, and in a, in a world full of polished packaging purpose statements, many brands, they claim to tap into that emotion. But, um, well, let's be honest, how many. Do you truly feel? Uh, and I think one of the, uh, for me, one of the most beautiful examples is the one with Dove. And I was actually giggling a bit of it because I just mentioned [00:44:00] dove's in a compiled completely different context.
But in this case, I'm meaning about dove's, real beauty sketches. Um, it didn't go viral because it talked about soap. 'cause it is actually about soap, right? Hmm. Uh, but it became a global movement and a moment because it held up a mirror to our self image. So quietly, powerfully, without selling. It made people cry.
Uh, so it made them pause, share, and that's not just branding, that's emotional intelligence in action. And now we've tapping into ai, obviously accelerating personalization prediction. We're not just entering a new tech era, but you know, we're entering this emotional talented age, you could say. And I'm just very curious 'cause it's not about the data, actually, it's about the death I.
So the, you know, the, the ability to really touch us in art creators don't ask will this convert, right? From a sales mindset, it's like, okay, everything that we were doing in marketing, in sales, it needs to convert to new sales, additional sales, et cetera. Uh, but an artist actually thinks, will this move someone?[00:45:00]
And I'm just curious and, and hope maybe Sandy also has a, like a, an idea about. You know, touching among these emotions, now that you have tech in place, how can it actually accelerate to create those emotions, uh, with consumers? I think if you, if you think about something like tea and, and people don't realize, think about every single one of us over here with either, whether you tea, you drink coffee, but because I'm a tea person, let's talk about tea.
When you pick up that cup of tea, whether it's the morning or during the day, there's a moment of. Of impact. Mm, there is definitely, there is a sense of of emotions that flood you, whether it's around calmness, whether it's around excitement, whether it's around energy. Tea in itself is an emotional kind of package.
And there's various, the various moments in the day, those ovn packages become a reality. Mm. I think the challenge around technology and the, the product that we produce, and I mean you talk about artists, you know what's really interesting? You think something like, like our, our [00:46:00] English breakfast has probably about seven different types of eight different types of blends.
So our, our, our master blenders are artists in their own right. Able to, to bring consistency and that emotional experience every single time you pick up that tea, and you know what, I'm getting that consistency. I'm getting the flavors. It's art. And, and, and I've always described this, the complexity that goes into a cup of tea we all take for granted, but it's, it's art.
It generally is art. And therefore, as a technologist, my job is around saying, how do I amplify that consumer experience? Because they've done all that hard work to get it in great blend, in a great packaging, in a great experience. How do we amplify it and not detract from, from the magic that's happening in that cup?
So I think for us as a tech technology, uh, function, we don't have that button down yet. And I think a lot of people are trying to get that done. But for us it's around not to distract, you know, not to hit another app that you keep kind of swiping down and figure out what's going on. But how do you enhance that, those moments of joy when you drink that cup of tea?[00:47:00]
And you know what though? If you get a cup of tea brew just right. It can be ab, it's brilliant, and I absolutely agree with you. Then you think, oh, there's that little moment where you go that you know, incredibly refreshing cup. Nothing worse than somebody who butchers a brew no and gives you this cup of tea.
You just look at it and you go, what's that? So let's do a, I think Robert, on that note, that's that's a moment of genius. Um, let's, let's just go quickly around the table and find out how we like to take our tea now. Um, I'll start, I'll, I'll get the ball rolling. So, so I am an English breakfast tea person, uh, and I prefer it brewed on the stronger end.
I. So dark in complexion with a sort of a, a sort of a, a, not a, not just a tiny drop of milk, but just like a drop of milk, just so it's like a dark brown color, and then robustly no sugar for me. Yeah. Sandy, where are you on your tea? Uh, amazing. I have English breakfast, but my favorite tea is actually Lady Gray, which is a version of, of, uh, a gray tea, which is [00:48:00] really nice.
Um, very similar to you. I like my tea strong. My, my tea blenders would be, would be kind of looking at me thinking very, very strange something. Don't add milk to that, but a lot drop of ese. So I like my tea. Very strong. Uh, yeah, you're not supposed to put tea. You're not supposed to put milk in all gray, neither are you?
Yes. Uh, like I said, if, if my, my, my teeth theist, like Yeah. Yeah. They're not having their, any disappointment. You don't own the right to call yourself a twenties employee if you're doing that, but I, I do like, but I'm milk it. You banned red card. Yeah. Yeah. Esmer, where are you on t. Well, to be honest, this is also a cultural thing.
Right. I wouldn't dare to give you guys tea because for you it's like, it's like holy Yeah. Matrimony. Mm-hmm. And for me it's just tea. So I actually, not just tea. Yeah. I'm, for me, I actually love just hot water, to be honest. Oh, and what type of tea? What, what, what would note nothing in it. Just, yeah. Yeah, because it's good for my stomach and it's just, I don't, I don't [00:49:00] need a flavor, actually.
Sorry. It, I need, so, so I, I need to send you some of our herbal teas and our blends to make sure that, so, so again, there's hundreds and thousands of people like you that don't drink black tea, don't like black tea, but part of the reason why we brought in a whole lot of herbal ranges, because it, it, it actually addresses the different, different se segment of the market.
So. If you like a particular herb or you like a particular kind of outcome, so sleep or energy and so forth, I think we've got a whole selection to meet the requirements. So if I can convince you to become a different type of twenties tree drinker, that's my goal. Well, that's the challenge. I'll play down there.
Yeah, that's definitely, absolutely a hundred percent. Marcel, I'm gonna come to you next. Now, if, if you've been a long-term listener of the show, you'll, you'll know that we had a bit of a ongoing debate about how to best make. Uh, a s scone, a jam and Cream s scone. Oh yes. Cream tea. A as s and Robert, Robert absolutely goes off, wrapped around the axle one day on what [00:50:00] happened and, and completely aligned to the sensible way of doing it.
But Marcello's continued the exploration, and I think Marcel, without giving the game away, come to a conclusion that it all broadly tastes the same. So I think we can park that one. I think you've got us through that confusion, but how do you take your tea with your cream tea? I'm always a little bit flabbergasted that, that you're putting milk in tea.
Yeah. That's weird for us. I, I don't understand that. And when in the, in the office, in the uk, people are pouring milk in and, and I think, oh, oh, what's that? So that's really weird. So you're black tea? I don't, I don't like black and strong tea. Mm-hmm. Uh, a LI don't like the fruity tea. So, uh, normal plain tea is okay for me, but it's not a culture for me.
It's, and, and, and I usually, uh, drink it in the evening. So, uh, very good. There you go. And bring, bring us home, Rob. So I, uh, did you ever see Hugh Grant's interview where he talks about how people should make a cup of tea? He basically, that's [00:51:00] how you should make a cup of tea. I'm Asam. Oh, I like that, Sam.
Yeah. So as refreshing, uh, blend as you can get out, Sam. Strong, strong isn. Well, two minutes. Don't fiddle with the, uh, the tea. Take it out. Uh, tiny little drop of milk just to change the color, but not too much. And then you probably get one of the most refreshing tea drinks you can get outta that blend or that, that tea type.
And then of course, you pour your tea before you put the milk in. Oh my God, yes. I thought I'd just make that clear. Just just so we're clear. And of course I'm gonna push for, that's criminal. If you put the milk in before you put the tea. And people who put milk, I've seen somebody put milk on a tea bag and then pour the water on top.
At which point I'm pretty, you should just cart them out. Arrest them straight to jail. Straight to jail. No, no, no. Judge or jury. I am not gonna comment on whether I've ever done that before. Oh. But, but I, I, but the other thing I wanna just investigate in this important bit of consumer research we're doing here, um.
Use of a microwave to boil water, Rob. Oh no. Oh my. You know [00:52:00] what? They troll us. Now the Americans know how to trigger us and it's that. I'm just gonna make a cup of tea. Tea bag, water. Microwave. Take it out. Lukewarm. No, sorry. I have to turn it off. I have to look away. Satit, when you guys are done in the strand, I would strongly recommend it.
It's the, it's one of the oldest shops in, in London. I would think you've has been around this since 1706. It's a little, little story. If you, if you blink, you'll, you'll miss it. But please, please go there. Get our blenders really to educate you around what is, what's the various types of teas, how you engage with the tea.
'cause it's art, it generally is art. So I would say if you like museums, go to the tea museum down in, down in the strand. Experience the different types of teas. Um, learn the history, but the histories is around. But milk is quite fascinated around why actually milk was done back in the back in the early days.
Um, but it just become, become the norm in some parts of the world. But please, um. When you, when you guys are ready, let me know and I'll, I'll arrange for you guys to be enthralled by OT blenders out there. Well, we will, [00:53:00] we will absolutely take you up on that. That sounds like an amazing way to spend some time.
So, Sandeep, thank you so much for, um, bringing your great story to us, uh, today, and we wish you luck with the remainder of the transformation. Thank you very much for having me, guys. Now we end every episode of this podcast by asking our guests what they're excited about doing next, and that could be a great cup of tea that you've got lined up in the next half an hour or so, or it could be something in your professional life or a little bit of both.
Sandeep, what are you excited about doing next? Well, as I've mentioned as the beginning of the. Podcast, I'm in South Africa, so I'm really excited about going capture that perfect picture. So I'm a photographer by heart Wonder. So being able to go out and wonder cool capture that, that amazing picture of the lion or the leopard or the, the elephant running after somebody.
That could be fun in itself. But that's, that's, that's what I really refer to, I guess from a professional perspective that, you know, it's been, we, we've been on an amazing journey to date. But like I said, it's the start of the journey to see us now translate the [00:54:00] ambition of what we started and execute against that.
That's the part that really excited me. So, you know, the journey for us is just starting and therefore excited about where we're gonna go next. Fabulous. Very quickly. Um, what, what, uh, camera kit do you use? I, I love the idea of photography, but I've never quite managed to get into it, but I find cameras very seductive.
I'm probably going to alienate half the people because I'm a Canon person. Then they'll be Nick Canon a better than Nick on, Nick on need not apply Canon much better. It makes about sound when you take a picture with the lens popping. Yeah, the sound. It's about a picture. No, no, no, it's not. When you use an SLR.
And you hit the button. The sound it makes, when it takes the photo is part of your experience when you're talking about emotion around photography. That little plump when the SLR properly goes off. That's very nice. I I, I think you just halved your audience base at the moment, guys. I think Rob, I think Rob took the half of the Canon people and then really subdivided that with these, uh, aesthetic observations.
Um. Where do you [00:55:00] stand on Leica? Oh, it's, it's an amazing, amazing camera. Um, I think if you can afford it, it's a beautiful, beautiful camera, but for its price range, I think you get madly expensive. Very, very expensive. Very expensive. I mean, but their lenses and the quality of stuff is really, really good.
But I think for, and the type of photography I use, I do wildlife photography. That's not their, it's not their forte, I think from streets and portraits and so forth. Really, really good. If you would like to discuss any of the issues on this week's show and how they might impact you and your business, please get in touch with us at Cloud [e-mail].
We're all on LinkedIn. We'd love to hear from you, so feel free to connect in DM if you have questions for the show to tackle. And of course, please. Rate and subscribe to our podcast. It really helps us improve the show. A huge thanks to Sandeep our sound and editing wizard, Ben and Louis, our producer, Marcel, and of course to all our listeners.
See you in another reality next [00:56:00] week.