Bringing everything together

Diego begins by explaining that the Miele X eCommerce B2B strategy focuses on three key areas at the moment – two are focusing on retail marketing and content. The third is Robert’s area, which is identifying the best eCommerce technical tools to support Miele teams in over 50 countries around the world. “The aim is to create synergies and efficiencies across the different markets,” says Diego. “By breaking down the barriers between the markets, we can give them the chance to access assets and tools that they wouldn’t be able to get by themselves.”

He says that in all three areas, Miele X needs to work closely with the markets to understand their needs, so they can identify their focus areas. For Robert, this means looking at efficiencies in areas such as content optimisation, allowing the local market teams to choose content that suits their needs, but ensuring it all has a consistent Miele look and feel.

Robert describes it as a multi-layered approach. “We have Miele experts creating the technical feeds for delivering content to the retailers. We have local account teams who build relationships with the major retailers in their country or region. And I’m responsible for identifying the right tools to make it happen.” He adds that creating this central strategy brings a lot of benefits to local Miele teams, because he can look at best practices around the world and identify if they can add value in other markets.

Setting a global strategy

To develop this centralised approach to B2B eCommerce tools, at the beginning of 2023, Robert and Diego worked together to create a roadmap of all the tools Miele’s country teams were using. This helped them to develop a Miele X data administration system, or content library, that they could use to identify and distribute the best technical information to Miele X technical teams and Miele country teams.

Diego says this system will be released in 2024, but there’s a lot of work to do beforehand to ensure they have the right infrastructure in place. He acknowledges that this will be challenging and will involve working closely with teams across Miele X, as well as the Miele teams around the world, but he says the Miele X approach encourages this: “I think our ways of working and collaboration allow us to have an open-minded approach. And that makes it easy to navigate and work with other teams.”

Robert agrees, adding that it’s a big opportunity for him: “We want to build bridges and create synergies within the organisation between different teams. By centralising content and the tools the teams use, we can be more efficient and not reinvent the wheel.” He adds that it was always going to be a big challenge to bring everyone together and create a shared vision. But he adds that the work he and Diego have done has already started to achieve this. By creating a dialogue between the different teams, they allowed people across Miele and Miele X to share their knowledge, so they contributed to the shared vision.

He says that one of the key areas that brought people together was the challenges they were facing. “Each market is different, so they had their own challenges. But they all came down to the same core challenges – bringing the right content to the right person, in the right place, and at the right time. This really helped us to bring the community together, because they could see they weren’t alone in that.”

Once they had everyone’s input and identified the right content and tools, Robert says the next stage is what they’re doing now, which is presenting that shared vision. “There will always be tweaks and additions,” he admits. “But to work with all these country teams and create this central approach and a shared vision, this is our mission.”

A constantly changing landscape

Both Diego and Robert are aware that they’re only at the beginning of their journey. As Diego points out, it’s a constant challenge to keep up with the way the market is evolving. “In a way, this project will never end, because we always want to give our customers the best shopping experience. That’s why we monitor what the country teams and the retailers are doing, because we want to understand how the content is performing. And if we think something is not working, we change it.”

“It is like dealing with a moving target,” agrees Robert. “You can release something new one day, and by the next day it could be outdated,” he adds. “So, the best way to keep up is to work in an agile way – that’s one of the key aspects for Miele X, in order to be successful and to cope with the ever-changing environment and market.”

Diego agrees, explaining that this was one of the reasons why Miele X created the eCommerce B2B team. “We want to take the lead, to make sure we are moving in the right direction in terms of understanding the markets’ needs and developing solutions,” he says. “The focus is on content, retail marketing and tooling now, but we hope to on-board new areas in the future, because we have to make sure that the B2B area of eCommerce keeps growing.”

An exciting future

Robert says he really enjoys the evolving nature of the work. “On a day-to-day basis, we’re having lots of conversations with all the different teams in order to catch up with the latest findings, results and best practices,” he says. “We have so much talent in Miele X and lots of experience with different brands and tools, so we use all that knowledge and expertise to identify the ones we want to take forward into other countries.”

For Diego, the key has been bringing people from all areas of Miele together. “Everything is managed across teams, so we don’t have any barriers,” he says. “Sometimes in an organisation, different teams might take ownership of different areas. But here, it’s not about who owns what. We’re trying to align with all the different stakeholders, to make sure that what we are delivering is a vision for Miele as a whole.”

And Robert says this is what makes it an exciting time for him. “We're defining our future strategy regarding the B2B tooling and the different technologies that we use. It's an absolute privilege to be in a position to work with all the different country teams, identify the new technologies that will supply market demands and set the direction for Miele, globally.”