Empowering Retail through Customer-First Technology Adoption Strategy

Frank De Sa, Chief Information Officer, Just Group [GBX: JUST.L]

Frank De Sa, Chief Information Officer, Just Group [GBX: JUST.L]

Frank De Sa, Chief Information Officer at Just Group Limited, exhibits over three decades of experience blending technical acumen with strategic vision. With a Bachelor of Information Systems under his belt, De Sa’s career trajectory began in the early 90s, focusing on local systems engineering and client-centric solutions. His roles at Arthur Andersen and IBM/Lotus cemented his expertise in software development processes and consulting, culminating in co-founding a successful consulting practice.. As CIO for the past 12 years, De Sa’s dual perspective from vendor and internal IT spaces has driven innovation and operational excellence. His leadership continues to shape Just Group Limited's technology roadmap, ensuring its sustained competitiveness in a rapidly evolving landscape.

Recognizing De Sa’s visionary leadership and corporate excellence to drive business success, this exclusive interview delves into De Sa’s invaluable insights into transforming IT departments from supporting roles into strategic business enablers.

AT A GLANCE:

• Our business is retail, not IT. Our primary focus must be ensuring technology supports rather than hinders customer interactions.

• Cultivating a ‘can-do’ attitude within the IT team can align the efforts with the core needs of the retail business.

• Alert-driven operations preempt disruptions and swiftly address issues for uninterrupted global sales.

Essential Pre-Requisites: Reframing IT Team’s Role by Fostering Customer-Centricity

As an IT leader transitioning from a vendor role, I embarked on a cultural shift within my team, emphasizing our core purpose of facilitating seamless customer transactions and sales, not just IT operations. This pivotal realization redefined our focus on ensuring technology aids the business, much like visual merchandising enhances the in-store experience. Abandoning the traditional IT-centric mindset, we embraced a collaborative, customer-centric approach reflected in our ‘can-do’ attitude. Rather than chasing innovation trends, we prioritize understanding business needs and enabling teams with timely insights, leveraging long-tenured internal expertise. This cultural transformation has strongly aligned with IT and core retail objectives.

Primary Plan of Action: A Proactive Blueprint for Solution-Oriented Ethos

Our guiding principle transcends technology; we facilitate solutions rather than hinder the business. We cultivate a proactive culture focused on action, deploying new technologies only when necessary. This maximizes resource utilization, contrasting with fleeting buzzwords dominating tech discourse.

Stakeholders value our pragmatic approach, prioritizing judicious investment in new technologies while maximizing current capabilities. As retail embrace digital platforms, we address emerging security and operational demands while leveraging existing abilities.

When engaging vendors, our concern is the solution’s impact on increasing sales, reducing costs, and driving growth—the factors that matter most.

Our significant accomplishment is consistent year-on-year growth, remarkable in our market. Yet, there’s no single breakthrough moment; consistent fulfillment of market expectations is our breakthrough, a perspective possibly unique in our local market.

Perennial Truth: The Power of Collective Wisdom in Leadership

Collaborative leadership underpins our success, as I actively seek input from team members, valuing the perspectives of long-tenured employees. This collective wisdom guides our approach, reflecting collaboration as a core value. Crucially, we prioritize comprehending the business’s core operations–distribution centers originating inventory and physical and online stores generating sales are critical centers of mass. Inventory, sales, and stock-flow form the lifeblood we vigilantly monitor through proactive alert systems. Any potential disruptions across our 1,100 global stores and online channels trigger immediate notification and action, promptly informing stakeholders to assure our firm grasp on critical aspects.

While some may view this as reactive, we consider it swift preparedness in today’s landscape, where uptime and KPI adherence are expectations, not achievements. Our true test lies in rapidly responding to the inevitable unexpected challenges. This proactive, collaborative mindset, attuned to operational heartbeats, instills confidence in the wider retail team and underpins our ability to preempt and address disruptions seamlessly.

Pressing Necessity: Preemptive Action through Alert-Driven Operations

On the operational front, we leverage alert systems that underwent a trial-and-error calibration process to determine accurate thresholds. Initially met with skepticism, these alerts–underpinned by our deep business understanding–now prove highly accurate, enabling prompt responses to operational challenges.

Rather than chasing innovation trends, we prioritize understanding business needs and enabling teams with timely insights, leveraging long-tenured internal expertise

This proactive approach allows a dedicated team to focus on implementing new technologies and projects adhering to a core principle–internal experts remain primary drivers, supplemented by external parties when necessary. This fosters employee engagement while leveraging in-house system knowledge to identify potential pitfalls during implementations. With vested interests in new systems’ operations and maintenance, our team takes ownership of project management, architecture, and design aspects. External support augments development efforts, accelerating innovation while ensuring the team remains invested beyond operational support. This balanced approach leverages internal expertise while capitalizing on external resources judiciously.

Advice to Peers: Cultivate Empathy in Vendor and Internal IT Collaborations

Essential qualities for success transcend IT–kindness fosters collaboration by making others comfortable seeking advice. From this foundation stems our ‘can-do’ attitude of openness and helpfulness, crucial in assisting others with technology. Seamless task-switching is vital, reacting swiftly to retail’s unpredictable nature, just as merchants adapt strategies for underperforming products. Flexibility alongside continuous improvement enables pivoting while remaining attuned to business rhythms, essential in dynamic retail IT roles where consistency is rarely feasible.

Helpfulness, kindness and multitasking are paramount, complemented by strong interpersonal skills. Experiencing both vendor and customer perspectives provides invaluable learnings - many aspects taken for granted as a vendor became apparent internally. Vendor timelines operate quarterly, half yearly or annually, contrasting with distinct internal decision-making cadences that do not align with such timelines.