Driving Transformative, Datadriven Thinking

Therefore, the biggest changes that Mars made—and continues to do so—are in the areas of organizational design, incentive models for data engineers and data scientists, a culture of usercentricity, collaboration with other stakeholders and retailers (our customers), and an ethos of zero distance to consumers.

From an organizational design perspective, we are on a multi-year journey to implement a “form and federate” model for analytics talent where analytics capabilities are largely built in the center and federated within our large businesses of Confectionery, Food, and Petcare when ready. This model serves us well as it enables us to disseminate best practices, playbooks, and tools and keeps our talent pipeline world-class. We are currently in the process of developing a talent and organizational design playbook to make sure our businesses are well equipped to accept and provide a career path for analytics talent. We have also embarked on a massive effort to upskill our Associates by providing them access to training and tools that enable advanced data visualization and self-serve diagnostics. At last count, Mars had more than 20,000 Associates using our self-serve toolkits globally.

We are also working to articulate and codify Mars’ Code of Ethics for AI and machine learning. Mars Petcare owns many vet clinics, vet hospitals, Wisdom Panel, a DNA testing business, and Whistle, an Internet of Things (IOT) business. As we build direct to consumer relationships in this business, we have increasing access to Personally Identifiable Information of both pet parents and pets. As privileged custodians of this data, we are duty-bound to protect and, more importantly, ensure that this data is being used in a responsible and ethical manner. Our AI Code of Ethics is designed to operate in congruence with our corporate principles (The Five Principles) and provide additional guidance that must be adhered to and embedded in any AI-driven or AI-dependent initiative at Mars. Key tenets of our Code include values alignment, quality & privacy, responsibility, explainability, and mutuality.

Analytics is one of the important cogs in our Mars digital engine to help drive our digital transformation at 100x speed. I look forward to what our Associates will create in the coming years!