At our annual Innovate & Accelerate conference, Daniel Lindsay, CRM, Data, Insights and Analytics Director at Estée Lauder, shared the business’ optimal pairing of data and magic behind beauty to enable their enterprise data transformation, taking the retailer from insight to instinct in order to personalise consumer experiences. This winning combination has contributed to the success of their brand value proposition, narrative and positioning through campaigns that struck a chord with consumers.

But how did Estée Lauder decide when the right time for data transformation was? What tools and strategies did they lean on to achieve this, and what were the results?

Why it was time for a big data transformation

Three years ago, Estée Lauder faced various evolutionary periods of marketing, from digital to connected media in terms of consumer interaction followed by the tailored messaging capabilities that came with leaning into data-led media and marketing , particularly first-party consumer data. The business was keen to ensure all their consumers were involved in their journey of change.

According to Daniel: “Our job as a leading beauty company in the UK is to evoke trust from the customer.” Consumers purchase from brands that they trust with their most personal spaces, so ensuring customers are at the root of the brand and understood as granularly as data personalisation allows for is vital. Estée Lauder quickly realised that connecting data to the personalised user experience would give them the competitive edge that they needed to remain an industry leader.

Challenges experienced when working on data transformation & how they were mitigated

Three years down the line of their data transformation, Estée Lauder has faced its fair share of challenges:

• Heavily investing in consumer data. The business quickly realised their initial consumer data investments were conducted on outdated infrastructure, which complicated their ability to locate their target customer and get a unified view of them.
• Effectively delivering analytics or insights that would drive fast action and improve accessibility. They had also outgrown their campaign management system, sparking a new consideration of ensuring whatever was brought into the business would connect consumers across the channels.
• Upskilling and bolstering their in-house capability. This would enable enhanced futureproofing and strategic planning while also upkeeping resources.

Implementing CDP & campaign management tools

To tackle these challenges, Estée Lauder worked with CACI on implementing a customer data platform (CDP) workstream and an innovative campaign management tool, Braze. They also created a new access point for consumer data for quicker decision-making and initiated a change management piece to better plan for the future, with CACI’s support on refining in-house skills.

Working with CACI enhanced the business’ understanding of how their consumers shop across their portfolio of brands. The resulting data was released into Braze, and has more recently been added into Google, Meta and TikTok to take their understanding of consumer data to a new level.

The business’ value realisation through Braze was being able to engage with consumers and make their CRM channels the fastest growing traffic channel across all their direct to consumer (D2C) channels so far. They were also able to increase their key loyalty metrics by 16% in repeat and retention rates across all brands. This was demonstrated through one brand, Aveda, that despite a complex route to market journey, proved that having the right infrastructure in place enabled the business to successfully understand and track consumer points through email or SMS, which has been transformational for the business.

Data transformation in real-time: MAC Cosmetics case studies

Creating Black Friday success for MAC Cosmetics

Elena Hughes, Customer Strategist at CACI, elaborated on CACI’s support with the design and implementation of Braze in Estée Lauder, and its impact on the business’ strategic communications plan ahead of their peak period, Black Friday. This was a commercially critical time in the business’ calendar with a predicted high revenue generation, meaning that the business’ strategy had to be airtight.

To execute this, Estée Lauder assessed the data with CACI to understand how customers behave during peak promotional periods. This resulted in the emergence of four key customer groups:

• Gifters
• Price-driven audience
• Loyal
• Lapsed (one-off)

The strategy needed to take a segmented approach to tailor the messaging to these specific audiences, which enabled newfound opportunities for creative enhancements as well. As a result, the business noticed a 23% increase in trading performance post-implementation of the strategy, proving the campaign’s effectiveness despite an obvious time crunch and key information presented for access in the most suitable way of actionable insight.

Activating a triggered lifecycle programme at MAC Cosmetics

Replenishment, automated trigger and cross-sale messaging were critical components of the business’ triggered lifecycle programme. Their Black Friday campaign success came from distilling a multitude of strategy-shaping data points.

Learning lessons towards achieving data transformation

Despite maintaining relatively stable sales around Black Friday, CACI’s Cost of Living and purchasing data proved to be crucial to Estée Lauder’s success. While the business noticed that some of the more luxury products like serums declined in sales, the resulting data showed that the “lipstick effect” prevailed and that customers still want to feel good about themselves no matter the economic circumstances, demonstrated in the purchasing of what consumers consider to be essential products.

The business is now equipped with the necessary data to enter peak shopping periods and continue developing efficiencies and creative assets that resonate with customers.

How CACI can help

If you or your business are looking to accelerate customer data or technology changes by connecting and activating your insight, please get in touch to discuss what strategies and solutions that our team of experts can help you deliver.

Focussing on outcomes is essential to the success of any project. What does the project need to achieve? It sounds like an obvious question, but time and again we see vague notions of what the outcomes are.

Procuring a technology system isn’t the end of the process. It needs to be designed, structured, implemented and have a plan put in place for its ongoing success post go-live.

How will the people using the new system be trained? What, ultimately, will success look like? A robust requirement discovery phase of the project helps both parties to understand one another and outline the objectives of the project.

At CACI, we utilise our proprietary FUSION project delivery methodology with all of our customers and for our internal projects. This helps us to keep work on track, whilst further enabling us to continually learn from project implementation to continuously improve our own processes.

Spending that time early in the lifecycle of the project to fully understand what it is you need to achieve enables us to set clear goals and create a point of reference for the remainder of the project.

Here we can establish what success will look like, creating a baseline of requirements and their acceptance criteria for sign off.

Requirement discovery building knowledge and insight

The success of any project is underpinned by the people involved. Getting both teams together so that they can build knowledge and insight of how each other works is invaluable in putting in place the groundwork for a successful project.

The definition of success and acceptance criteria created during the requirement discovery phase of the project acts as a reference point for the rest of the project. The requirements laid out at this stage are designed to establish what you need from the project, not describe the solution. It is important, therefore, to prioritise your requirements, understand what you want to achieve and set out your acceptance criteria at this stage. Who needs to do what, by when? What will tick your boxes in order to advance the project?

The involvement of key roles such as the project sponsor are vital in ensuring buy-in from key personnel and following up on your requirements to ensure that they are appropriately managed.

This isn’t just about managing the change in technology that you’re experiencing, there’s the human element to consider, too. We covered this in our previous blog about change management, but it’s worth reiterating since the requirement discovery phase further enables discussion around the tangible impact to the people who are affected by the change. Getting buy-in from everyone early in the project is good practice and the discovery phase is vital in building that knowledge and insight that will facilitate a smoother change management process when the (agreed upon) time is right.

The importance of epics in requirement discovery

Epics are an important way of breaking down a larger body of work, such as a software implementation, into user stories that work towards the intended outcome of the overarching project. This helps both teams to break their work down whilst continually working towards the bigger picture.

CACI helps customers in creating these, since they enable us to focus on your outcomes, putting them front and centre of the project. We’re providing the solution, but your required outcomes are bespoke to you. Creating epics enables us to focus on this during the process of delivering your solution.

The creation of epics also enables us to come back to your requirements and how we intend to achieve them. With the overarching project broken down into smaller sprints of work, it enables us to focus on the delivery of key requirements across the project.

How CACI can help you deliver the outcomes you need

The purpose of the discovery phase is to build insight and understanding between our team and yours. Reading requirements on a tender is one thing, but how will they look in reality? We aim to embed our team within yours, which is why discovery is so important. This enables us to tailor the solution to your needs, with your required outcomes at the forefront of the project implementation.

We’ve seen all manner of projects in our time. Most have gone well, but we’ve also been involved in projects where shortcuts have been taken and the project has been executed without the involvement of those who will be most impacted by the project: that is to say, those who will be using the solution day in, day out.

Discovery is such an important step in the project. It enables us to create an agreed path forwards against set deliverables, acting as a point of reference as the project advances. The project lifecycle can be difficult to manage, but by breaking it down and understanding what you need the solution to deliver, it makes it easier to pinpoint where things are veering off course.

Our team of project managers have seen it all before, across a multitude of industries. Selecting a technology provider and their solution is one thing, but what happens next is so important to the solution being successful for you. We always strive to place your outcomes first, to ensure that the solution and the project work to deliver what you need.

Climate change is an ever-growing problem, and the technology sector is unfortunately playing a substantial role in this. By 2040, this sector is set to account for 14% of the world’s carbon footprint, a massive uptake from the 1.5% it occupied in 2007. Understanding how businesses operating within the technology sector can analyse and reduce their carbon footprint and leverage green information technology (also known as green IT) practices is critical. So, what exactly is green IT and how will this shape the future of this sector’s carbon footprint?

This is the first part of a 4-blog series on Green IT. In future posts, we will discuss how businesses can use green IT to reduce their carbon footprint, choose the right cloud provider, and optimise algorithms for energy efficiency.

What is green information technology (Green IT)?

Green information technology (green IT) is the practice of using environmentally sustainable computing. It aims to minimise the effects of the technology space on global emissions to combat climate change. The concept originated from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 1992 through a project called “Energy Star”, which identified products that were superior in energy efficiency and helped organisations choose products that would cut costs and reduce their carbon footprint.

Why is green IT so important?

Green IT will have significant impacts in areas beyond climate change, including:

Compliance to achieve net zero carbon emissions

Recent updates made to the Green Finance Strategy from the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) will ensure businesses continue to meet their green finance ambitions and standards. Climate change has remained a prominent consideration within this. The FCA recognises the importance of business’ resilience in collective action to achieve net zero carbon emissions, therefore, businesses are being held increasingly accountable for any climate-related actions.

Competitive advantage through ESG scores

Businesses worldwide have increasingly focused on achieving environmental, social and governance (ESG) criteria to prove they have adopted good sustainability practices. ESG criteria assess a company’s environmental risks and potential harm to the environment. ESG scores are calculated for individual businesses based on relative performance within the company’s sector (for environmental and social) and country of incorporation (for governance). Businesses that receive a positive ESG score are ultimately more attractive to customers and investors.

What can your business do to follow Green IT best practices?

While the UK is considered the second most environmentally friendly country in the world according to the 2022 Environmental Performance Index (EPI), ongoing environmental challenges call all organisations to continue to innovate and act.

Businesses may be daunted by the fact that an eco-conscious development strategy is not easy, cheap, and will not happen overnight. Technology solutions can also be highly complex, with many parts to manage and design, which can also complicate the ability to determine the impact the solution may have on climate change. Setting policies and best practices for a business to follow is a good first step, and everyone in the business must bear some level of responsibility to help drive green IT, from the CTO to the engineers and architects.

There are several key takeaways that the wider business should consider to effectively implement and follow green IT best practices, most notably:

Demand for the information and technology sector is only going to increase, making it a massive contributing factor to climate change.

Embed green methodologies and practices into the software development lifecycle to set clear goals to help mitigate carbon footprints.

Make informed decisions on what tooling and infrastructure is going to be utilised.

More research and innovation need to happen, especially in cloud computing and analytical developmental tools.

This blog is part 1 of a 2-part blog series exploring the topic of Green IT. You can read the other 2 parts by following the below links:

• What is green cloud computing & how are businesses using it?

To learn more about green IT and how your business can adopt these best practices, contact us today.

While all our clients are different, they often use similar tactics to help them overcome challenges and innovate. Here’s what we’ve learned.

If the past year has taught us anything, it’s that digital transformation isn’t just nice to have. It’s essential to create innovative experiences that help you react to, and proactively anticipate, changing customer demands.

But whatever industry you’re in, digital transformation projects can be complex. And without the right ongoing, expert support, they can be difficult to execute.

Over decades helping our clients achieve their digital ambitions, we’ve discovered some key tactics that have been successful in helping them overcome their biggest challenges.

Here are the three most important – and you can start using them straightaway.

1 – Respond quickly when customer demands change

Failure to adapt to changing market conditions can potentially mean you lose out to more agile competitors, which in turn means you miss out on key revenue opportunities.

Customer demands are at the heart of most changing industry trends. Particularly in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, there’s never been a better time to put your customers at the centre of your digital strategy.

One way to achieve this is by introducing new and innovative digital services that help improve the customer experience.

We helped Govia Thameslink to do just that. We worked closely to design and deploy a live passenger counting system that delivers train capacity information to customers in real time – improving passenger experience and reducing station dwell times.

As well as listening to your customers, it’s important you have the ability to scale on demand to adapt to new challenges. Our major retail clients like Argos and Waitrose & Partners know this better than most.

The ability to scale digital systems quickly helped both companies navigate the seismic shift from physical stores to online during the UK’s nationwide lockdown in 2020 – coupled with unpredictable disruption following Brexit – and keep their customers satisfied across any channel.

2 – Be proactive, not reactive

Change isn’t always easy, particularly when your current strategy can appear to be working. But in reality, you could be fostering unnecessary complexity in your organisation.

Take manual processes for example.

One of our public transport clients realised that its managers, who had responsibility for its public areas, were spending so much time recording passenger footfall using pen and paper, they had little time left to carry out their basic duties.

It’s why we worked with our client to create an app that helped eliminate these manual processes. It not only made reporting far more efficient, but it also provides deep insights which now influence space and building designs – something that would have been impossible before.

By identifying a problem and taking proactive action, our client was able to unlock new efficiency gains and insights that help it better anticipate customer trends.

3 – Test and learn constantly

Due to their ability to foster innovation, test-and-learn programmes have been at the heart of many of our clients’ digital development initiatives for years. And the best part is that test-and-learn doesn’t necessarily need a huge investment in time and resources.

The truth is, an effective test-and-learn programme can begin with something as simple as an email A/B test. As long as you’re gathering data and using it to make continuous iterations, you’ll soon see the benefits.

While our work with University College London Hospitals NHS Foundations Trust (UCLH) to develop and launch its Tuberculosis symptom checker app was a significant project, the foundations for our ongoing work are simple: regular idea dialogues and feedback workshops that use direct user feedback to continually improve the platform.

Once you’re confident with test-and-learn, it’s also a good opportunity to experiment with emerging technologies such as Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning – something our client Waitrose & Partners is using to reduce food waste and save money.

Discover opportunity in your biggest challenges

Now more than ever, it’s essential to engage with customers in more innovative, digital ways. But digital transformation projects require specialist skills – from design and build to integration, operation and improvement.

It’s why choosing the right partner to help you achieve your digital ambitions – and who understands the value of 24/7/365 support from embedded teams – is critical.

CACI is that kind of partner.

Backed by decades of experience helping major organisations such as Argos, UCLH, Waitrose & Partners and Mitchells & Butlers to deliver new digital solutions (and even legacy support services), we help you get complex, large-scale technology projects delivered on time.

We offer four core services to support successful project delivery:

1. Specialist consulting services to scope, design and deliver digital projects
2. Development of data-intensive software applications
3. Secure and compliant cloud hosting solutions
4. Ongoing management and monitoring of complex software systems

Find out more about our digital solutions and discover how we can help you manage your digital challenges.

In any competitive market, being proactive can make all the difference. For example, developing new application features that make your processes more efficient can save time and free your team to focus on more challenging tasks.

Change isn’t easy if you’re going it alone. You need the right processes and skills in place from the off. While this isn’t impossible to achieve, it doesn’t happen overnight. Even for the best organisations, it can take time, effort, and significant resources.

There is another way: working with the right partner with the right expertise to help you drive meaningful change.

At CACI, we’ve spent decades helping clients navigate and pre-empt shifting markets. Here are three ways we’ve helped them to be more proactive.

1 – Eliminating Complexity and Manual Data Entry

While it can be tempting to stick with the old ways of doing things, this will almost certainly breed unnecessary complexity and manual processes.

Take a crowded public place for example. One of our clients is required by health and safety law to monitor and record footfall. It’s a critical part of the company’s understanding of congestion at its sites – and how it can make changes to reduce it.

But when the standard method of recording this information was pen and paper, submitted periodically, our client found that its staff were spending so much time filling out paperwork that they struggled to carry out their other daily routines.

Our solution was simple: a digital app that replaced paper forms and allowed staff to upload a variety of supporting documents – removing tedious, manual data entry, and freeing valuable people to focus on other tasks.

2 – Using Technology to Solve Critical Problems

In healthcare, preventative treatment can catch potential issues before they become bigger problems, helping people live healthier lives. What’s more, a healthier population means less pressure on the NHS and more evenly distributed budgets.

University College London Hospitals NHS Foundations Trust (UCLH) identified that without appropriate screening, some of the most vulnerable groups in the UK were at risk of contracting TB – a disease which can be a significant challenge to treat if not discovered in its early stages.

So we worked closely with UCLH to develop its internet tele-radiology information and communication system (ITRICS), which helps to identify, manage, support, and treat patients while they wait (a particular advantage for those without fixed addresses who are hard to track down).

By identifying cases more quickly and with greater accuracy, UCLH is now able to provide effective treatment on the spot. This reduces the pressure on its outreach teams and helping them serve more people when they need it most.

Bringing new applications to market quickly is not just helpful in healthcare. It’s also helped Waitrose & Partners deliver a more seamless customer shopping experience.

We worked together to consolidate the retailer’s multi-device ecosystem – including providing comprehensive ongoing device support – and now it’s easy for Waitrose to develop a wide range of applications for any customer mobile device.

3 – Anticipating Issues to Help Mitigate their Impact

Understanding upcoming changes that could impact your operations – and taking proactive action to mitigate those effects in advance – can help you avoid potential problems and stay ahead of the competition.

In the retail sector, a sudden change to something seemingly straightforward, like the VAT rate, could have huge legal implications, literally overnight. And we helped Waitrose & Partners to prepare for exactly this.

Changing product prices to reflect a tax change sounds simple in theory, but the reality is hundreds of thousands of products that each need updating at once – with no room for error.

That’s where batch processing comes in. By making these price changes in sensibly sized batches (usually overnight to limit point-of-sale disruption), our client avoided painful database errors that could have risked non-compliance and customer dissatisfaction.

We also helped Waitrose & Partners to prepare for the food import challenges posed by Brexit. By using stock smoothing techniques where the locations of the most buying were analysed and supplied accordingly, the retailer has been able to reduce the impact of perishable food disruption – and it now uses the same technique to deal with adverse weather events that threaten suppliers both at home and abroad.

Proactive Changes, Countless Benefits

Often, change is out of our control. But what we can do is be proactive about how we prepare for it – so we’re ready when it happens.

What’s more, being proactive can also help you be more innovative and responsive to your customers’ needs – opening critical revenue-generating opportunities for you.

If you haven’t already, read the first entry in this blog series – How three major organisations used challenges to drive digital change.