Colgate-Palmolive's digital transformation has big impact

Colgate-Palmolive, the global FMCG company with major brands in oral health, pet nutrition and personal care, now has 40,000 employees working on digital transformation, impacting “every facet” of the company, according to its CEO. 

Why it matters

Digital transformation is allowing brands to make more effective and efficient decisions across every part of the business, from marketing to supply chains. 

“Digital transformation is having a profound impact on how we operate around the world, how we drive revenue growth management and how we drive content,” said Noel Wallace, Colgate-Palmolive's CEO, on its recent Q3 earnings call. 

Digital transformation at Colgate-Palmolive

The company has focused on several areas, including: 

• E-commerce
• Measuring return on investment in advertising and making media decisions 
• Building a digitally driven supply chain
• Determining how artificial intelligence can add value
• New product development and innovation
• Team training around the world

In particular, digital transformation initiatives have made the company more visible in its media operations. In prioritising this, Colgate-Palmolive has been able to make better and more informed marketing decisions. 

“We’ve done a lot of work, as others have done, to really optimise our spending – 50% plus of our spend is now in digital,” said Stan Sutala, the company's chief financial officer.

“We’re able to get much more deep into the analytics and the ROI metrics. We’re doing a much better job at personalising our content,” he added.

Long-term investing 

With category pricing under pressure as inflation remains high, the CEO believes that investing in long-term brand health is essential to the pricing equation, with a focus on brand building. 

“That brand building ultimately allows us to take more pricing in the markets around the world and continue to drive value to our consumers,” Wallace explained. 

“We anticipate that as we can bring stronger innovation into the market, and continue to invest behind our brands, we will minimise the elasticity … Right now, we feel good about where we have taken pricing and particularly the plans we have in place to minimise elasticity.”