On this special episode of the podcast I'm joined by my very special guest co-host Brian Walker, Chief Strategy Officer from Bloomreach and together we're in Cairo to meet Rizwan Rajpoot, Group Chief Digital Officer with jewelry powerhouse retailer L'azurde.
Welcome to the Conversations with CommerceNext podcast, I’m your host Michael LeBlanc, and this podcast is brought to you in conjunction with CommerceNext and presented by Bloomreach.
On this special episode of the podcast I'm joined by my very special guest co-host Brian Walker, Chief Strategy Officer from Bloomreach and together we're in Cairo to meet Rizwan Rajpoot, Group Chief Digital Officer with jewelry powerhouse retailer L'azurde.
Brian and I tap into Rizwan's depth of global experience as he finds himself in the unique position of building from the ground up the entire digital and eCommerce strategy, capabilities and technology stack in a retail environment presenting unique challenges and opportunities. A fascinating look into the leadership perspectives and approaches required to take a great leap forward!
If you’re enjoying this interview, you may want to join us for the CommerceNext Summit on June 21st & 22nd at the New York Hilton Midtown. We’ll be gathering our community of trailblazers and change-makers to talk about the future of digital commerce and share the latest strategies for ecommerce acceleration. The theme of the summit is Seizing the Next Wave of Growth and we’ll be covering everything from how to set up shop in the Metaverse to scaling performance marketing strategies with 1st party data. We hope you will join us in June. Learn more and register at commercenext.com.
Thanks for tuning into this episode of Conversations with CommerceNext. Please follow us on Apple, Spotify, Amazon Music or your favorite podcast platform where we’ll be sharing career advice and marketing strategies from eCommerce and digital marketing leaders at retailers and direct-to-consumer brands each and every episode. CommerceNext is a community, event series and conference for marketers at retail and direct-to-consumer brands. Through our online forums, interviews, webinars, summits and other in-person events, we harness the collective wisdom of our community to help marketers grow their businesses and advance their careers. Join CommerceNext events to meet other industry leaders and learn the latest ecommerce and marketing strategies. You can find upcoming events at CommerceNext.com
Rizwan has 20+ Year’s Digital experience across Europe, Australia, South-East Asia & the Middle East working for multiple multi-channel retailers across fashion, sporting goods, electronics & telecommunications, home & DIY.
ABOUT US:
Brian leads strategy at Bloomreach. Bloomreach powers over $200B in B2C and B2B digital commerce for clients across retail, CPG, B2B manufacturing, and B2B wholesale distribution. Brian is a veteran strategy and marketing leader that focuses on the transformation of digital customer engagement and commerce. He has held a wide range of roles across the marketplace - from practitioner to analyst to consultant to vendor - giving him a unique view on the evolving capabilities and approaches necessary for businesses to thrive as digital channels have evolved to become the primary driver for business growth. Prior to joining Bloomreach, Brian was Chief Strategy Officer at Amplience, Managing Director, Global Commerce Strategy at Accenture, Chief Strategy Officer at SAP Hybris, and led commerce technology research at Forrester Research. Brian has also held leadership positions at Amazon, Expedia, and Otto Group prior to that.
Scott Silverman
An ecommerce veteran, Scott Silverman has been active in the industry since 1999 and is passionate about digital retail and the innovation driving the industry. Scott Silverman is the Co-Founder of CommerceNext. Previously, he spent 10 years as Executive Director of Shop.org where he launched the Shop.org Annual Summit. Scott co-invented “Cyber Monday” in 2005 and was the founder of Cybermonday.com in 2006, a shopping site that has generated more than $2.5 million for Shop.org’s scholarship fund.
Veronika Sonsev
Veronika Sonsev is the Co-Founder of CommerceNext. She also leads the retail practice for Chameleon Collective and is a contributor for Forbes on how to grow retail and ecommerce in the age of Amazon. Having spent the last 10+ years working with some of the largest retailers and direct-to-consumer brands, Veronika has intimate knowledge of the challenges facing retail and ecommerce today. She is also an advocate for women in business and founded the global non-profit mBolden, which is now part of SheRunsit.
Michael LeBlanc is the Founder & President of M.E. LeBlanc & Company Inc and a Senior Advisor to Retail Council of Canada as part of his advisory and consulting practice. He brings 25+ years of brand/retail/marketing & eCommerce leadership experience, and has been on the front lines of retail industry change for his entire career. Michael is the producer and host of a network of leading podcasts including Canada’s top retail industry podcast, The Voice of Retail, plus Global E-Commerce Tech Talks and The Food Professor with Dr. Sylvain Charlebois. You can learn more about Michael here or on LinkedIn.
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
business, digital, eCommerce, store, customer, technology, marketing, channel, organizations, world, Egypt, UAE, inaudible, crossover, terms, Saudi, Brian, joining, role
SPEAKERS
Rizwan Rajpoot, Michael LeBlanc, Brian Walker
Michael LeBlanc 00:04
Welcome to the Conversations with CommerceNext podcast. I'm your host Michael LeBlanc. This podcast is brought to you in conjunction with CommerceNext and presented by Bloomreach.
On this special episode of the podcast, I'm joined by my very special guest co-host, Brian Walker, Chief Strategy Officer from Bloomreach. And together we're in Cairo to meet Rizwan Rajpoot, Group Chief Digital Officer with jewelry powerhouse retailer L'azurde.
Michael LeBlanc 00:27
Brian and I tap into Rizwan's depth of global experience as he finds himself in the unique position of building from the ground up the entire digital and eCommerce strategy, capabilities and technology stack in a retail environment presenting unique challenges and opportunities. A fascinating look into the leadership perspectives and approaches required to take the great leap forward.
Rizwan Rajpoot 00:47
We're going to decrease our cost per acquisition through it in terms of what we're predicting. We're going to increase our customer lifetime value through it. So, it's a very fundamental part of the jigsaw, Bloomreach is for us really to drive interaction, not just online. Because people automatically assume digital tools to (inaudible) for my eCommerce. It's not, right? eCommerce is not just a web store has two roles. It's a web store, like the physical store that is a pretty looking (inaudible), but we're actually so much more than that.
Michael LeBlanc 01:13
Let's listen in now.
Rizwan welcome to the podcast. Thanks so much for joining us this morning.
Rizwan Rajpoot 01:19
Thanks very much Michael, pleasure being here.
Michael LeBlanc 01:21
Well, now I say this morning, where are you coming to us from? Where are we finding you today? And, and are we in the morning, the afternoon, evening? Tell us about where you are and, and what time it is.
Rizwan Rajpoot 01:32
Yeah, I'm in Cairo. I'm in Cairo right now. So, it's Thursday evening, end of the workweek. Because the weekend here is Thursday, Friday. After, after speaking with you gentleman, I'm looking forward to my weekend.
Michael LeBlanc 01:46
Oh, fantastic, so, we're, we're between you and the weekend? All right. So, we'll have a great conversation. Listen, I, I, I'm joined by my very special co-host on this episode, Brian Walker from Bloomreach. Brian welcome.
Brian Walker 01:58
Hello, good morning Rizwan. Great to see you again. Michael, thanks so much for having us on.
Michael LeBlanc 02:04
Yeah, my pleasure. And Cairo. So, I've been to Cairo, I have been all over Egypt, such a wonderful place. So, great memories from my visit to Cairo. So, it's a great, great to just hear Cairo again. (crossover talk) about 20 years ago.
All right, so let's, let's just jump right in. You know, we like to start off by getting to know our guests and getting to know about their personal professional journey. And, and could you share that with our listeners, tell us about yourself.
Rizwan Rajpoot 02:30
I'm Rizwan, background my (inaudible), I am married with three beautiful kids. I always put on my profile husband, father, and then Chief Digital Officer, because I think that's the importance in life, right, families. You work to live, you don't live to work, you know, on that principle I’m big.
So, but in terms of digital, I've been in digital ever since it started really in the UK. I am born and raised in the UK. And back in late 1999, early 2000, I got into what was known as the web team. It wasn't eCommerce. It was just a website brochure. And ever since then, you know, I've traveled all over the world. And my, -
Michael LeBlanc 03:08
(crossover talk) you were a webmaster.
Rizwan Rajpoot 03:10
I was a webmaster, -
Michael LeBlanc 03:12
Remember that firm?
Rizwan Rajpoot 03:13
Exactly. So, I was, you know, back, back in the day, I was, you know, building web pages, doing coding, rewriting content, all kinds of stuff, which was great, great grounding, actually. And, and sort of through the evolution of web, to eCommerce, to multi-channel, to omni-channel, to integrate it all, or, or, or as it's called unified commerce, today, there's going to be a whole bunch of other channels, you know, cliché’s that come up. But at the end of the day, what I've learned over the last 20 years, it's all about putting the customer at the center of what you do. It's not about a store, it's not about visits online. It's about right, how can you bring the two together and provide the customer with what they want. And that's, that's all omni-channel, that's all-unified channel really means.
Rizwan Rajpoot 04:00
When I was younger, my dad owned a dry-cleaning shop. And he always used to take me to his dry-cleaning shop, every day, in my school holidays. I used to hate it because my friends used to be outside playing football, enjoying the holidays. He used to make me serve customers. He used to make me you know, clean the shop, do basic chores. And I used to hate it at the time. He used to make me do his cash flow statements, which was manual in a book with a calculator.
Rizwan Rajpoot 04:26
And so, I decided when I went to university, I'm going to do absolutely nothing related to a business degree. I'd had enough of it. So, for me, it was about, right, I want to do something fundamentally different. And I went in and did an engineering degree in computer network engineering. And all that time, I had no idea eCommerce was around the corner. I had no idea what I really wanted to do in terms of a career. All I knew is that I didn't want it to be business, right? At time, -
Michael LeBlanc 04:53
Right.
Rizwan Rajpoot 04:54
You know, those skills that I developed and at university and thereafter I'd had no idea that those technical skills, business, commercial acumen, and customer centricity need to be joining at the hips to really deliver what we, where we are today in the world.
So, I've got, you know, my father to thank for that, if I'm honest. And luck along the way, right time, to making the right choices without knowing why you're making those choices and how they'll span out in the future. I suppose that's the age old saying, right? Life always has a plan, and it always pans out the way it's meant to pan out. You don't know today, why certain things are happening for tomorrow. So, that's a little bit about myself. Hopefully, hopefully, that gives you some good insight.
Michael LeBlanc 05:37
No, it's fantastic. I mean, is, as, it's super interesting, we talk to a lot of senior executives who have that kind of blend of skills, right. Blend of skills, philosophies that really, I think, and we'll get to this later in the podcast, you know, what does it take? And what is your role? Not you personally, but what does the role of Chief Digital Officer look like in five years? And how do those things continue to, continue to change?
Michael LeBlanc 05:59
Let's talk about the business. I knew of it. I ran marketing for Pandora Jewelry in Canada. So, I knew of you as a retailer actually. So, I was really excited to have the opportunity to speak with you. But our listeners may not. We have listeners from around the world and in the states. So, tell us a little bit about the business. What business you're in, scope, scale, where you operate, that kind of stuff.
Rizwan Rajpoot 06:19
Excellent. I mean, I joined the business back in, only a few months ago actually, September 2021. So, I'm relatively new to the business myself. But before, historically, the business was born in 1980, in Saudi by a local sort of entrepreneur. And, and, and for many, many years, and for most of its life, it was a wholesale business under the name of L'azurde, producing gold, gold by weight. Manufacturing, designing, manufacturing, producing and selling to other retailers, small, sup-, small one-man bands across Saudi and across Egypt, and, and so North Africa.
A fair few while ago, we had a, we have got a great CEO, a guy called Selim, an ex-Red Bull, he joined the business about 10-15 years ago, actually, I believe, you know he sort of re-energized the business, IPO-ed, so, we're listed in the Saudi Stock Exchange. And we introduced, you know, a number of different sub brands and business units, so retail.
Rizwan Rajpoot 07:20
So, retail has really grown, you know, exponentially for us over the last seven odd years, and eCommerce was really born. It's not even been two years. It will be two years next month and, when eCommerce was born, and as a result of COVID. So, the business wasn't thinking about digital about eCommerce, it was more your analog channels, your wholesale business, your retail store business, and eCommerce wasn't really high up on the agenda. But that forced the hand a little bit when stores had to close.
Rizwan Rajpoot 07:51
We've grown in, in two years, as we sit here today, our business is, you know, 12% of total retail already. And that was based on a, on, on a basic website with, without any integration without backend systems. And without any real thought around content strategy and real thought around customer experience. It's just grown as a result of that.
Rizwan Rajpoot 08:15
You know, we’re going for a very exciting project over the next 9,10 months, which is re-platforming the website. We’ve chosen a brilliant technology for the, for commerce called, ‘Fabric’. You might have heard of it, fabric.inc?
These guys are a composable sort of headless commerce, microservices first, built from the ground up. And the beauty about these guys is they’ve got their own, this particular (inaudible) that we’ve chosen, it’s got its own auto-management system, content management system, product information management system, eCommerce platform, out of the box. Because it’s composable, I’m not compelled to use that forever, and ever, and ever. But, it kind of, to an extent and, and to (inaudible) of these guys puts an end to re-platforming for me, because I’ve got, I’ve got tools that I can plug out and plug another one in, content management, PIM or, or (inaudible) whenever I want to do that. And it allows me to really integrate with my store systems.
Rizwan Rajpoot 09:17
So, we've got Segit, which is in our store, and sort of retail ERP and POS system. And we've got Bloomreach, right. At the Exponea element, the CDXP element, actually Exponea's, the, the name of the ex-name is Bloomreach CDXP. And, and for, for, for me, that, that's the game changer, right. So, so having a headless commerce API first, micro-services technology stack, with one of the, if not the best CDXPs in the entire world, that allows me to create that single view of my customer no matter what they shopped, right.
Rizwan Rajpoot 09:55
And we're really going to be stretching Bloomreach to its full potential because, for us it's, it's a, actually (crossover talk) at it's full potential and beyond actually. Because we're going to be linking a, as part of, as part of our project, we are, as I mentioned, linking directly into the store system. So, every interaction in the store with the customer will send the information back to the CDXP. Every web visitation, every click on the page, every element of the page that's been viewed, for how long will be sent to the CDXP.
Michael LeBlanc 10:26
It's fantastic. I mean you've got a unique opportunity, because you kind of get. it's like a great leap forward, basically, where you can get the best and best of technology.
A couple of quick notes, and then I'll hand the mic to Brian, he's got a bunch interesting questions.
I had to kind of give a chuckle, you said that your CEO revitalized or re-energized the company, when he came from Red Bull, is that right? (crossover talk), I guess you could do nothing else, right?
Rizwan Rajpoot 10:49
Yeah, he gave us wings, let's put it that way.
Brian Walker 10:51
Yeah, there you go,
Michael LeBlanc 10:53
He gave you guys wings.
Rizwan Rajpoot 10:54
Yeah.
Michael LeBlanc 10:54
And I just wanted to anchor in, so, you trade, physical stores, I think you're in Egypt and KSA? Is that correct, physical stores?
Rizwan Rajpoot 11:01
That's right, yes, yes.
Michael LeBlanc 11:02
Where do you trade from an eCommerce perspective? Is it, is it, is it those countries? Or do you trade globally? Where do you ship to? Just a little, little high note on that, just so our listeners understand that, -
Rizwan Rajpoot 11:12
We are predominantly those two are our main countries. We do have an, a website, in the UAE, and that's still relatively small right now. But we need the right technology and platforms in place, which we're doing, as I've mentioned. Plans are to take it beyond, right? GCC wide, and potentially beyond.
So, absolutely, you know, cross border shipping is high on our agenda. And being able to do it effectively with the right partners. Going alone in today's world is kind of trying to always re-invent the wheel. So, we're open to partnerships, right. Partnering with the right businesses to, to, to, to co-do something in this area. But we really want to go across Africa, across GCC, we believe digital can really penetrate and push that hard for us.
Brian Walker 12:01
I'd love to jump in, I as, as you mentioned earlier, right, this principle of, you know, organizing and thinking about the customer, organizing around and thinking about the customer first, right. And in our conversations, how you're thinking about you'd leveraging the single view of customer extending through the digital marketing channels, which you’ve obviously leverage Bloomreach to drive, but it would be interesting to understand how you're going to leverage that single view customer really through throughout all the different customer interactions, especially in a category like, you know, high-end jewelry, and, in fashion where you really want to encourage, right, in many ways customers to begin their journey through the digital channels.
Brian Walker 12:46
But ultimately, they may end up in a store for a high considered purchase. Or maybe it's a, an important occasion, right. Whether it's an engagement, or an anniversary, or birthday, and what have you, they may end up in one of your stores to work with one of your associates to kind of, you know, finalize a, a piece of custom jewelry or something that's very meaningful to them. I'd love to understand how that single view of customer in your mind is going to weave throughout that customer journey and be central to your strategy?
Rizwan Rajpoot 13:20
It's a good question. It's actually a fundamental reason why we went in and got some Bloomreach CDXP in. Because as I was mentioning, we're going to record every bit of interaction wherever the customer tracks with us. Bloomreach gives us that capability to do.
Rizwan Rajpoot 13:35
Where in terms of activating it, I'll give you a couple of scenarios, a couple of use cases of what will happen. When a customer buys in the store as part of being a sustainable business, as part of, you know, helping our customers never lose receipts or warranties, we're going to create digital receipts, for example. So, everyone that buys in the store will get a digital receipt, which will effectively be a link, which they get emailed immediately. They'll click it. They'll be able to put in a secure password, because they're very secure documents.
Rizwan Rajpoot 14:01
But actually, we're going to be creating every customer with an online account. By default, every physical store customer with an online account. So, we'll be able to start tracking when they come online, when they look online, what products they look at, etc., etc. So, the next time they come online, the information, the products, in terms of whatever categories they're looking at, will serve them factoring in what they've already previously purchased. Let's put that to the bottom of the list because they don't need to see that. What they've looked at, what they've seen in a (inaudible) and the AI will work out for us the best way and which products to present to them on the website and the apps that we have.
Rizwan Rajpoot 14:39
And then we're going to reverse engineer that, we're actually going to take that into the store. And that's where I mentioned earlier on though it's actually taking Bloomreach to its potential because beyond his potential for what to its full potential, I should say. We're actually going to be linking it to our store POS system so the next time the customer goes into the store, and mentions their email address or the loyalty card, in real time, store staff is going to have mobile posts. Like in, like the Apple store experience, you know where there's no fixed terminal, but there's this phone or there's a tablet.
Rizwan Rajpoot 15:10
And then on top of that, every little bit of information about our customer will get displayed in terms of when did they last made a complaint, has it been resolved, what they're most likely to buy next in terms of order of priority through the AI that's going to be given back to the store staff, they’ll actually be armed with the information they need to be able to have more meaningful conversations, rather than a sales-y you know, a templated conversation. It's going to be more personalized to that customer.
And that's going to be based on their behavior, that's going to increase the store conversion rates. That's what we're anticipating because you're having more relevant product specific conversations with them. And that's going to allow us to use Bloomreach, not just for eComm, but it's a digital tool that's going to completely uplift the entire organization, right, in terms of the sales growth.
Michael LeBlanc 16:00
If you're enjoying this podcast, please be sure and hit that subscribe button on your favorite podcast platform so you don't miss another great episode. We'll be right back with our interview with Rizwan from L'azurde, right after this message.
Michael LeBlanc 16:13
Bloomreach is the world's number one eCommerce Experience Cloud. Empowering brands to deliver customer journeys so personalized, they feel like magic. It offers a suite of products that drive true personalization and digital commerce growth including discovery, offering AI driven search and merchandising, content, offering a headless CMS, and engagement offering a leading CDP and marketing automation solution. Together these solutions combine the power of unified customer and product data with the speed and scale of AI optimization, enabling digital commerce experiences that convert on any channel and every journey.
Learn more at bloomreach.com. That's bloomreach.com.
Rizwan Rajpoot 16:52
And we're going to decrease our cost per acquisition through it in terms of what we're predicting. We're going to increase our customer lifetime value through it. So, it's a very fundamental part of the jigsaw, Bloomreach for us, really to drive interaction not just online because people automatically assume digital tools (inaudible) for my eComm, it's not for eComm, right. eCommerce is not just a web store, it has two roles. It's a web store, like a physical store, that is a pretty looking (inaudible). But actually, so much more than that, on the other hand, as well, it serves your entire stores, and the technology serves your entire stores, and allows you to create that, you know, super hyper-personalized experience at each touchpoint. So, that's how we're going to really utilize it.
Brian Walker 17:33
Yeah, it, it ends up the customer feels that they have a relationship with the brand regardless, of channel, and that they're understood, right, the context in which they are showing up in the store or online is understood.
And I, I love the way you're thinking about leveraging the CDP to, to really activate all of those different parts of the customer journey. You know, many people start, you know, looking at, at CDP primarily for marketing use cases, but I think it's really, you know, the way you're thinking about it is the way forward, right. Really starting to think about how this customer data platform enables all these different activation channels. And you may leverage, you know, Bloomreach to drive a bunch of the marketing engagements, and product discovery, and contextualization of the experience, but ultimately, every interaction the customer has can be informed by and, and you know, can be leveraged to drive you know, better customer experience, which is ultimately what's the most important, but obviously will have tremendous business benefits as you laid out there, right. Which extend well beyond just improving you’re, you’re marketing KPIs, which I think is really
Rizwan Rajpoot 18:45
Absolutely.
Brian Walker 18:46
An impressive way you're able to, as Michael said, leap forward, right. Past what many in the market may be trying to accomplish with, with a, with a load of tech debt or, you know, systems, and solutions, and business processes that they have in place today. Because, (crossover talk), you're able to, to kind of take a big, big step forward.
Rizwan Rajpoot 19:06
Yeah, I mean, it is bonkers how much money a lot of organizations spend around the world on this, this, this, this phase, this buzzword called big data, advanced analytics, AI and machine learning. It's all important, right. But it's what you do with it. And then there's (crossover talk) to spend millions on the data link this, it's about three years before they even started engaging with the customer because they've been building this tech.
Where there's tech out there, right that can be customized to its heart's content and very fast. So, there's a phrase I use "the time to value", right? "The time to value" is very, very important with, with, with something like a Bloomreach tool.
But there's, there's just, just one thing in fact I could summarize that if that's okay guys?
Brian Walker 19:52
Yeah, please.
Rizwan Rajpoot 19:53
It's for me it's like omni-channel and customer centricity or whatever buzzword that you want to call it today. It's going back to 1960s, I think I've mentioned this to you before Brian, it's like, it's going back to 1960s but in the age of technology. Where I used to have sole traders that used to have, I always used the butcher example, I used to go to the butcher, and he used to know me, he used to say, how's your dad? How's your mom? How's your sister's doing? Is everything all right? I haven’t seen your dad for a few, so, it's a very personal experience, right?
Michael LeBlanc 20:20
Yeah.
Rizwan Rajpoot 20:20
And then sort of retailers got successful. They opened multiple stores. You know, the shopping malls opened, and then they started to be treated like sheep. Like same messaging ‘Sale now’, ‘You here’, whatever.
Online came about, they liked is because they could store a wish list, but they missed the fun of shopping in the stores. And actually, what's happened now is, that's how omni-channel was born, right. Technology is now being leveraged to put custo-, you know, information in the hands of the store staff about the individual's stored information even though they've never seen them before, they know everything about them. So, it's about trying to get back to the basics. But in the world of technology, that's how I, I'd summarize.
Brian Walker 21:00
Yeah, we're taking the little black book and we're putting it in, in a digital form. And then, you know, leveraging a lot of AI and ML to help drive optimization, but ultimately, it's in the service of the customer and the associate, as you said, interacting now, -
Rizwan Rajpoot 21:16
That's right.
Brian Walker 21:18
And providing that same type of experience, but now extending throughout all these, these channels, including digital. If you're
Michael LeBlanc 21:25
If you're enjoying this interview, you may want to join us for the CommerceNext Summit on June 21st and the 22nd, at the New York Hilton Midtown.
We'll be gathering our community of trailblazers and change makers to talk about the future of digital commerce and share the latest strategies for eCommerce acceleration. The theme of the summit is ‘Seizing the Next Wave of Growth’, and we'll be covering everything from how to set up shop in the metaverse to scaling performance marketing strategies with 1st party data.
We hope you'll join us in June, learn more and register at commercenext.com.
Brian Walker 21:56
Rizwan, changing gears just a little bit, I always love the opportunity, especially coming from a North American vantage point, or Western European vantage point, when we think about you know, these digital channels and omni-channel and so forth, I'd love to understand what's the same and what is different in the markets, such as Saudi Arabia, and Egypt, and North Africa, and Middle East.
As you take all this great experience you've had in digital coming from the UK market, and now start to implement these strategies and you know, these channels which are relatively new to the business, I loved to hear what's the same? What's different? as you start to, to apply this in the consumer markets in, in MENA?
Rizwan Rajpoot 22:46
Good question. I think the biggest thing that surprised me when I moved to the MENA region, which was back in 2014 into Dubai, was the fact that you, you can pay for your online orders on cash on delivery. It was bonkers for me, right?
Brian Walker 23:00
Yeah, yeah. (crossover talk)
Rizwan Rajpoot 23:01
So, you go, you buy online, you have to pay like 10, $10 extra, obviously, in the local, local currency for that service. But you pay cash on delivery. That subsided in, in UAE, it was about 80% of transactions and sales were coming through a, a through cash on deliveries, it is now more like 10%. But in markets, like Egypt it is still quite high, it's 70%. In Saudi Arabia, it's, it's more like 40%, so it's coming down. So, so, this cash on delivery was the biggest difference and biggest surprise for me.
Rizwan Rajpoot 23:36
But one, one commonality that I think is taking the same shape, on all aspects of the world really, is the emergence of buy now pay later, (inaudible). Here in the, the Middle East, for example, there is a company called, a couple of companies actually, they've got Tabby, who we use on our website right now same, same concept as, as Kleiner. And then there's Tamara, who's is another fantastic company from this region.
Rizwan Rajpoot 24:03
Again, famous of the two, what you and I know as Kleiner, and these guys are, are really innovating at a fast pace. There's a lot of entrants in that space, FinTech space. The challenge in North Africa, particularly Egypt, at the moment is there is no buy now pay later option. So, it's a big opportunity in Egypt, right for, for somebody as a startup or for a new entrant to, to really help businesses.
Rizwan Rajpoot 24:26
I think also, the biggest thing that I have noticed, an a-, assump-, an assumption that I also had myself and it's a stereotype, it's a wrong assumption is that you know, in the West, we know best, right? We, we were the best, we know what we're doing with digital now. I will tell you one thing a lot companies in MENA, are, they're, they're into-, innovating faster than the West, right. For example, the project I'm doing right now at L'azurde.
Rizwan Rajpoot 24:52
Can you imagine a retailer in the UK doing this significant size of integration with stores, -
Brian Walker 24:54
Right, right.
Rizwan Rajpoot 24:57
And online and they're not, right. Because they are very structured in their structured way of doing business, which is what they've been used to doing. And it works well for them. They've got eCommerce, they've got click and collect, the 20% of sales, and they assume that's what omni-channel is.
There's only one in the Middle East, I've really realized that omni-channel is about treating the customer, doesn't matter where they buy from the (inaudible) in the label, the brand. They don't care, if it's a store, whether it's online, whether it's through a distributor, they're buying for the brand. And companies here, get that. You know, they truly get omni-channel is not click and collect, you're not just another delivery feature option, really.
Brian Walker 24:58
Right, right.
Rizwan Rajpoot 25:36
So, in terms of innovation, I would actually go as far as to say, Brian, that in my opinion, as to my opinion, from what I've seen being here, businesses are more prone to putting their money where their mouth is when they're saying we're going to do digital transformation, they'll go all in, right. They will go all in, they'll get the right team in, they'll get the right investment sentiment, they aren't scared to invest.
If there's legacy systems, they're not afraid to write them off, and go with brand new modern systems. So, there is more willingness and to really make digital work. And no one believes digital is going to replace stores, right. That's, that's not the, the fact is, the fact is, digital is going to help reinvent the store, right, of the future.
And so, the biggest difference is, it's an area in my opinion, that's going to actually be the most innovative in the world, one of the most innovative in the world in the next couple of years. And in some respects, they already are, that some of the startups here are amazing.
Brian Walker 26:34
Do you think it's in part because there's been sort of, you know, a latent kind of demand to, to, to take this step and then, as you said, the pandemic and also just the, the maturation of digital in the consumers lives and how predominant it's become, has that really accelerated in your mind, investment, you know, by, by retailers, and brands, and so forth, but also, of course, really fueled investment in, in, in, in technology providers as well, such as in the payment space are logistics, to really fuel this kind of rapid evolution in the market?
Rizwan Rajpoot 27:12
A-, a-, a-, absolutely. You know, COVID has definitely accelerated everything for, for everyone everywhere in the world.
Michael LeBlanc 27:18
I was, I was going ask you, we've captured you, and your organization at a very unique time when you're building this stack. And I just wanted quickly for you to kind of talk about your tradecraft a little bit. So, you know, your, your remit is to basically create a tech stack. How did, how you know Bloomrea-, you've talked eloquently about Bloomreach, and other providers and how they're kind of bolting together, what was your tradecraft about going out in the wide, wide world of choices? And starting, like, how do you approach, how did you approach building that tech stack? In a way you don't have all day. You don't have months and months. As you said, you have two years to build it, how did you go about finding the best-in-class providers and put it together?
Rizwan Rajpoot 27:59
Obviously, luckily, being in the industry where I know, a lot of the tech spec, guys across all the various, you know, whether it's CDPs, whether it's eComm platforms, and I've been meeting with them regularly, anyway, in the region, right. So, for example, at Alpha Team, my last company, we use Salesforce Commerce Cloud. Previous to that in Dubai, we used Hybris. So, I know the technologies quite well.
Rizwan Rajpoot 28:24
And I think, the entrepreneurial spirit here in L'azarde, I said, look, don't have to go through a three months of red tape RFP process, we have to speak to three vendors going with (inaudible), you know, we know you know the best, go and make it happen. So, that, that buy I think is also a big factor, you know, the spirit and the experience, or I should say, the willingness of the organization to back the experience the person that handled, to go and make those decisions, and was also an important factor for me personally in this role. But the remit isn't just tech stack. That's the enabler. The remit is the transformation of culture, transformation of processes.
Rizwan Rajpoot 29:09
And technology is one of them. People, process, tech, right, that's those three, the fundamental, basic pillars of a CEOs role in digital transformation. But the enrichment on top of that is still owning the P&L. So, the eCommerce P&L, the channel P&L is still mine.
Rizwan Rajpoot 29:27
And in fact, we, we have meetings today in our senior management team about how can store KPIs, retail KPIs, be in my KPIs for this year? And how can digital KPIs be in the store KPIs this year? So, Selim, our CEO is very forward thinking person, he understands to affect behavior. We need to give people a reason. So, having the right KPIs to support stores, stores, having the right KPIs to support digital, to bring this to life is very important.
Rizwan Rajpoot 29:57
So, you know, P&L responsibilities while driving the channel of eCommerce, but at the same time having the accountability for some store KPIs. So, it's not just tech stack, and I think as a CDO, there's a danger that it can very quickly become a, a new CTO or a new CIO role.
Rizwan Rajpoot 30:19
And in some organizations that might be like, you know, it might fit. And there's different types of organizations that want someone from a technical background, from a marketing background, or from a trading background. And in my opinion, there's no right or wrong, right. Because some, some might have a competent technology team, they want someone that's more commercial or vice versa. So, for me, it's got to be what's right for the organization. But generally speaking, in my opinion, that and I said this to my CEO, if my role is still available in this business in two years, then I’ve failed, because the role of a Chief Digital Officer is actually ahead, I don’t know why I talked myself out of a job there, but, -
Michael LeBlanc 31:00
Well, you said, whatever, you, you certainly made it a nice segue for the next question.
Brian Walker 31:06
It was a, it was a chuckle of empathy, though, for me. I think it's spot on, right. I think that it's a, it can be a transformational role inside organizations. But the reality is that everyone needs to be thinking digital. And in many ways, every organization now needs to think digital first, you know, but then, of course, how does that impact, you know, every channel of the business and every part of the business?
But, you know, this is, again, an opportunity that you're you have with the right time, and the right executive leadership support, the right mandate, to really have that, you know, impact. A lot of organizations are kind of coming at it, as you said, with like legacy business processes and technology and mindset. And, and it, it's really important that the whole organization recognize that this isn't a person's job or a group's job, this is everyone's job. And you need to sort of fundamentally change how you how you do business. And that extends all the way back into the design and manufacturing of the product. Not just the marketing and sales of the product.
Rizwan Rajpoot 32:19
Yeah, that, that, that's the phase two. I won't go into too much detail, and I may be in the future podcast (crossover talk). That, that is that no way, we had a conversation two weeks ago about that. Actually, but yeah, the, the, the aim of the game for us is for me is to within two years of me joining to have digitized to help the business, I can't do it on my own. Collectively digitize entire retail and entire wholesale business and involve the people in it's processes along the way.
Rizwan Rajpoot 32:53
And, and then as I said, digital, and, and you just, you just alluded to it as well, it's, it's a way of doing business, a way of working, it's the way of working, it's not a function. And therefore, once a certain transformation has happened up to an extent, the role of a Chief Digital Officer, the word digital doesn't need to be there. And they did tran-, and they you know, that they transformed into multiple different roles.
Rizwan Rajpoot 33:16
But the one I've seen the most common one is they become the Chief Customer Officer, because the customer is now the center what you do. So, they own all the customer KPIs across all channels. And that's continual the evolution and innovation of what you've already done to continue to stay ahead of the curve, through putting the customer at the center of what you do so. So, that, that's was my personal belief.
And in the timeframe of two years, I think, I don't want to put it out there that, that's hard set in stone that's different for different people, different businesses. I'm lucky in the sense, look, we started, I've been here six months, we're chosen all the technology partners, we-, we've started the work, you know, we've rallied the team internally in six months. And in some organizations, you'd actually only be starting looking at tech right now. You know, and then maybe another year, (crossover talk), -
Brian Walker 34:05
What's the, what's the environment in terms of talent? And like in attracting the right talent? Availability of talent? You know, what's that environment like, in, in the region?
Rizwan Rajpoot 34:18
Well, I tell you in Egypt, for example, we've got some extremely talented human beings, right. Very smart people. So, we've got a couple of eCommerce managers that are exceptionally smart, smart people. What they lack, I suppose, and it's not a criticism, it's just a fact of life is that the, the Western experience, right of having been there and done it because in Egypt is still a wave that's just rising. In Saudi and in the UAE, for example, there's a lot more talent, but a lot of it is imported, imported in the sense they're all experts.
Rizwan Rajpoot 34:50
So, in the UAE, 90% of the population, it's a very transient population. They're there two years, they're out. They're there two years and other ones don't. So, so that's how Dubai have done it, Saudi partially do that. But they've done a, they've got a 20-30 vision by the government where they want to, you know, big transformations happened there, you know, 50% of the women have to be in your employee. Women have to be, are allowed to drive, all of those things, I recently got significantly compared to what the stereotype is. So, the 50% of your employee in workforce has to be women. Imagine that, right. So, that's a complete that you wouldn't think that when you think about stereotypes, so they're also investing a lot into digital.
Rizwan Rajpoot 35:34
And from a governmental perspective, and I think that they're, that the government of, of the UAE should very forward-thinking government have digitized the entire government departments over the last five to, to seven years during my time there, where they now commit that not a single piece of paper is used in any government office, it is all digitized, every little thing that digitized you.
Rizwan Rajpoot 35:34
There's one portal in Dubai it's called My Dubai. You go and whether it's release renewals, car, RTA renewals, bill payments, tenancy renewals, everything is made from one portal. So, they've literally digitized the country. So, I think the leadership in the country, and sort of the governmental policies, can either be prohibitive or can actually help you speed it up. And I think the support in this part of the world from the governments, both UAE and Saudi, is, is behind all the businesses to, to go down that route for sure.
Michael LeBlanc 36:33
Very interesting. Yeah. So, it's, it's that that broader approach is going to create opportunities to create talent that you might want to want to seek, right? So, that's one of the roles of our podcast. So, if you're looking for talent, anyone listening and have the opportunity to work with Rizwan, we'll put a link in and maybe they can get in touch with you.
Speaking of which, how do we get in touch? How do folks listening? Are you a LinkedIn person? How do they get in touch and learn more and, and connect with you? What's, what's your advice on that. (crossover talk), -
Rizwan Rajpoot 37:03
LinkedIn is the best way. LinkedIn has got all my other contact details on there. Links to social, links to my email, I very regularly view so, so yeah, that is LinkedIn is the best way to, to, to sort of contact me. I'm quite active on it on a daily basis in terms of looking at all the messages and responding to messages. So, that's definitely the best way.
Michael LeBlanc 37:25
Well, Rizwan, thanks so much for joining us on Conversations with CommerceNext. And Brian, thanks for being my very special co-host.
What a great, what a great opportunity. We've caught you at such an interesting time building that tech stack. So, it was super interesting, both to listen to how you think about that and where you are, and then this great leap forward. It's fantastic insights. And once again, I want to thank you for taking your time right before your weekend to talk with Conversations with CommerceNext. So, thanks again for joining us.
Rizwan Rajpoot 37:54
Thanks, the pleasure’s all mine. I've enjoyed it. Thank you very much for having me, Michael and Brian.
Brian Walker 37:59
Yeah, thank you, Rizwan and thank you, Michael. Appreciate it.
Michael LeBlanc 38:03
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Have a fantastic week e