Discover the vision of Chantal Guilmain, Director of Digital Development and Information Systems for the Mr.Bricolage Group.
Micropole has unveiled its study on Data Culture, "Stratégie Data: de la vision à l'engagement collectif", carried out with OpinionWay. This study highlights the need to structure and harmonize data to meet strategic business challenges, a major challenge identified by the managers and employees surveyed.
Chantal Guilmain, Director of Digital Development and Information Systems at Mr.Bricolage, explains how the retailer turned regulatory constraints such as the RGPD into opportunities to build an ambitious data strategy. Relying on rigorous governance and a 360 vision of customer, product and point-of-sale data, Mr.Bricolage has federated its ecosystem around this transformation.
"Regulatory constraints are an opportunity for data strategies".
In this exclusive interview, Chantal Guilmain shows how the transformation of data strategy at Mr.Bricolage is based on a global, structured vision. Rather than approaching data in isolation, the company has put in place clear governance specific to each area - customers, products and points of sale - closely involving the various functions to meet operational and strategic needs.
This approach has enabled Mr.Bricolage to transform regulatory constraints, such as the RGPD, into strategic opportunities. For example, the Customer 360 vision, built through rigorous data sharing, offers targeted analyses and practical tools to improve customer relations and optimize operations. By uniting employees, members and suppliers around this strategy, the brand has strengthened the effectiveness of its decisions and the impact of its initiatives.
Watch the interview with Chantal Guilmain below and download the white paper by clicking here. It presents the results of the study and reveals 10 interviews with top experts.
Mr.Bricolage has taken advantage of regulatory requirements concerning customer information and data protection to implement a proactive strategy and involve its entire ecosystem in its transformation.
You manage both Digital and Information Systems at Mr.Bricolage. What is the advantage of this organization for implementing a data strategy?
Chantal Guilmain: "When I joined the Mr.Bricolage Group in 2016, I was responsible for Digital and Customer Experience, in particular for building the 360 customer vision that didn't exist. To gain efficiency and relevance in the organization and put the customer experience at the heart of the strategy, the IT and Digital Departments merged at the beginning of 2022. It was then that the overhaul of the information systems master plan accelerated. "
What were the main orientations of the SDSI?
" Right from the start of the project, we worked with representatives from all the Group's departments in order to move forward in a tightly focused way and identify the priority areas: customer data, product data and point-of-sale data. For the first two, we have set up specific governance structures, with quarterly steering committees and product owners. The third component will be addressed from 2025 onwards. "
How did you mobilize the Executive Committee around the importance of Data issues?
"The evolution of regulations, in particular the implementation of the RGPD, was an opportunity for the company to accelerate on customer data issues. Many applications used customer data with us (the e-commerce site, the
customer service, in-store IS, etc.) and we were talking about a real spaghetti knot. The obligation to implement this legal compliance made things easier to accept.
Against the backdrop of the restructuring the company was undergoing at the time, we were able to come up with a sufficiently large budget, with no obvious prospect of a quick financial result. "
Today, stores can see in real time how many of their customers are loyalty card holders, and what proportion of checkouts are paperless. They also have access to integrated customer reviews.
Which topic did you prioritize?
"The 'customer data' part was the first to be dealt with, and remains the most mature today. The urgent task was to map the data flows around our customers to understand where they were coming from, how they were being used and updated, and how they could be enriched. In early 2023, we defined governance around the DPO ( the Data Protection Manager, who monitors compliance with data protection law), the Marketing Department and the DNSI, who is the product owner on this part. "
Regulatory constraints have therefore encouraged the implementation of your strategy.
"We turned a legal constraint into a strategic opportunity with what we called the Customer 360 vision. This consisted in pooling all customer data for better analysis and more relational marketing.
The dematerialization of sales receipts (another legal requirement) has enabled us, for example, to deliver information tailored to the contents of the sales receipt by e-mail, if the customer so authorizes. If you buy a lawnmower, we'll give you advice on how to start it up, how to maintain it, what products might be of interest to you, and so on.
These targeted initiatives have enabled us to communicate less, but better, and to nurture the close relationship with our customers that lies at the heart of our brand promise. "
The study we carried out with OpinionWay shows that managers find it difficult to encourage employees to take ownership of Data. How did you manage to get the business units on board?
"When everything is more structured and rigorous, it's easier to convince!
The implementation of the SDSI has involved many departments. We take advantage of these discussions with the business units to raise awareness of the effectiveness of a Data Culture shared by all employees, thanks to the ongoing enrichment of our data. We need to convince people that these new uses are beneficial to the whole organization. "
We have also created a Master Data Management (MDM) system around the product. We can aggregate data from the manufacturer, the supplier, and from different professions.
Your stores belong to your members. How complex was it to integrate them into your strategy?
"Our members have understood the importance of quality data. For example, when creating a loyalty card, accurately entering customer information speeds up and facilitates the implementation of dematerialized till receipts and the sending of targeted communications. It's a win-win situation. "
Have you set up tools to make it easier for them to appropriate the data?
"Today, stores can see in real time how many of their customers have loyalty cards, how many of their checkouts are paperless, and so on. They also have access to integrated customer reviews. We are currently developing a customer knowledge dashboard which will be available by the end of the year. They will find studies based on cross-referenced data, such as comparisons by store size or region. "
How do you involve your ecosystem in your "product" data strategy?
"For a long time, we've been looking for solutions with our suppliers to digitize unified data. In 2021, we opted for Alkemics (now Salsify), the data integration portal used by all food retail suppliers. Alkemics wanted to replicate this scheme in the DIY world. For the time being, we haven't yet managed to reach agreement with all the players involved to meet the challenge.
We have also created a Master Data Management (MDM) system around the product. This allows us to aggregate data from the manufacturer, the supplier, and various business lines. We onboarded a first wave of suppliers in June, with the idea of onboarding everyone by the first quarter of 2025. The MDM is the guarantor of all product data. It has its own specific governance structure, including the DNSI, the Sales Department and the Logistics Department, which is the product owner. We have moved the process of integrating, controlling and distributing data from a highly billing-oriented vision to a 360° view of the product.
The 4 challenges of MDM Products :
- Data centralization
- Reliability (consistency checks)
- Traceability (regulatory)
- Distribution through all channels (communication) "
What about point-of-sale data?
"Next year, we'll be setting up an MDM specifically for this data, again with its own governance. On this point, rather than regulatory constraints, it's risk prevention, and in particular cyber risk, that acts as a gas pedal. For this to be effective, we'll need to centralize data and harmonize practices across all our stores. "
About the Culture Data study
TheCulture Data study, carried out by OpinionWay for Micropole, explores how companies integrate data into their strategic and operational processes, and identifies gaps between the vision of managers and the reality experienced by employees.
Digital transformation has repositioned data management at the heart of companies' strategic challenges. However, implementing a true Data Culture remains a complex challenge. We set out to understand how companies can overcome technological, organizational and human obstacles to create an effective and sustainable use of data.
In this study, you'll find trends as well as feedback from 10 leading experts on data transformation within their organizations:
Find out more about the study in the white paper
- An infographic revealing the key findings of the study
- 10 inspiring interviews with top-flight experts
- Tips for transforming your organization by putting data at the heart of your decision-making process
- Keys to Data acculturation
