Building a digital learning culture at Avery Dennison
Your digital strategy is only as strong as your least digital employee. That is why Avery Dennison built “digital literacy” into its multi-pronged digital transformation strategy. Nick Colisto, who joined Avery Dennison as CIO in 2018, describes the operating model changes and strategic programs that are driving digital optimization and transformation at the $7 billion global materials science and manufacturing company.
Martha Heller: What does “digital” mean to Avery Dennison?
Nick Colisto: We are very specific about what digital means to Avery Dennison. Being digital is about having the ability and desire to exploit emerging technologies for better business outcomes. We have the ambition to use emerging technologies both to optimize and transform our business.
While our portfolio of digital programs is more heavily weighted toward digital optimization at the moment, we are shifting to more transformational programs as we work toward our sustainability goals and drive growth in our high-value segments. Ultimately, the cadence of our transformation will depend on when our industry will hit a tipping point.
We also recognize that our traditional technologies (applications and infrastructure) are the “center of gravity” within our application portfolio, helping to enable top-line and bottom-line value for our company. We view our core traditional technologies as assets and leverage them as part of our overall digital platform. Our team takes a continuous application modernization approach to ensure that our core technologies are properly enhanced and supported to enable our strategies.
What products has your team has delivered that exemplify “digital”?
Under optimization, we have two complementary strategies: Digital Workplace and Digital Commercial Advancement.
Our Digital Workplace strategy reimagines traditional processes to boost productivity, protect our assets, and increase efficiency. We now leverage a host of cloud-based technologies, including Google G-Suite for productivity and RingCentral for cloud telephony, to continuously evolve our digital workplace. Our employees are able to securely access information and data from anywhere and on any device.
We also employ many cybersecurity technologies as part of our Digital Workplace strategy to leverage robotic process automation (RPA) and artificial intelligence (AI) to detect, defend, and report suspicious emails that are sent to employees.
As an example of a program related to our Commercial Advancement strategy, we are using Salesforce’s Cloudcraze B2B commerce platform to generate greater revenue from existing products and services and improve the customer experience.
One example under transformation is Freshmarx Temp Tracker, which uses an internet of things (IoT) solution to reduce food waste. The solution enables restaurant operators to automate temperature and humidity monitoring in their cold storage devices to help reduce waste, improve food safety, and increase efficiencies.
Who is driving your digital strategy or transformation?
In 2018, we formed a Digital Operating Committee (DOC) represented by leaders across the company. The committee is responsible for driving thought leadership, sharing best practices and expertise, and facilitating discussion to inform better decision making in four areas: digital literacy, internal capabilities, external partnerships, and, of course, digital programs.
