After the creation by Nestlé, the group to which Purina belongs, of the Global Digital Hub technology center in Barcelona more than five years ago, the company is constantly developing digital tools that allow it to communicate with its users and become a reference in the field of digital and e-commerce.
Driven by the belief that life with pets is better, the Purina brand of the Nestlé Group has been feeding pets around the world and developing innovative foods for more than ten decades. The goal is none other than, according to the company itself, “to help pets live longer, happier and healthier lives, through proper nutrition and care”.
For this, the company has a innovation team, made up of more than 500 scientists from all over the world, covering a wide range of disciplines, including veterinarians, nutritionists, ethologists, microbiologists, biochemists, immunologists, food technologists, palatability experts and genomics specialists. Through this network, the company is “able to meet the ever-changing needs of companion animals and consumers”.
But the innovation doesn’t stop at nutrition. With teams of experts in manufacturing, engineering, process technology and science, the company continuously invests in new technologies and patented and effective processes to manufacture foods that are pioneers in nutrition, palatability , quality and safety.
A journey of transformation
To face all these challenges, Nestlé embarked on a digital transformation process years ago and created its Global Digital Hub in Barcelona. This global technology hub of the company, which celebrated its first five years last year, has been developed from scratch to become the driving force behind the group’s digital transformation. It now has 600 experts whose skills cover all areas of IT, from connected equipment to artificial intelligence, including next-generation technologies and digital finance, among others. Coming from 50 different countries andwith 40% women in leadership positions”, the center’s professionals support all Nestlé markets and brands with IT products and services. According to Laura Mendoza, digital manager of Purina Spain, the goal is “research, develop, implement and improve digital tools to communicate with our consumers and establish Purina as a leader in the pet care category in the digital and commercial environment. e-commerce”.
Since then, the company has changed its culture and above all, “Our way of working, much more collaborative and interactive with other European Purina markets to create synergies and efficiencies”, Mendoza points out. These European support models which are made by Purina Studios, bring great advantages in terms of e-content, website, search, e-commerce, etc Now the big challenge for markets like Purina Spain, “where we work with a lot of data from our consumers, is to have data specialists”.
To ensure that business continuity is not affected by the constant incorporation of technology, it is essential that technology integration is carried out organically. “The integration of new technologies for continuous improvement is an integral part of our daily life”, says the digital manager of Purina Spain. “New platforms for website to new tools call center (our Consumer Engagement Services). Having the Global Digital Hub team gives us all the tools we need to learn and test new technologies.”
The challenge of creating an integrated website
One of the technological projects that the company has just implemented in Spain, with the support of the European team, is the creation of a single Purina website “with the aim of creating an exceptional and coherent experience centered on the user across our entire portfolio of brands: Gourmet, Felix, Purina One, Purina One Mini, ProPlan, CatChow, DogChow, etc.,” explains Mendoza.This way, all efforts are focused in the same direction , the integrated web.
Prior to this project, which affected the marketing and sales departments, the company had more than 10 websites managed independently by each brand, resulting in “user experience inconsistency, security compliance issues, and marketing cost and inefficiencies.”
To carry out this implementation, the company had to implement improvements on the server, to increase response times, as well as a new implementation of the content manager, update in the communication tool and contact with our consumers, among others. Although the project is still too new to have realistic data to measure the success of the launch, according to Mendoza, “we have improved our internal SEO Best Practice Index metrics and we hope, in a few months, to increase our organic traffic”
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Looking to the future: data and relationship with users
This journey towards total digital transformation has only just begun. According to the digital manager of the brand in Spain, the path must be that of “continue to work on continuous improvement processes to improve our ways of working, seek efficiencies and provide increasingly personalized service and transformative lifelong support for pet owners.
To continue on this path, the company has many digital challenges on the horizon, as “we must be continuously up to date with new technologies and trends in our PetCare market, and not stop trying and testing”, explains Mendoza. So, for example, they will continue to work on “projects related to data, its use and its activation to better connect with our consumers and offer them personalized experiences (always respecting the consent and confidentiality of our users’ data); That is enable the use of tools that better connect us with our retailers and thus be able to offer simpler and more rewarding shopping experiences to our consumers”.