Great that you're back for a new episode of insights. My name is Joubin Rahimi, and today's topic: how can you take your employees along on D2C journey? D2C journey is a journey that will change the company and must too. Because basis of this change is ultimately change of people and consumers. If you want that, you must introduce change management. And if you know how change management works in companies and have done it many times already, because your company keeps changing, skip to next episode. If you don't know it, or need fresh impulses regarding D2C, stay tuned.  

D2C changes are fundamental, because it's not just simply setting up a new channel. You do D2C because market is changing. Market changes because people are changing. People change because new technical possibilities exist, framework conditions are different. Through that, human behaviour changes again, how they do things, how they think, how they act. And through that, markets change. And that's why you have to adapt and think D2C along too. You've seen this chain, went up once and back down and means for you, you have to restructure your company. And for that reason there are countless studies that really show, change is inherent and manufacturers as well as wholesalers are doing it, and feel free to look, we've linked below, at study E Sales for You, which also provides data on this accordingly.  

The first point. That's not D2C specific. That's a point of the times we live in. Open, transparent communication. That sounds incredibly simple, but as always, when I say something as a business leader, as a decision-maker, as the one who says it, there are good voices and there are bad ones. It's like with a referee, when he blows the whistle, the whole stadium whistles too, no matter what he's blowing for. And that's why I really hold open, transparent communication towards your workforce, your employees, your decision-makers as a core criterion. A hundred years ago it was different. It wasn't important then. The topic then was: tell me clearly what I should do, then I'll do it and happily let myself be monitored. That was all fine. Open, transparent communication. I don't know if it was undesired, but it wasn't the key to success. Nowadays it's the key to success. We also want to know why the train is late and it's not enough for us, whatever the reason, just the statement that it's late. We simply want exactly that transparency.  

The second point follows on from the first. Open, transparent communication starts early. It starts very early, and the point at which it's too late isn't easy to pin down. Because too early, things can keep changing and you confuse people. Too late, the grapevine has already gone round the whole company. Once the grapevine has done its rounds, it's too late, because you can no longer set the communication. So it's important to find the right jumping-off point, but typically it's earlier. Be bold too. Frame it. Yes, the opinion or situation may still change accordingly. That's okay. We're in an agile process. But early communication brings people along. Yes, it can also be that one person or another is afraid or has concerns. Completely normal. But the earlier you do it, the better you can handle it, and the more success you'll have down the line.  

The third point, again nothing new, but things are changing everywhere, is a clear definition of roles and division of tasks. If I take accounting as an example, it doesn't really have much to do with digitalisation. But if I have accounting and now need to book a sale via Amazon, and I don't just have one receipt but three or four receipts for this transaction, then it's different. That affects whoever books the whole thing accordingly, possibly also an accountant, an external accountant can handle it, possibly also IT. And clarifying exactly these responsibilities early on is hugely important. Yes, they can change. Yes, technology can simplify things. All correct. But you have to discuss them in advance. Costs time, is intensive, but hugely helpful for an efficient approach. 

The fourth point, yes, training and further education. On the one hand, I personally say we all need to keep developing ourselves constantly, listening to podcasts, watching YouTube, listening to other people. I love watching other talks. We should give all employees these opportunities. Of course, very specifically for the toolset. But do think about raising this training and further education up a level. What's the purpose? Why are we doing this at all? How is it changing? And taking everyone along on this journey too, because everyone is changing as well. Every employee can, or almost everyone can, really understand why the company is changing, because they themselves have also changed in how they work. Especially the older ones among us, and it doesn't matter whether they're 40, 50 or 60, you can always win them over with this. 20 years ago you'd go to a retailer and discuss it with them and make your product choice together. Today you typically check online first. Everyone catches themselves doing that. But what changes as a result? And that's the key point, why we say training and further education for tools either way, but also bringing the whole picture along. Because you're changing your company and bringing it into the new world with you. 

Point five. And yes, when you hear this, you'll think, now he's selling his services. Get support from experts too, whether you hire them or buy in the relevant expertise. We'll link a few more companies below, including Digital Vikings, who find the right people for recruitment, but can also help organisationally with setting up such a department. Or Digital DNA, who can accompany you along the way, as they've already accompanied many other retailers and manufacturers very successfully. If you look at the list of companies, at who's a client there, you'll see the winners are there. We'll link these companies below again. But what I'm getting at is, copying well from the best gets you to success far faster than having a team learn everything the best already know and have built up over years. Copy fast, then learn from that point on.  

We hope we've prepared a few impulses for you. I'm not alone in this – the team around me has worked out much of the study content too. Let's discuss it. It's hugely important that we learn from one another, because we're in the middle of change too.