Episode 73 / Stanley Black & Decker / Amit Thard, Regional Head of E-commerce
Interviewed in the latest installment of the Shiny New Object Podcast by Automated Creative’s Tom Ollerton is Amit Thard, regional head of e-commerce for South East Asia at Stanley Black & Decker. Here are five things Ollerton found out as a result of the conversation.
Get exposure, learn by doing
Thard believes the best place for marketers to start is in agencies. No one knows exactly what they want to do at age 21, and agencies give you more exposure to more areas. He’s also a big fan of proactive learning along the way - he tells me that early on in his career, he decided to get up to speed on SEO to make a bit of spending money. He enrolled in a community college course and created a website about a guy who was running for president - Barack Obama. He managed to make $15-20 a day by writing his own articles about Obama and his stance on different topics, even adjusting the tone of the site when more critical searches about various failures became popular. And learned a hell of a lot about SEO and websites along the way.
You can follow in Amit’s footsteps with Find Courses’ content on online learning.
Ecommerce won’t replace retail, but evolution is needed
Thard points out that consumer behavior is changing; people - and young people in particular - are moving towards ecommerce rapidly. Meanwhile, brands are still trying to make traditional retail models work, when in many cases an online version can offer what they do, but better. He believes that traditional retail won’t be replaced by ecommerce and social, but needs to evolve to work alongside it. Those who don’t do this won't survive in the digital world. Those who are best placed to weather the change are the brands with their own flagship online store, and who have control over their own pricing. The tech brands - Apple, Dell, Lenovo and so on are good examples, and some clothing brands like Uniqlo and H&M.
Keep your eye on AI
Thard signs up for a lot of courses, he reads ebooks. In his spare time he looks for information that’ll help him keep up to date with the latest marketing trends, whether it’s free or he has to invest in it. He says while the good stuff is hard to find, it can prove invaluable for learning. His current focus is AI and its impact on ecommerce - he believes this will be the big thing in the next 3 to 4 years. And when ecommerce is predicted to grow five-fold in South East Asia over the next few years, he wants to know the latest in this tech so he can get ahead of the competition.
Get your ecommerce logistics right
While most marketers are talking about the front end, how to have a nice online shop front and get traffic and conversation, Thard believes we need to focus on ecommerce logistics - this is his Shiny New Object. Without this backbone in place, brands can’t fulfill orders, customers are disappointed, bad reviews are left and the business will suffer. Amazon is better than anyone here, however, he also points out Chinese company Xiaomi as another good example. Thard believes that companies need to get as close as they can to the bar Amazon has set, before they can even think about innovating past them.
To save time, be blunt
Thard is very straightforward in his approach to avoiding overwhelm - he says no. A lot. Whether it’s an internal or external project, unless it will directly generate revenue (his focus), he’s not interested. He’s often approached by agencies who want to talk about brand building - he sends them to the marketing team. He’s refreshingly honest about the conversations he’ll entertain having, and those he won’t. He’s too busy to do everything, so prioritises whatever will help him with his specific goals.
Listen to the podcast in full here.
Transcription of Podcast
Here is a transcription of the podcast made by an AI that we are experimenting with. It’s not completely accurate but you will get the main idea.
Tom Ollerton 0:15
Hello, and welcome to the shiny new object podcast. My name is Tom Ollerton. And this is a podcast about the future of marketing. Every week I have the pleasure and the privilege of interviewing our industry's leaders, and this week is no different. I'm here with Ahmed thawed, who is director of e commerce at Black and Decker in South East Asia. We were introduced by the team at the future conference. So thanks for that, guys. But for those listeners who don't know who you are and what you do, can you let them know who you are and what you do?
Amit Thard 0:51
Good morning from Singapore. Well, yeah, my name is Amit, I am the director of e commerce. I've been in the e commerce industry now for about seven, eight years. I started my career in traditional advertising, before email and smartphones existed in India. Well, email just started coming around, but it was, you know, we couldn't send files via email at that time it was all dial up, right. So then I moved to the US and again, I was an advertising there. I took an interest in search engine optimization. So one day my boss calls me and goes, Okay, you need to learn more about digital. You're Indian, you should you should know the tech stuff. So so that's how I started in digital. work my way through public relations in Singapore, Weber shanwick. I was at Philips, as a digital marketing manager for Southeast Asia. Again, one day someone calls me into a meeting and goes look, we want to launch ecommerce and we want to sell through our website and your Indian you should know how websites work. So there we go. That's how I started in e commerce. And I've been in that industry ever since.
Tom Ollerton 1:58
Fantastic. So We'll come back to how you do what you do. But as is customary in the podcast, we're going to get some getting to know your questions. So you've had a varied career, lots of different markets, lots of different roles, different types of businesses. But what advice would you give to a student who was trying to get into this industry, but you got to assume that they're smart and motivated and do all the right things and can get out of bed in the morning? But what, and to the best of the best students? What would your advice be on so much?
Amit Thard 2:28
Well, first of all, start small. It's okay to struggle at the beginning, and start at the agency level, because that's where you get most of exposure. I mean, when I was an agency site, I sold everything from shirts to toothbrushes to computers. You know, and I was doing advocacy for the good guys and the bad guys in different industries, but it makes you more well rounded and it also I mean, at 21, you don't know what you want to do. I didn't know what I wanted to do to that was 35. So the agency gives you enough exposure to every aspect. And at that point, you know, what you want to do, and definitely what you don't want to do. So I think that's where you should start. A
Tom Ollerton 3:21
so I assume that's, that's what happened with you. And and I think it's really interesting you say that, you worked out what you didn't want to do. What? Can you tell me a story or an anecdote about one of those moments where like, I don't want to do this. What was one of those?
Amit Thard 3:37
Yeah, so I think even though I'm in the field of marketing, what I don't want to do is marketing specific roles in the company, if it's not tied to sales, because here's the reality. We've gone through one recession in our lifetime and all signs are that another recession is coming. When companies go through risk structures, the first thing that they cut is the marketing budget, you can't get rid of salesmen or anyone generating revenue. So unless you're an fmcg, where marketing is really, really important, you're going to get cut. That's just a sad reality. And it happened to me. So, I would rather use those marketing skills to be in a role where I can drive revenue for the company. So that so you know, marketing yes and no,
Tom Ollerton 4:27
right, that is a fantastic bit of advice. So and that is kind of future proofing yourself and potentially other people listening to the podcast, but like, what are the new belief or behaviours have changed the way that you work in the last few years? I think
Amit Thard 4:46
consumer behaviour is changing. So people are moving towards e commerce and it they're moving far more rapidly than anyone expected. And so we need to adjust that Very quickly. So I mean, we have seen studies where young people are, even though they're on social media all the time, they actually less social than ever before. And they don't want to speak to another person they would rather be communicating digitally. So ecommerce is very good for them to sell to that audience. And I think that's a changing behaviour. But a lot of companies are still not understanding that and they're trying their best to make the traditional model work, rather than helping the traditional model evolve, to, to work along with social media, and e commerce to grow the business. And what they don't realise what many people don't realise is e commerce is not going to replace retail ever. But retail has to evolve. Because a lot of things that that retail was offering before e commerce is offering that and much more. So for example, you're reading stories in the US where you Big department stores are shutting down. What was the unique selling proposition of department stores? It was a wide variety of products at the best prices. You get that on Amazon right now. So you get that plus free delivery to your doorstep. So if retail doesn't evolve, they will not survive. And I think that's not where we need to be as business leaders to educate our current companies and do a change in mindset.
Tom Ollerton 6:31
And so who do you think's doing that really? Well, that balance of social and ecom?
Amit Thard 6:35
I think the IT industry is doing that really well right now. So you mean my former employer, Lenovo does that well, Dell started at all HP apple. I think they all do it really well. But many other companies are still catching up on it. I think clothing companies are now slowly moving towards that model. The Non high fashion, clothing companies are unique low, h&m are doing that really well. But most companies are still in that struggle. I think it's easier for companies that have their own flagship store, to offline flagship store to go into e commerce. Company companies, which who depend on distributors and external retailers are struggling, because you can't set pricing and pricing becomes a major factor in, in business in Econ, offline and online. So for example, I could sell a product to a distributor, and I could give him a suggested retail price, but he actually gets to decide what the final price to the customer is. Because they're threatened with e commerce, they're undercutting ecommerce, you know, ecommerce can undercut them and then we start doing a price war, and we're fighting with each other rather than fighting a competitor. So that mindset has to change for companies using a distributed model. But to answer your question, the companies are not doing it well, that are the ones who are finding it easier to evolve into that business are the ones who own their own flagship store and have more control on pricing. So the it industry's leading it.
Tom Ollerton 8:10
So I want to know a bit more about user person and how you do your role. So what what has been the the best investment of your time, energy or money in your career?
Amit Thard 8:25
This is back when I was in the US I took an interest in in social media and making money online. So I was looking for ways to supplement my income because I was paid shit. So I found an article on Google AdWords and decided, Okay, I need to learn how to build a website and to make money off this. So I went to the demand. I was in the great state of Iowa, by the way, so I went to the Des Moines Area Community College paid $300 for a course in SEO and SEM. And that's how I started in Digital. And I built my first website, which was about Barack Obama, before he won the primary. So, for a few weeks, I was actually ranked higher than Huffington Post for Barack Obama related searches. That was before before they started, you know, pumping money into the game. And I used to make, like a good 15 $20 a day, which at that time was all the money in the world with Google AdWords. So I think that's what got me is
Tom Ollerton 9:30 gotta get specific on this, right so that the website was about Barack Obama,
Amit Thard 9:35
like, yes, it was a terrible URL. It was who is.ad who is Barack Obama calm? And it was just articles that I wrote about Barack Obama.
Tom Ollerton 9:47 that he was good or bad.
Amit Thard 9:49
She initially it was about him being good. It was just informing people about him, or what his stances were on different topics and our After he won the election, it became an anti Barack Obama site because there was so many people pissed at him. So I, you know, made it about how he's failing at different policies. And I actually liked the guy it but it just had to do with search results. And a lot of anti Barack Obama searches were there. So I just gave the people what they were looking for.
Tom Ollerton 10:21
And what was the revenue model?
Amit Thard 10:23
Google AdWords, right. So that was it. Okay, so I didn't know anything. So like how, so I just put Google ads in there. So people come and read an article with different with different keywords ads on the site. Yeah. ads on the site with different keywords more it attracts more people, and people. Follow the Hey, I followed the search. $20 a day. Yeah, 15 $20 a day, which was a lot of money. Tom Ollerton 10:49 Fantastic. Wow. And you still have the URL?
Amit Thard 10:52 No, no, no, I let it expire.
Tom Ollerton 10:57
So what is the most useful thing that you've bought for work with your own money. So not something you've expensed but something that you've shelled out your own hard earned cash for.
Amit Thard 11:10
There's no object. It's just I've paid for courses. So I go online all the time. And it doesn't have to be a formal University. It could just be some guy selling an E book on how to make money through affiliate marketing. And, you know, so I keep buying those things. Normally, by the time they sell the E book, the idea is already saturated. But there's always some good idea in there and it helps us on the business side. So
Tom Ollerton 11:44
So you had your like, early breakthrough during that college course. And you've carried this on as a habit throughout your career. Yeah. So what's the most expensive course you've done?
Amit Thard 11:54
I think like three or 400 bucks. It was the college courses. I think on social Media Marketing about getting 400 bucks
Tom Ollerton 12:02
And do you constantly do these? Or is it like once a year or when you're about once a year.
Amit Thard 12:06
So nowadays, it's a little tougher to do because of my own time constraints. But still, I try to do about one course a year to some someplace online. And these days also, there's a lot of free courses available. I mean, Harvard, Oxford, they all have a lot of free stuff online. So I keep going and refreshing. But it's hard to find good quality stuff. Because what's happened is that anybody who opens a blog considers himself a social media expert. And anybody who knows a few technical terms, some jargon, you know, or, you know, they mean, there's so many Instagram influences for really nobody. So it's hard to to, you know, read through all that and find the good stuff.
Tom Ollerton 12:51
But, you know, just got to keep looking and interview. What do you think of the service that LinkedIn is offering now?
Amit Thard 12:59
Which one With the courses, I haven't changed, I haven't actually done the LinkedIn courses yet. So so I don't know.
Tom Ollerton 13:05
And what have you got? What's on your radar? What are you kind of flirting with for this year for learning? Um,
Amit Thard 13:13
right now more on how AI can help with e commerce. So I think what we are seeing now is that companies are investing more in artificial intelligence, and that will be the big thing of the next three to four years. So we need to be there. So what's going to happen in Southeast Asia is the e commerce industry, it's already in a boom it's going to grow even more. So this year, the e commerce industry in Southeast Asia is estimated to be about $17 billion by 2025. It's going to be what $88 billion, that's five times growth. So if you if you're in a situation if you're in an industry which has guaranteed growth, you've got to know Know that your competitors will be there also. So you've got to brush up on the right technology and an offer that before anyone else does.
Tom Ollerton 14:10
you like to say yes to new opportunities. I think it's really inspiring the way that you constantly do these courses, the first guest on this podcast that's talked in that fashion, that's really quite special. But you're getting ready for the AI revolution in econ for the market to grow by five times. You did online courses, you senior in your career, you must have become better at saying no to some things. So in the past five years or so, what have you become? It's a no
Amit Thard 14:42 to, since I do e commerce, anything that doesn't generate revenue? I say no to. It's simple. And that internal and external. So internally, you know, we get a lot of requests for different kinds of projects, and I just say Okay, is it got to do with e commerce? No, I'm sorry. I'm about I'm far too busy. I've got bigger fish to fry. Externally, we get approached by agencies all the time. Now, agencies love to come and tell me how they're going to take my brand to the next level. And I tell them, I don't care. If you want to talk to branding, talk to the marketing department. Tell me how you will drive my sales conversion. That's it. I sell right? early. I sold computers for a living right now sell screwdrivers for a living. Tell me how I can sell more screwdrivers and my best competitor. That's all I care about. And if it doesn't drive conversion doesn't drive sales. I'm not interested.
Tom Ollerton 15:40
And you said inside and outside of work as well.
Amit Thard 15:43
Yeah. So inside, it's more about, you know, marketing projects or branding projects. Again, I don't care because I'm driving money. externally. Again, it's the same thing. Agencies love to come to me and give me pitches. Very nice PowerPoint. By the way, about how I can drive branding and impressions, but I don't care.
Tom Ollerton 16:08
Okay, so I thought when you meant externally you meant like in your personal life the I don't know, under what agencies, right, okay. So, so I respect that. It's great that you have a line in the sand and they don't cross this. And but even within, even though you said no fancy agency tax and so on, there's must be a huge amount of innovation in the e commerce space. How do you how do you deal with overwhelm? How do you do with the deluge of things that you have to learn? And how do you make sure that you're learning the right things, and you're putting your effort in the right place? Amit Thard 16:46 So at the beginning of every quarter, my old boss taught me this at the beginning of every quarter, I list something called the critical field. So it is four or five areas that I need to work on to drive revenue for my business. And then I only entertain information or requests about those four or five areas. And the way we do it is we track everything. So I actually track all my tasks that I did last week to drive numbers, how well it did, how badly it did, why it failed. Sometimes you can have a brilliant promotion and fails because of bad marketing. So and then my plan for the next week on how I'm going to drive the numbers and we track it. So then any requests that I get have to be around that. Now in ecommerce, it changes all the time. So this quarter, it could be about pre sales activities, go to market planning, portfolio, planning, forecast, marketing plans, the next quarter, it could be about post sales, you know, customer service logistics. So those things keep changing and evolving. And we always find the area where we are lacking and that becomes part of the critical view. So then I only focus on improvement and knowledge around that.
Tom Ollerton 17:59
I love the idea You have the critical few. Fantastic. So thanks for giving us that insight into how you do what you do. But now we're going to talk about your shiny new object, which is ecommerce logistics. Now, I think I know what that is. So, but can you explain it to me and the listeners precisely what ecommerce logistics is and why you're passionate about.
Amit Thard 18:20
Okay, so when we talk about e commerce, everyone talks about the front end and how to make your store page look nice and get more traffic and conversion. But the entire backbone of an e commerce programme is logistics. So if you deliver late or if you don't have the products, the right products at the right time, everything falls apart. And you know, you get negative reviews return objects, return sales orders. That just drives a lot more paperwork a lot. A lot more logistics work on our side, but it also hurts our brand and you tend to lose classes. permanently. Now when it comes to e commerce, logistics, Amazon is doing better than anyone else, right? I mean, in Singapore, Amazon Prime, you could place an order and get it on your doorstep in two hours. So as companies, we need to improve and you know, get as close to the bar that Amazon has set as possible. So it means that we've got to figure out how to deliver faster, do better forecasts for the right products. within companies, the biggest constraints we have is a molecule minimum order quantity. So if you want a product from your factory, you've got to meet a certain order quantity, otherwise, they don't ship to you. So then how do you split that within your region and you do better forecasts around that? And while everyone talks about Amazon, and I really respect them, the other one is Sony. I'm sure I'm pronouncing it wrong, but how do you spell XAOM I so they started with the really low price mobile phones in China and now they make TVs and bicycles and all that. So these guys completely redid the logistics model where they took orders before they went to manufacturing. So they have no wastage. And because they have no wastage, they don't need to build into the cost assumptions that you will have to drive sales to clear stock. So they products are a lot cheaper. And they perfected the forecasting model. So if you look at the bar set by people, like sell me by people like Amazon, it's quite high bar. And we need to work that out so that we do better delivery, drop costs, because it's delivering products is a very, very expensive proposition and drive efficiency of our business and do what's best for the customers.
Tom Ollerton 20:51
And so what are the tools and tactics that you're going to use to try and compete with the Amazons? So I get it in principle, yes. Of course, and but what? Without giving too much away? And I don't mean to pry and tell me if I am. But what what are you going to do differently that that Amazon can't do?
Amit Thard 21:12
Right now we there's not too much that Amazon Canada. So our first objective is to do what Amazon can do before we start thinking about what Amazon can't do. So we need to figure out end to end the entire flow of logistics. We need to figure out how much to invest in order to replicate that model. Because the company I work for right now is built on the traditional model of retail, not for e commerce. So we've got to see where do we invest in order to become like the next Amazon and replicate as much as possible before we even start thinking about the next level. So investments could come in technology in headcount headcount on the floor, so at the shop level, or headcount at the corporate office, so the brains behind the operation, software costs, integration costs with our ASAP Systems, there's so much to be done and we are starting from zero. But we've set Amazon as the the bar. And once we can replicate even part of that, I think we will find out what Amazon can't do or what we can do better than them. So right now, we don't know what we don't know.
Tom Ollerton 22:29
So projecting forward five years or so, where the markets gonna grow like five times. Where are we gonna see differently from a user experience point of view when it comes to e commerce logistics? So it's interesting you say in Singapore, you can get whatever you want within two hours. You can get anywhere in Singapore In half an hour, so I'm not that impressed. But anyway, that's a different kick. While they did it, do they get lost anyway. So moving on but what how is it How is the consumer experience going to change and what I mean by that is start rambling point but I used to be an innovation person and what I realised subsequently is the the end goal of all innovation is to be boring so for example the light switch right the first person that turned on a light switch must have gone wow you know oh my god like the now the room is filled the light but now it was boring thing the world but at one point it was very sexy innovation. And I think in the marketing industry we're constantly seduced by the sexy exciting thing and and right now I can press a button and a car arrives or my lunch arrives or my drill arrives or or whatever it is. But what happens next what that isn't that is not the glass ceiling. I don't think so. I'm curious to know, at what will the the e commerce experience be like in the in the future? Where is Amazon going? Where are you guys Going.
Amit Thard 24:01 It depends on the country and on the industry. So you mean you brought up Singapore? Yeah, I mean, Singapore is small. So logistics are easy. But if you look at countries like Malaysia, there are parts of Malaysia where logistics are still not well developed or Eastern Malaysia, for example. companies are trying to figure out how to get there and how to improve services. So there's a lot of basics to be actually improved in Southeast Asia before we get to the next level. You know, some parts of Indonesia has, what 30 40,000 Islands? How do we get to all of those places because if I'm struggling to get there, it means my competitors also struggling to get there. And it means that lazada shoppi cute and whoever is also struggling to get there. So I think one way is offline to online and online to offline. So integration of e commerce with retail store so this comes back to where retail can actually evolve. So using retail stores in small has to do our deliveries. So that means that they need to have a warehouse management system tied to our system. So we can pass orders to them too in order to do deliveries. So the retailer becomes our salesperson, or offline to online. So if I'm in, if I have a store in a small village, somewhere in Vietnam, let's say, I'm not going to carry all thousand Black and Decker products, I'm going to carry it maybe the 20 or 30, that I know will sell fast because I've got a small population to deal with. So can I as an e commerce programme, can we give them demo units to hold at their store, and then we drive traffic to the store and say, Hey, test out the demo unit. If you like it, that guy will help you order it, and we will ship it directly to you. And then that guy gets a commission for every sale. So it's a retailer who's selling products without an inventory risk, and he's still getting his margins. So these are all small products or projects which we can still do in order to grow the business and to grow the reach. I think awareness is there, the reach is still not There. And once that happens, we should see a change in mindset within the traditional people within our companies. And once you start, once the money starts coming in, you'll see the innovation coming in. So right now we are not investing in eastern Malaysia because the money is not there, but the money is there. We just haven't figured out how to mine it. Once the money comes in, you'll see the innovation coming in. I thank you so much. We tend to interview the other the less revenue focused people on this podcast and occasionally I have the the joy of interviewing someone in the e commerce field. And that was really eye opening and brilliant and thanks for sharing your insight and your vision and your strategy and, and getting deep on ecommerce logistics, which is a new one for us.
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