Interview with Guy-Laurent Arpino, CIO at Louis Dreyfus Company - #SwissTech Series
We can’t believe this ten-part series on Swiss Tech is already coming to an end. We hope that you enjoyed reading and following it as much as we enjoyed bringing it to you.
Today, as a grand-finale, we are honored to welcome Louis Dreyfus Company’s (LDC) Chief Information Officer, Guy-Laurent Arpino, with whom we had the opportunity to talk about his approach to technology and how LDC contributes to the innovation and technological ecosystem in Switzerland.
Established in 1851 and based in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, LDC is a leading merchant and processor of agricultural goods, perpetuating the innovative and entrepreneurial spirit of its founder, Léopold Louis-Dreyfus and developing the technological ecosystem that fuels their global operations.
Lumax Digital (LD): Dear Guy-Laurent, it is a great pleasure to have you with us today, thank you very much for taking the time! Can you please let us know a little about yourself and your role at LDC?
Guy-Laurent Arpino (G-L. A.): I joined LDC 5 ½ years ago, after a career with Procter & Gamble (P&G) and Bacardi. I arrived in Geneva through P&G in 1999 and worked with them for over 15 years across their divisions and through a variety of roles, from helpdesk to digital marketing. I then had experience in their logistics and supply chain working in particular in inventory management and produce to demand. My last role with P&G was Global CIO for the Braun division. After P&G, I joined Bacardi where I oversaw IT for EMEA, digital marketing services and business intelligence on a global basis, in charge of setting up all the digital marketing solutions, supporting the brand activity online from hosting to search engine optimization, to website development and even eCommerce.
At LDC, I am in charge of IT for the group, supporting the operations of all our business platforms (Coffee, Cotton, Grain & Oilseeds, Rice, Sugar, Juice, Freight, Global Markets) on a global basis. The IT organization is in charge of designing, developing and operating all the systems that LDC uses to operate those platforms. From logistics operations – managing domestic operations such as taking care of the goods in our facilities, transporting them between locations, executing contracts through global shipments, etc. – to supporting business functions such as HR or Finance in our shared service centers.
LD: Digital transformation has been a trending topic for years, and requires fundamental changes to the way companies operate, in particular large ones with global operations. What was your approach when you took over at LDC?
G-L. A.: I don’t dissociate too much digitalization from the more traditional strategy development of any IT department, as it is all about business transformation. The approach is the same:
Understand business challenges and opportunities
Define the technology strategy and innovation with the right measures to steer the transformation
Adapt or build the organizational model to deliver and drive change
We first spend time trying to understand business challenges, uncovering issues which regions and business platforms might be facing day-to-day. We then enlarge our point of view, trying to understand which opportunities are available to better support the business strategies. From there we define an IT strategy consisting of the objectives, the Where-to-Play and How-To-Win strategies, and last but not least, the measures to monitor the progress of these strategies. We then iterate these plans with our business partners and eventually get the approval. One key point which is often overlooked, is to design the proper organizational model to support the strategy. What I mean by organizational model is quite broad: what are the processes and skills required, what is the structure that you need, what reward mechanism do you put in place, what is the culture, and which information you need to deliver your initiatives.
There is a famous quote by Arthur W. Jones, which I like to remind my teams of: “All organizations are perfectly designed to get the results they get.”. It means that you cannot dissociate digital transformation or any business strategy from the organizational model that you put in place to achieve your objectives.
Finally, we regularly refresh the strategy, at least once per year, taking into consideration what we have learned, using the metrics to assess how we are doing vs. our plan. This way we stay close to business changes and learn from successes and failures.
When I look back over the past 5 years, each year we evolved our strategy but never had to make drastic changes, and in my mind, this is how you deliver results in the long run. In most cases, and particularly for old businesses, you cannot manage a digital transformation in just one or two years, or even three. You need to establish a long-term vision, get the management on board, deliver continuously and adjust your plan frequently.
LD: When looking into innovative technological solutions, how do you identify which is the most compelling one to pursue?
G-L. A.: When talking about innovation, the fundamental, number one question I ask is: what problem are we trying to solve? And our motto is: “Fall in love with the problem, not the solution”. This is where we force ourselves to start.
Having a profound understanding of the problem you are addressing is key, as is having a proper learning plan. Currently, proof-of-concepts (POCs) are a common solution to learn more about a problem and its potential solutions. But beyond that, I challenge my teams to formulate hypotheses and then put the test potential solutions to these hypotheses. Very importantly, I encourage them to put metrics behind this process, and anticipate how they will measure results. This helps assess the true potential of an innovative solution with a critical eye.
There are plenty of proven methodologies, innovation processes and tools that you can use to enrich the process. But fundamentally, the above approach is a very simple one that allows us to get started efficiently and effectively.
LD: Switzerland is a fertile ground for startups, in particular in tech. Can you share with us how you keep up with all the new companies coming out?
G-L. A.: First of all, it is a very difficult exercise to keep up with all the companies coming up, and in fact I don’t think it is possible to do so directly, considering the millions of startups out there. Instead, we partner with VC funds specialized in finding, researching and investing in the best startups – these professionals bring us on board when they are in the ramp up phase, giving us access to startups with a proven track-record and functional products that are ready for use immediately. For example, the software we use for testing automation and code reviews have been found through this mechanism.
Another avenue to find new companies is through our larger, strategic partners: the likes of Accenture, Capgemini or Microsoft - you can imagine that they have large teams scanning these ecosystems and staying in touch with incubators. With Accenture, for example, we have been partnering in Brazil where they have a specific center focused on agribusiness. Microsoft has a similar ecosystem in China, which we have been visiting to identify potential technologies.
A third avenue is universities, which act more and more as incubators: we are focusing our efforts on a limited set of universities in our key markets. In China, we are working with a university in Beijing, and likewise here in Switzerland we have been primarily in contact with startups from the EPFL in Lausanne.
Last but not least, industry associations for commodity trading or IT are also facilitating these connections more and more. For instance, we are members of Digital Switzerland and usually participate in digital boot camps, which are a great opportunity for exposure to local startups. Another association is the Digital Circle, a network of CIOs in Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland. Among other activities, this group meets twice a year with a few startups from the cantons of Geneva and Vaud.
LD: In your opinion, how do Swiss Tech companies compare to their counterparts around the world?
G-L. A.: I think they are doing very well, there is an extremely active ecosystem, and EPFL and EPFZ are generating many great startups in a variety of domains. Unfortunately, we still see a number of Swiss startups emigrate to the US to get that final boost they need to become truly big. This is important, and we still have opportunities to better support them at each step of their growth journey. Nevertheless, I am impressed by the quality of startups here in Switzerland, the quality of the technology they produce, the level of maturity in business model definition and communication, and their ability to sell - they have very well-rounded profiles.
This said, competition is fierce - everybody has been learning from Silicon Valley, and large capitals such as Paris, Berlin, Tel Aviv or London have developed similar incubators.
In fact, I was flabbergasted by what is happening in China: when I visited Beijing university and their incubators, it was hundreds of startups, and not copying western techs but truly innovating.
We must be very active on the front of digital innovation and its promotion. This is part of the motivation behind joining associations such as Digital Switzerland, to be an advocate of this movement in Switzerland, as there is a true sense of urgency for developed economies to lead on the innovation front.
LD: What do you think makes Switzerland such as great hub for innovation?
G-L. A.: The opportunity in this ecosystem lies in the international talent pool, the edge we have in education, the diversity of industries and the access to all kinds of enterprises - from SMBs to very large multinationals.
The digital competitiveness report from IMD perfectly emphasizes the fact that Switzerland has all the pieces to the puzzle: a great talent pool, significant funding, companies to groom the startups, and customers.
LD: In a global world like ours, innovation and technology have an international reach and impact. Can you share with us your perspective on how innovation and technology create value here in Switzerland?
G-L. A.: In this world, there is no other way forward for developed countries than to lead in innovation. This is the added value they bring for the future. In the past, you could outsource low-value tasks to countries with lower costs, but nowadays these same markets can innovate to levels very close to ours.
To keep our ‘edge’ and improve your competitiveness on global markets, we need to be innovating - otherwise you quickly commoditize yourself. The pace and scale at which China is growing and investing shows there is no other alternative for countries like Switzerland than to innovate faster and better, to stay competitive.
LD: Indeed, and innovation here in Switzerland created platforms such as Covantis, a forward-thinking platform co-founded by LDC, which created value worldwide as well as jobs locally here in Switzerland. Covantis notably uses blockchain, a technology which has been making the news lately. In your opinion, what are the 3 key technologies which will transform the way we do business in the future?
G-L. A.:
The cloud is fundamentally changing the way we do IT in general. It was already true before the current situation, but the pandemic has been a phenomenal accelerator for the underlying trend. We are probably just seeing the beginning of it as the cloud itself evolves. We have gone from on-premises data centers to “cloudified” data centers, to decentralized edge computing data centers today. Moving data centers closer to the computing power is necessary. The more you digitalize processes and need computational power in remote locations, the more edge computing becomes essential, with a great impact on the IT industry.
Analytics and data management technology in general is also booming, and not just limited to AI or Machine Learning. The mere analytical apps that we have today will keep growing in terms of complexity and data accessibility, integration across multiple sources, closer to real time, eventually with more intelligence enabled by more computational power combined with ML. They will fundamentally change the way we operate.
Finally, 5G is changing the game, in particular when you think of the extended usage of data and video. With the need for large capacity bandwidth, 5G can be a significant enabler of further digitization.
LD: Now some quick-fire questions: Favorite Swiss tech, and why?
G-L. A.: Flyability, the drone company. I am impressed by their technology and growth.
LD: Most undervalued tech at the moment?
G-L. A.: IOTs and their potential are currently still underestimated, both from customer-facing objects to industrial usage, and from predictive maintenance to automation.
LD: Most over-hyped tech at the moment?
G-L. A.: The term Artificial Intelligence is currently overused and overhyped. The technology itself has great potential and applications, but the term is really overused.
LD: Latest gadget you bought?
G-L. A.: You might be surprised, but I am not a big fan of gadgets. Often a gadget is not something that has completely ‘found’ the problem it is trying to solve. So I don’t try everything that is passing by. Still, the last piece of technology I bought and liked would be my Roomba vacuum cleaner, which solves a clear problem and does it very well!
Q5: Your favorite quote ?
G-L. A.: I love quotes and use many with my team. Here is one that fits well with IT and innovation to be ambitious with stretch goals: “Aim for the stars and you will reach the moon”. Going outside of your comfort zone and what seems feasible, will always make you achieve bigger things. Going back the second question of this interview, I would also mention this famous one from Peter Drucker: “Culture eats strategy for breakfast”. Without the right culture, however good your strategy is on paper, it will not succeed in real-life conditions. You can develop the best strategy you want, but if you don’t intentionally connect it to your operating model and company culture, it won’t work.
LD: Well, thank you so much for sharing these insights Guy-Laurent, it was great having you here today!
G-L. A.: My pleasure, thanks for having me!
For more information on LDC, visit www.ldc.com and follow the company on Twitter, LinkedIn and WeChat (ID: we_are_ldc).
