Leaders of Change: Anne Zybowksi

ANNE ZYBOWSKI is Omnichannel Team Leader for The Clorox Company. In this role, Anne sits on both the Clorox eCommerce and Corporate Capabilities Leadership Teams and is responsible for developing partnerships with strategic customers and leading omnichannel strategy and capabilities. Anne is a passionate advocate for eCommerce and excited about the acceleration (finally in the U.S.!) of the online grocery space.

Prior to Clorox, Anne was Vice President of Digital & Retail Insights, at Kantar Retail leading digital retailing research and insights globally — including coverage of Amazon, pure play retailers, multichannel best practices, and the evolving impact of the omnichannnel shopper. It was at Kantar Retail 8 years ago that Anne began her quest to help influence retailers and CPG companies alike to care about and invest in eCommerce – moving beyond the “less than 1% (of Sales) problem” to embracing the 100% impact of digital on Commerce.

An active keynote speaker at industry events and forums in her role at Kantar, Anne remains selectively active at key industry events. She looks forward to spending the rest of her career “working herself out of a job”, as “e” is no longer new work/skills but just part of ongoing Commerce processes. 

Anne received her M.B.A. from the William E. Simon Graduate School of Business at The University of Rochester and holds an undergraduate degree from The Johns Hopkins University.

Why did you choose to pursue eCommerce in your career? I am driven by intellectual curiosity. Throughout my career from banking to corporate finance and consulting into retail and now CPG, jobs that appealed to me were never the “career track,” but rather those that involved asking smart questions, finding the answer, teaching others…. then rinse, repeat.

After I came back from maternity leave with my first child, Kantar tasked me with looking at different verticals for growth and new business opportunities. I came back and identified a few verticals with some pretty certain short-term $ opportunities, but concluded that we couldn’t be experts at retail without deeper understanding of a small retailer called Amazon and understanding the economics and innerworkings of the eCommerce channel. Let’s just say it was a very unpopular answer at the time, but it was definitely the right call! It took persistence and persuasion to influence Kantar, and then our clients. Being bold, the pace of change, constant problem-solving, and dynamic nature of the space give me energy and fulfill that innate intellectual curiosity. And, the people that are drawn to this space are just a constant source of energy and inspiration that keeps you going – and makes it FUN!

How have you most successfully influenced change within your organization (or with your clients)? When I first was faced with influencing clients about eCommerce potential, I would get the virtual door slammed in my face with the reply “it’s only/less than 1%.” I developed what I called the 10, 50, 100 framework to help frame the opportunity. 10% Sales, 50% Influence, 100% Impact. This helped move the dialogue from “<1% of my business” to “10% of everything bought/sold at Retail which is a much bigger size of prize; recognition that over 50% of what people buy influenced by online, and 100% impact" – in which I often used the example that even something as simple as OOS in store has a bigger negative impact on shoppers when they could have ordered it without ever leaving their house. That framework flipped the dialogue.

In the last five years, what new belief, behavior or habit has most improved your life? Remembering and prioritizing the “life” part of work-life balance.

What are you learning right now?  IT. How to work with IT, how to speak IT, and keep projects moving. We are currently influencing investments in a number of tools to help build visibility and capabilities and eCommerce and digital shelf touches all parts of the organization; it takes a village – and a few really scrappy advocates.

What are the 1-3 songs that would make up your career soundtrack today?

• Video Killed The Radio Star by The Buggles: About 4 years ago at Kantar, I had to pick a walk up song for a speech I was doing and I turned to my colleague Bryan Gildenberg for assistance – as anyone who know him knows he is a master of any number of trivia details, including movies and songs. I shared the theme of my speech and his immediate reply was “Video Killed The Radio Star” – which made history as the first video ever played on MTV in 1981. There are such great parallels from the song to the transformation at Retail today… eCommerce is a tremendous force that is continuing to grow at double-digit rates in an environment in which growth is hard to come by; in 1981, music videos changed our lives and how we interacted with music – but it didn’t kill the radio, both communication options still exist today. The future of Retail is not 100% eCommerce, digital will continue to grow but stores will still exist and in many cases the competition will make stores even better, purposeful, and relevant to shoppers. All of our careers will be about managing the ever-changing balance of delivering a seamless anytime, anywhere, anything experience to the omnishopper across digital and physical channels.

If you could have a gigantic billboard for the world to see with anything on it, what would it say, and why? 

Insert crazy emoji. ??

What are the worst recommendations or advice you have heard related to eCommerce? Let me count the retailers that literally ask for the “endless aisle” and every SKU ever made. Even Amazon has a different type of business model augmented with 3P sellers to solve for the long tail. No one is ever going to out-Amazon Amazon on assortment breadth – and the way you compete with an “everything store” is curation. This is particularly true for category specialists, but also true for any other retailers. eCommerce is a limited assortment environment and curation is critical capability.

What advice would you give to a future leader of change about to enter business, or specifically the eCommerce field? Be bold. Be agile. Embrace change. Be willing to take risks – and take on a challenge and be able to go deep; eCommerce is tricky – it requires high-level strategy and vision, but at the same time can be so tactical and a lot of work on fundamentals. That’s not easy and it will be painful, but the elation of problem-solving and growth at the end is more than worth it!

What specific, industry-related change do you believe will happen that few others seem to see? While this one is happening now, I recall writing a white paper on Online Grocery entitled “The Future of Online Grocery in the US…. Is Here.” That was in December 2012, predicting the acceleration over the next 18 months. I guess when you are starting at such a small base, there was an acceleration during the 2013-14 period with more operational testing across Customers, but the really big one is happening now – particularly with the speed at which both Walmart is expanding Online Grocery Pickup, Kroger growing Clicklist availability, and Amazon with Whole Foods delivery and every other retailer flocking to Instacart, Shipt, and/or other delivery models to be present in this space. Despite this growth, it’s amazing how many people don’t yet believe the growth opportunity this presents to “get on the list” and drive profitable eCommerce growth for both CPG and retailers.

Looking ahead, it's “ecosystems.” Retailers are so focused on retail competition and small evolutions of existing retail models which leaves them blind to entirely new ways to configure – that “ecosystem retailers” (how I refer to Amazon and Alibaba) are just crushing it. Tech companies at heart, all competitors are potentially frenemies, capabilities are meant to be monetized vs. hoarded, and there are ever-evolving ways to make money across the system beyond buying “item at a price.” For these ecosystem retailers, customer obsession drives innovation on their behalf and the rest of the industry needs to apply this radical, disruptive thinking to solving pain points and friction in shopper/consumer’s lives. 

What is the last thing you bought online, and why? Oh, too hard to keep track… and must admit I needed to cheat and check my latest order on my Amazon app! The last thing I technically bought was my monthly Amazon Subscribe & Save shipment, which this month included my Harney & Sons tea (including the must-try Pomegranate Oolong ice tea), vitamins, deodorant, and my Clorox Lavender Scentiva wipes. The last active purchase we made online was for air filters for our HVAC system; a repairman noted it was time for a change when checking for the source of air in pipes and bubbling noise. I love how efficient eCommerce is for home “maintenance” – things you just need to replace like lightbulbs (we have a number of special shaped bulbs and would never have the patience for a store, who would likely not carry in stock anyway).

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Leaders of Change is a weekly interview series featuring select industry pioneers who are driving the evolution of commerce, the consumer and everything in between. If you would like to recommend a Leader of Change for consideration, please reach out to me on LinkedIn.