All companies faced the same challenge that March 2019: digitize their businesses as quickly as possible in the wake of the pandemic. Those that were already technological natives had to set the standard and serve their customers in a more agile, productive and profitable way. The most “traditional”, to speed up their digitization. In both cases, the result was increasingly innovative companies.
At the Inter.mx Expansión Summit 2022, Alejandro Solís, CEO of Rappi, Cassiano De Stefano, President of Grupo Modelo, Ricardo Martínez, COO of Jüsto, Fernando Javier Cruz del Bosque, Country President of Novartis México and Director of Corporate Affairs and Communications talked about the process of digitizing their businesses and experience during the pandemic. This is what they said:
How did Rappi, Jüsto, Novartis and Grupo Modelo adapt to the pandemic and digitization?
Two service companies – Rappi and Jüsto – and two product companies – Novartis and Grupo Modelo – experienced similar challenges and faced them in different ways, according to their own values, purposes and mission.
Ricardo Martínez shared that one of the main challenges that Jüsto faced was infrastructure, since they work under three fundamental pillars: “fresh orders, orders on time and complete orders”. Achieving training in an accelerated manner, stocking up on vehicles, obtaining employees with fresh products in an accelerated manner were challenges that had to be resolved sooner than expected.
Alejandro Solís complements the case of Rappi: “Users in a pandemic were able to reach Rappi out of obligation, but if they don’t like the service, they stop using it (…) but with more growth comes greater responsibility.”
Part of Rappi’s values that Solís highlighted was that the pandemic represented an attempt by the company to contribute to society. “We had to support the restaurants. We lowered commissions for small businesses, gave prime membership to people over 65 years of age and, to reactivate the marketplace, we bought more than 500,000 meals to generate demand and delivered them to front-line collaborators, such as doctors.”
On the other hand, Fernando Cruz shared that, for Novartis, “digitization for us was not a trend issue but rather a necessity.” As a result of this, a hiring of talent began that was not previously contemplated in the industry and highlighted that it was an unexpected complement, but very necessary to carry out digitalization. “The team did not exist and they are profiles that we had to create from scratch.”
This was what allowed the pharmaceutical company to create a telemedicine model that could support doctors to get closer to the patient and vice versa without exposing themselves to being infected or launching medicines completely digitally. “These are team profiles that are now numerous, but atypical in the industry. Five or six years ago they did not exist and now they are fundamental”.
Stefano highlighted that something that the four companies have in common is that they promote healthy competition and that this is essential to improve society and economic development. “It is a healthy competition because it helps to generate jobs and collaborate. If you start developing digital platforms, they are good for the entire chain”.
Martínez concluded that, although digitization is essential today, “each company has to understand at what pace to start its digitization process based on what its customers ask for (…) it is difficult because digitization is a painful moment. It is not just a web page. It is your essence. But be aware of your consumer and what they are asking for.”
