Profile: Justin Honaman, VP, Strategic Sourcing & Procurement: Analytics, Data, Digital Transformation, Georgia-Pacific
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What emerging technology and techniques do you see?
HONAMAN: A large percentage of growth in the industry is driven by smaller, innovative companies. These companies are using their agile business model to address consumer preference quickly and without legacy store/shelf models. Digital transformation in consumer goods is the watchword for the industry. From subscription models to emerging product/service models, CPG companies are increasingly focused on serving consumers directly and owning the entire consumer journey and experience. Consumers expect engagement across channels and, therefore, relationship engagement is powered by data.
What are CPG companies doing to address the challenges?
HONAMAN: First, information technology being focused on meeting defined business objectives, measuring business outcomes, and positioning IT as a strategic asset to the business. Second, CPG companies are exploring new technologies such as AI, IoT, blockchain and others that pave the way for the business to unlock growth. Third, CPG companies are moving to an operating model that leverages agile and lean methods, value-based processes, and new strategic partnership relationships. From a business technology perspective, CPGs are adopting a multispeed operating model by which the core elements are maintained or supported while new capabilities are explored and invested in as the future operating state.
What’s the most rewarding aspect of your job?
HONAMAN: Our staff and our culture. Our team brings strong business and solution knowledge, and it’s good at exploring new platforms and capabilities while balancing the need to deliver on core projects and daily business requirements. Our team is highly creative, which many would not expect from a data-analytics-tech team. This helps us to ideate on challenging business problems. We combine this with a transformation team that knows how to deliver. The result is a strong culture with many opportunities to learn and grow. And yes, we have a lot of fun, too.