Connected, by mParticle Episode 10: Bridging data strategy and business needs with Human37

It's easier than ever to collect customer data. But it's hard to use that data to create value for the business. In this episode of the pod I sit down with Julian and Vincent, two of the co-founders of Human37 to talk about all things customer data and how brands can develop a strategy that allows them to compete in an increasingly complex digital and privacy centric world.

If you like this episode, you can visit our Connected by mParticle episode hub to check episodes featuring companies like NBCUniversal, CKE Restaurants, and Ruby Tuesday.

Abhi: Julien Vincent thank you both so much for, for making the time today. I know this was long anticipated conversation, so I'm excited to have you have you both on the podcast today.

Julien: Thanks for having us. Thanks for having us.

Abhi: Yeah, of course. So, before I get ahead of myself you know, I always like to start off by sort of asking both of you, you know, to, to introduce yourself to the audience and, we'll get into maybe a little bit about what Human 37 and, and you guys do.

So maybe Julien, I'll, I'll start with you.

Julien: Good. So yeah, Julien, I'm co-founder together with Usan and, and two other guys of Human 27. Also playing the role of managing director for the agency. So that means that I mainly take care of I would say everything external to the company.

So, Obviously everything new business related, but also partnerships, marketing et cetera, et cetera. So that's that's what I'm doing.

Vincent: Awesome. And on my side, Vincent so also co-founder of Human 37 and technical lead at Human 37, meaning that I do supervise technical implementations from you know, small CDPs to bigger projects involving data warehouses, et.

Abhi: Awesome, awesome. So yeah, no, no shortage of of interesting use cases and work in, in your world, Vincent. Okay guys, so I, I have to ask, right you know, for the audience out there, what the heck is human? 37, What do you guys do? What are you all about? I, I'd love to get yeah, sort of a, an.

Julien: Yes. So we, we, we call ourself a, a customer data strategy agency.

So what, what it means in a nutshell is that we. Help our clients define, design, implement, and activate their, their customer data strategy. So basically what happened when we started when we started reflecting about this project in our previous agencies, in our previous experiences, we realized that a lot of clients were collecting a lot of data, especially first party data, because everyone was telling them to collect.

But actually they were barely doing things with it. So that that was, that was a point while on the other side, they had a lot of questions and somehow if you would be able to make the link between the data collected and, and those questions, you would be able to answer most of them. So that was the first thing.

And then a second point being that. From an organizational point of view, we were seeing a lot of data initiatives because it is true that over the last years there has been more and more initiative when it comes to data, be it analysis, be it visualization, be it activation related, but that most of those initiatives were really scattered across the organization.

So it was doing their own stuff, Marketing was doing their own stuff, and even within marketing, you. Everything, more acquisition that would have their own tool, their own data, and then retention, working with their CRM and, and kind of being protective with the data that I would have for, or not being able to share that with the, with the rest of the, of the organization.

So, so that's a bit how we, we, we, we got to the idea of of, of basically helping clients step back a little align all entities, all department, all teams, depending on the size of the, the, the company obvious. On the common vision of where they want to go for everything that is related to customer data, what kind of experience they want to be able to, to propose to their clients across the entire customer journey and what kind of business question they're asking themself at the moment and trying to use the data and the technology.

In order to help them basically deliver that experience and, and, and, and, and answer, answer those questions. So, so that's very much what we do. We, we try to bridge business. So all departments active on the customer journey, be it marketing retention, be it sales support, et cetera, and more technical team.

So it data products in order to align everyone on a, on a common customer data strategy. And then based on, because we always start from there based on the, those business ambitions that are being set, identify. What are the, how the infrastructure should look like or how should the infrastructure evolve?

Are there potential component that are missing, such as customer data, platform engagement, platform analytics solution. So helping them first design how that infrastructure should evolve. And then helping them implement the infrastructure. And then last but not least, And probably the most important, making sure that it is being used and that somehow there is this notion of profitability of the infrastructure or, or the license if it's only a license of a single tool.

But the idea that we don't have tools for the sake of having tools, nor we have data for the sake of having data. We do have them in order to create an impact for the business and be able to deliver better customer experience to the, to the, to the end users and, and, and, and be, and. Positive globally speaking when it comes to to, to that profitability.

So yeah, that's in a nutshell where, where we come from and, and, and, and what we are trying to do with with our clients today.

Abhi: I, I think that really sets the stage nicely, guys, and look, I think we're all, we're all fans of of, of customer data here. And I, you know, I think we could, we can get into that.

But I think, Julian, one of the things I, I loved about sort of what you said there is not just having things for the sake of having things. Right. I think to your point I think we all see that, right? We all have, I, I think the first inclination. We need a tool for this or you know, we read this somewhere.

And I don't think there's, sometimes particularly as organizations move to building more of their own sort of first party data strategy and they say, Hey, I want to own the customer relationship. You know, I think that's where it's so critical to your point to be able to say, How can I. The highest level business outcomes, right?

Which is maybe ultimately growing revenue or reducing risk or saving costs. But how do I really tie that to all the different facets of the business and what they try to do? And I think, you know, even in my experience, it's the part of that that I think sometimes is really difficult, which I, I think you guys also solve for, is you know, being able to look outside of a particular department or division, right?

I think marketing may. Justifiably, so like very sort of, you know, specific KPIs to their department, but how does that sort of interplay with like a finance team, and then how does that roll up into sort of executive goals? Right. And so, Okay. I, I said a lot. I'm trailing off. I think let's, let's bring it back to customer data.

So, I want to ask and just because I know you guys work with a ton of different clients across verticals, industry sizes let me just ask like a really big dumb, broad question. I want both of you to sort of give me your perspective. What is the benefit for brands who can successfully harness and understand their first party customer data?

Like why would someone want to to sort of do this and what's. And it's very broad. You guys can take it wherever you wanna go. Do you wanna go ?

Vincent: Yeah, so, well, I, I, I think there, there are different there are different elements in there, right? So and, and I will ly develop on, on these different elements, which is, which are, sorry.

That there is the, the customer analysis part where you get insight about your customers, but there is also the fact that you want to make sure that you improve your assets being web assets communication flows, et cetera. Being personalized, right? But when the two merges being you, you do have more insight about your customers.

You do as, as well. You do have improved assets. You can deliver better personalization, right? So I think personal. Maybe not only is the buzz word, but is also a key word. You, you, I mean, there is a huge hype behind it. Sometimes we, we, we talk about Hyperpersonalization but in the end it's all about creating experiences where in the end, the customer is happy about this experience.

Right. Happiness and you can measure happiness in different ways or satisfaction. And from that satisfaction you have different results, right? Could it be it could be retention, so users coming more and more to or engage more and more with your brand could be as well that they do.

They are satisfied with your sales funnel, for instance. And they really. And they do engage with other products or produce more products and increasing the life and value of these customers, right? It does as well. If you provide huge or great experiences, it does provide higher nps.

And that's on the revenue side, right? But there's also things on on, on the cost side and on the cost sides. You have things such as You have satisfied customers and you need to spend less money on customer support and such things, right? Or you do have automated flows because you, you, you can grab all or unify the, the user interactions and users of data.

So for csm, it's much easier to interact with the, the, the, the user, meaning that that the CSM is to spend less effort in, in gathering that data, right? So that's on, on the cost saving side. So I think those are two important

Julien: components. Yeah, I think generally speaking, ju ju just look at the companies that have been able to, as you said, aren't as customer data.

And use that and put really everything actually customer, because customer data is, is obviously linked to customer, putting customer at the middle of their equation. They are the most successful out there at this moment. I mean, if you think about them, You can, we can like them or not, That's not the, that's not the point.

But at the Amazon of this world, the, the Uber and all those players, they've been able to put customer experience at the center of everything they're doing in making their clients' life as easy as possible. Being able to reengage them with relevant content that makes them come back and, and, and, and, and, and, and at the end of the day which makes them successful successful brands.

Against the, the more traditional players that stick to, to their model that did not really put customer experience at the middle of the, of the, of the equation and, and, and are where they are today. So either they're, they're. They're trying to catch up or, or they are already somehow too late for for, and, and they kind of missed the, the momentum to to, to be able to still be something in in today's world.

Abhi: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, just reflecting And Vincent, thank you cuz one of the things I heard from what you said, just in the examples you provided right about it, helping customer support it, you know, improving operational efficiencies. Even just some of the, the top line metrics that everyone cares about, right?

Like ltv, basket size, things like this. I, I think what's fascinating there, You know, oftentimes, like, I think we think of these as like a separate initiative, right? With like its own separate workflow. But what I'm hearing here, and I think Amazon's a really great example, by focusing on establishing a really great customer data strategy.

You're not just benefiting particular initiatives. You are sort of enhancing. Overall, the speed and the quality at which a business can operate, right? So if you're a business to consumer brand, this sort of helps all facets of your business is what I'm hearing, right?

And Yep. Yeah, I mean, I, I think that encapsulates, I think, perfectly why and maybe why we're seeing in the industry maybe over the last 10 years why there's so much more of a focus and, and so many brands are trying to figure. How do we, you know, collecting is one part, right? And that's challenging enough, but really how do we translate that to outcomes?

Julien: Yeah. And, and, and, and that's the problem. Most brands stopped at collecting, thinking that collecting was the end of the game. And, and that the fact that they were either collecting a lot because that's been something at, at a, at a, at a certain time over the last years or that they. Collecting very accurate things was again the key, the key the key point to move forward without really realizing that it's actually not at all, that it's just about what are you trying to achieve from a business point of view.

Be it again, answering certain questions or what are you trying to deliver in terms of experience? Vaso mentions personalization and, and, and efficiency. From a, from a, from an operational point of view, from, from plenty of different point of views. What, what are the things that you're trying to achieve?

And, and from there, what are the data that you need to answer those questions? And how are you going to be able to collect and, and or connect the data together And, and, and based on that start building the, the, the, the, the, the infrastructure or start improving the infrastructure that you have and start using it once once the different components are are out there.

That, that's really the, I think, probably the biggest shift that needs to happen in, in people's minds, in company's minds today. It's start, it's starting from the business and not starting. Yeah, okay. Everyone is buying a cdp then I maybe should buy a CDP too, or everyone is trying to collect that kind of information.

Maybe I should try to collect, No. Why does it make sense for you? Why should you put effort into that? What is the business logic behind the, behind the reasoning? And if you would start with that, then you're probably in the right way of being able to define what your customer data strategy might mean in your specific context.

Abhi: Ah, great. Yeah, great, great words of wisdom. But guys, I wanna jump into, and I know this is it's a very specific application of, of data, but I, I have to ask cause I think. You know, the world of advertising in particular has just, it feels like, you know, is, at least in my perspective, just seems to be making a monumental shift, right? I mean, from the world of, and this beautiful thing, which was, or, or, or a very useful feature in advertising.

You know, the, the cookie, right? And the third party cookie. And being able to, you know, get sort of access to all of this third party data. You know, now that we're seeing this shift, and I, and I'm really thinking about things like, you know, Apple coming out with their, ATT tracking and their privacy policies you know, Google announcing right, that they're going to sort of eliminate you know, third party tracking across their browsers and, and devices.

Where do you see the future of advertising moving for B2C brands? You know, and how can, I guess in a way, how can, how can brands sort of start to adjust and think through, hey, if my advertising strategy was really based a lot on third party cookies and third party data partners and retargeting, how can I still deliver personalized ads and, you know, achieve maybe some of.

You know, user acquisition KPIs in this new world?

Julien: I'd just to, to get back on what you said. I'm, I'm, I'm not too sure that the shift already happened. Yeah. You said there is a mindset shift because Yes, indeed Apple itp and, and, and there are plenty of, of, of market move, industry move that are pushing people or that are forcing people to do things differently.

But today's reflex at least. In, in I would say European countries, Western European countries. Mainly the reflex of brand is not it's actually okay, how can I find a rock around? If cookie, if, if Cookie won't be able to be tracked client side anymore, can I, can I go Service site Is, is that then something alone?

So I, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm not too sure that at this stage the, the, the, the shift already happened. I think people are, are still trying to find. Original ways of reproducing what they were doing or what they were successful at doing for the last 10 years. And I guess somehow it makes sense. Again, it, it's, it's it's, it's all about change.

When, when an organization has been successful for. A, a pretty large amount of years doing some stuff and, and investing a lot, a lot of money into advertising, obviously, but not only into advertising and such. Also in building up the expertise and, and experience around that. And, and understanding what works for them from one day to another.

Almost telling them, Okay, look, you won't be able to use that anymore. You need to adapt. Well, that, that, that, that that definitely. That definitely takes takes time. So, so, so yeah, what what we believe for sure is that there is a need for that shift to happen still. And there is a need to, and, and it's going to tie back to what we just mentioned earlier.

There is a, probably a need to move from a, a very quantitative to a much more qualitative approach where up to. Because we've been in the advertising industry. We, we used to be managing a an actually a online advertising agency beforehand. So we've been pretty deep into everything advertising related programmatic, Google as Facebook ads and so on.

So we, I think it's about. Up, up to a few years ago, it was, okay, let's, let's, let's actually put a lot of money on the table. Let's try to bring people on the website and let's try to make them convert. 1% conversion rate is okay anyway. If they do not convert directly, we are going to use cookies to do remarking campaigns and bring them back up to the point that they finally convert.

And, and that's where, that's where there needs to be a, a shift from quantity to quality in the sense that instead of having a 1% conversion, which is, which might be a representation, or at least, at least I'm gonna use it earlier as a proxy of a, of a bad experience, let's, brands now need to realize that they might only have one.

To either make them convert or at least to identify who a user is. And that ties back to the whole idea of customer data, first party data tracking. Or, and what is certain is that they need to provide a very good experience because they only, they might only have one chance to somehow convince the user.

To be willing to interact again in the future with the brand, be through the website, be through another, another channel, channel that doesn't matter. So that means that instead of pouring a lot of money into advertising and not caring too much about what kind of experience do I provide on my website, they should focus on, okay, let's make sure that the experience that I provide is top notch.

And, and if that's the case, then if, if my conversion rate. By a few percent. Then I can also, in order to remain break even or, or stable over time, decrease the investment that I'm doing from an advertising point of view, because I do need less people on my website to achieve the same, the same objectives.

So, so that's probably again, the, the, the shift that needs to happen, or at least that's how we are trying to, to. That's what we are pushing and educating the market on, on our side and our clients. And, and, and that's probably the, the biggest the biggest challenge for, for everything everything advertising.

It's not gonna disappear, but there probably needs to be a rebalance between everything that happens before and everything that happens after the advertising, the impression, the click, and, and, and all that kind of all that kind of.

Vincent: And to, to, to maybe continue on what Julien said. So I do agree, right?

So the, the change is naturally, or the shift has not really happened yet. Change in behavior, in how you approach things being one of the components, the, the one Julien mentioned. But I think there is also another aspect or reason why the change didn't happen yet, which is. The, the technical solution to that, there is no paric yet, right?

So we have been we have been used to solid ish paric, where we used third party cookies that work for everybody. Everybody used that as a basis for multiple purposes. That's a kind of a standard on the market. The next standard is not defined yet. Right. So I think for the shift to happen, we still need to wait for that technical, standard to, to make its place on the market

Abhi: as well.

Yeah. Yeah. And Vince, who knows, right? Maybe, maybe it's clean rooms, maybe it's something else. I know there's the, the ad tech whizzes of, of the world are, are sort of figuring this out, but. Something you, you, you both said that I think I'm, I'm really glad you you said it right? Cause I phrased the question as though it's, we've already moved on, but I I think the message maybe is there's optimism, right?

It's not too late. Right? So for, for brands that are sort of still heavily reliant on this sort of outsource kind of third party numbers game, if you will, Julien did right? Like maybe if I. As many, If I get as many impressions out there, as many, you know ads out to as many people 1% will convert and that's okay.

But I heard two things there. One is, hey, you still have time as a brand to sort of make this change. Right? It's, it's definitely coming, you know, as, as we, you know, analogy I use is like the toothpaste is already out of the tube or coming out, like it's not gonna go back in, but you know, you still sort of have time to make this transition and I.

I really love the way you guys phrased it. It's really not, it. It's about sort of having a healthy relationship from a budget perspective, from a resource perspective with your advertising program relative to all the other levers you can pull as a brand, right? Because the things you can control are how relevant are the, you know, is your messaging and brand to the right people when they do discover your brand, how relevant and personalized.

Sort of what is the quality of the experience they're giving people once they land on your sort of domain or, or, or property. And to your point, Joey, I think you're a big fan of saying, Hey, if those things can improve with the brand, then maybe that conversion rate doesn't have to be half a percent or 1%.

Maybe we can get it to two or three. And that's really what can maybe help a brand. Sort of become unstuck, Right. Unmarried to maybe a, a disproportionate relationship with online advertising. Yeah.

Julien: Yeah. Because let's also be very honest and, and then I'm, I'm, I'm. I know a lot of them there, there, there are some business that one have been built upon those advertising giants the Facebook the Google of this world that, that were lucky enough or smart enough to be there when it was still.

Relatively cheap and where you could get conversion for a super light price. And, and basically you were able to ramp up a full business around the econ business, mainly around, putting advertising on, on, on, on Google, on Facebook, and getting people to your website and, and having them convert.

But now that's over the last. All, everyone, everyone is now making advertising on, on Facebook and price increased because of that. Now there are a lot of brands that, that have created so such a big dependency on those players that the wall, the wall context, and the world price is, is, is putting their business at risks just.

Of that. And that's a pity. That means that indeed this is definitely not healthy as a business to be as dependent as a single source of acquisition. And I believe it's a lesson for, for, for, for a lot of people to, to, to make sure that the purpose is not to, to grow fast, but it's to build steady foundations.

And, and that's true for business as well as it is true in, in the world of, of, of customer data or in the subsection of everything, customer data. We get it. Having strong foundation to make sure that you can, you can absorb and you can scale it in a, in a healthy in a healthy way without being dependent on a system or another, or, or, or a person.

Or another person. It's, it's for, it's a team teamwork. Yeah.

Abhi: It's an awesome perspective and, and that whole quality over quantity play. You know, I, I, I think is to your point, right, that, that sort of world of, and it, it was maybe a cool time to be in, in advertising, but this whole, you know, sort of role of even like a growth hacker, right?

Maybe that you know, that that role sort of gets redefined a little bit now or maybe in the near future than what it. Over the past five years or 10 years. So, yeah. Has

Julien: it, has it, has it even once been properly defined? I'm not sure. I don't know. They've always been, they've always been vague enough to be able to do everything.

Yeah. So I guess it's gonna stay, it's gonna stay like that.

Abhi: Sounds good. So, alright guys, so switching back into something and, and Vincent, maybe I'll start with with you on this one. You know, on a, on a practical level, like what are some of the biggest challenges that you guys see, brands struggle with when sort of building a, a customer data strategy?

Vincent: Yeah. We do face, I think all sorts of. Changes, Right? Sometimes they're technical, sometimes they're business related. And so I think it's usually a mix of them. And I think one of the most common, one of the most commonest ch challenge that we, we do observe is that the, and I think that's a problem Julie, I mentioned already, is that you, you, you interact with the customer, then you realize that all the initiatives that are being taken, they're not.

They're the same umbrella. Right. Or not even under the same initiative. So they're very scattered. Right. Which is I, I do think it's fine to have, different initiatives, right? So we definitely in our approach, and so that's something we do, We do praises, like, okay, let's have small initiatives and then, make them evolve step by step.

But these initiatives, they need to come from a, a long term vision, right? So they need to be fed. The same data or it is the same vision, so they can converge to the, to the same to the same objectives. Right. And what we do observe is like, okay, it is some initiatives, a business, some initiatives maybe, legal, some initiatives as well, right?

And then all scattered. And that's I think one, one of the main issue we see. Another issue would be on the technical side, right? So we ramping up from. From zero or from very old legacy systems to top-notch systems is not something you do in today's right. It needs quite some time, and we do observe sometimes that there is this hope that one solution would.

We will solve it. All right. So no, it's, it's, it's not plug and play solutions. It's about the vision again, that, that you have and how you can implement this solution to support you in migrating from legacy systems to to something that is maybe more up to the, the standards of the market right now.

Right? So it's again about the vision. From a business perspective, it as well, from a a technical perspective where we see, okay, there is this legality system the, the, the, the, the two B system and how you go from one to the other is really about how you want to tackle this and how you envision the feature for, for your company.

I think those are two main changes that we, we observe, at least in my opinion.

Julien: Yep. Yeah, and, and to add on the lack of vision, it's also, as I said earlier, people do things because other people are doing the same thing. Not because they believe it's the right thing for them to do, and there is this whole notion of being a follower because people are almost a formal kind of thing where people are afraid of losing something or missing something.

And so making choices that might make complete no sense in their context, but still doing them because, eh, everyone has a CDP now, so we need to have a CDP too.

Abhi: Yeah, lot, lots I can say about this topic, but I, I think you guys hit the nail on the head. I, I think one of the key ideas is this is not what we're talking about.

Customer data strategy is not something that really, you could say, only impacts one. I mean, maybe if it was like, Hey, I need to buy a new legal software to sign documents faster, that you could argue is maybe just something the legal team can make a decision on or should have some influence over. A customer data strategy is not is not something that just touches one department.

So I, I think, But what I heard, I think, Julien, what, you know, you said throughout this whole call and Vincent, you just reiterated, is oftentimes. Different departments, different groups within a, an organization have their ideas, their maybe KPIs or what they wanna do, but oftentimes these decisions or these these KPIs are not linked to some greater vision, right?

It really is just sort of a siloed decision making process. So you know, maybe what I'm hearing here right, is I think part of what an organization can do is, and I'd be interested to hear your guy's perspective on how you facilitate some of this, or maybe how brands can do this, but. You know, different groups and an organization need to have some form where they can talk to each other and need to be able to say, Hey, my, I don't know, orange that I'm trying to solve for is actually your apple, right?

Like, or this initiative if we, you know, sort of work together can actually solve both of these or deliver both of these outcomes for us. And so maybe Julien, I mean, I'll, I'll lead you there, like from your perspective. How you know, have you seen or, or, or strategies that organizations can use to bring different stakeholders together to make decisions, but also who typically does need to be involved, right? Like, who are the people.

In brands that should be talking and working together When thinking about, you know, a, a, a better customer data strategy or talking through these KPIs?

Julien: Yeah. I think on the, how, actually again, now if we, if we look at, at, at clients we are covering, so mainly Western Europe countries countries, Nordics a bit of, a bit of the US.

What, what we, there is actually the how peop how we are getting people together, or not we, but how brands are getting people together. That's probably the biggest challenge because often within organization, that's something that is missing. There are people that are working for department that are, and then there are people that are leading the department and then those people are, are reporting to directors and, and potentially levels.

And there is not really someone or something that is. Responsible for looking at things not from a vertical way, but from a very transversal way. Or if they are, obviously sea level is responsible for that, but they are responsible for it from an operational point of view. While here we are talking about how we can feed operation with.

Let's say analytical capabilities, if we take analytical in, in its broad in its broadest definition. So, so, so, so that's, that's the thing. Some companies do have C X O, so chief customer experience officer, and, and, and, and probably that's the closest. To, to what would be needed and, and the, the, the team and the needs that could be, that could be created, that would be the closest match to ensure that this, these reason approach is, is being done.

But most of the time where we sit be it a C ex or be it even achieve data officer. They're rather let's say firemen trying and, and trying to, to, to, to, to understand a bit what happens across all the organization, but they don't really have the mandates to bring everyone together. And it's also a big responsibility to ask a single person to be responsible for an entire vision of what should the customer data strategy look like.

So, so the, the way we try to approach thing is rather it is a collect a collaborative. Exercise that needs to be done. What we bring is a methodology to make. People from different departments and, and we can get back to the departments and because that, that, that's gonna answer your second question on the who should be part of that.

But it is about the methodology of bringing people together to reflect on what are the business objective that we need to achieve. On the long term, what are the current challenges that we are facing? What is our current context and, and, and, and, and what are the priorities that we should set from a business point of view?

From which we can then derive the reflection on what data do I need, what technology am I potentially missing from a collection, from a connection, from an activation point of view, and show how should then both my, my business roadmap and my technical slash technological roadmap Be defined. So, so it is more, it is more to that extent that, that, that we are playing a role, trying to bridge that gap actually, that is currently, happening at, at client site.

Then, then when it comes to the whom, As we said in the beginning, the purpose is to bridge business and it for sure from business and technical, not it, because in technical you've more than just it, but within business you would have everything marketing oriented and, and in there you would even have sub categorization or everything, more acquisition related, everything, more retention related.

You would have everything more customer support you would have the sales, you would have obviously, potentially support teams that exist, operational team, if, if some operational team exists. And then you, you're gonna have on the technical side more the, it, the, the data teams potentially the product teams if they are product teams.

And then last but not least we, we talked a bit about it, but also everything legal, d P. And, and whoever, because they also needs to have their, their voice, at least, they need to be aware that something's happening because if, if you do your job well along, along the way, you, you, you basically almost do the job for them.

of documenting what's happening and, and why it's happening and, and stuff. So, so yeah, I think it's, it's first on the methodology on how to bring people together that is, that is key rather than a person. And then to there is a broad set of people from a business and a technical point of view that needs to be, that needs to be involved.

And the last thing is probably that it requires a commitment also from a management point. You need to have the, the management embarked while, because we said it, it is not a vertical responsibility. Right. It is an a reasonal responsibility. So it doesn't matter if they are actively taking part of the brainstorming, but they need to be supportive and they need to, to, to.

Validate somehow the mandate that okay, there, there are people that are responsible for that, and once it's going to be defined, we are going to commit on the resources that are needed to make it happen, because this is key for us as a business, for for the future.

Abhi: Yeah, I mean, and, and one of the things I'll say, so I, I sort of have a, a hypothesis on this, that that need, right, that sort of need of having somebody.

A strategic level, but also a functional level. Be this sort of almost program project manager of this initiative across departments, I think is, is so neat. And I'd almost say you know, it, it's guys like you and Human 37 that really, in my opinion, are best suited to, to sort of fill that A because I, I, I will say that you guys can disagree with me.

One of the things I see in, in sort of just my role as, as a csm, right, is sometimes, if an initiative is led by marketing or, or, or product, I, you know, it can be perceived as, you know, Hey, this is maybe not my initiative, right? This is marketing's initiative, so why should I be like, equally invested, right?

It, it doesn't, I feel like when these things happen internally or try to happen internally, What's harder still is sometimes just those inherent human politics, right? It's the perceived bias of this is benefiting one team over another. You know, what I sort of love about working with, with, with folks like you on, on accountants is that I think oftentimes you guys can come in as a neutral party, right?

It's like, hey, I am not biased towards product or bias towards marketing. You know, we really have been brought in both to talk to senior leadership, but then also to work on the functional. To ensure data strategy is met that. That benefits everyone. It doesn't, you know, sort of affect one more than the other, but yeah.

What do you guys think about that? I'm very biased towards, Yeah, yeah. No, no, no.

Julien: That makes a lot of sense. So the, the, the neutrality, I think and, and, and, and the theistic and the objective view of things that, that makes a lot of sense. But we still do require, and, and it is one of the commitment that we ask our client.

To have a counterpart, to have someone that is dedicated to ensure that the whole, because we are, we can be, and we try to be as much as possible, an extension of our client's team, but we remain an external party to some extent as well. So we need to have a counterpart, which is our, the main, the main stakeholder and responsible from an internal point of view at client side for making sure that everything.

And move forwards and is coordinated and, and, and, and that's whatever needs to, to be communicated is properly communicated, et cetera, et cetera. So, so it's not, I don't believe that an agency solo can come bring a, a, a, a vision on what the strategy customer industrial strategy should be, help implement it.

It, it, that cannot work. There needs to be a strong commitment from client site at, at, at every year, at every.

Vincent: And, and that commitment also, it's not a one off, right? So it's commitment over time, right? Because it is not, it is not something you do one off then, okay, we are good to go for the five next years.

It's, no, okay. You, you need some processes. You, you maybe add a strategical discussion on some topics and that's fine. You, you don't need to reiterate that strategy. I think for every time you, every year. But the, the, the operational aspect of it is that you still need to make sure that the engine keeps running over coming years.

Right? So so that's why we, this commitment is over time and not not only one of

Abhi: I That's awesome perspective as well. I think for a brand listening, it's Yes. I, I think, you know, A team like Human 37 can really make a lot of impact and show you the way, but ultimately that interest and the actual work and the commitment has to come internally, I think it's so desperately needed in this industry that is just, feels like it's constantly changing to have a, a team like you guys and a service like you guys to be able.

Brands, but I wanna, I wanna ask you like, what's next for, for Human 37.

Julien: So growing, That's what's coming.

For sure. I mean, we are working on exciting projects. We have a lot of exciting projects that are gonna come for 2023. So, so I would say that that, that's the big focus, building a. We've, we've, we've grown from, from zero to 10 in, in, in a matter of a little bit less than, than a year, which is for an agency, a relative good, relatively good pay.

So,

Abhi: congrats, as we

Julien: said with the, with the business. But with with the, with the data strategy, the same applies here. We want to build strong foundations, so we focus a lot on the. We want to keep grow the team. So we still recruit new people to join us. And then on the, on the longer term, it's it's definitely moving 'em internationally growing internationally physically, because today we, as we said now, we already operate internationally, but everything is being done from Brussels and, and we move to London to Amsterdam.

Et cetera, et cetera, depending on, on the needs and on the client. But definitely growing internationally is one of the big projects we want to focus on in, in the, in the, in the future. And then growing from a service point of view as well, be it horizontally or be it vertically adding new service.

On, on stuff that we are not doing yet, Additional technologies that we do not master yet, or indeed within the certain vertical that we already master going, going going deeper into the, the value chain. More partners, et cetera, et cetera. So, so yeah, a lot of a lot of things ahead of us.

A lot of a lot of opportunities. So, so yeah, future will tell where that will bring us. But we are very excited and positive, generally speaking, and that's the most important.

Abhi: Amazing. Amazing. Okay. All right guys. So this is every guest on the show, sort of plays this little, little game.

So I have rapid fire questions to rap. Most of these are just yes or no, or, you know, binary, right? One option or the other. , Promise they'll be fun. But maybe to kick off Pineapple on pizza, what is your opinion on that?

Julien: For me.

No. Go. Yes.

Abhi: Yes. Okay. Right. So a a i a nice split there. Vincent, you're okay with pineapple? Julien? Never on pizza. No. Go. Okay. All right. So I'll start with Vincent first and then Julien Ronaldo, or.

Vincent: Ronaldo.

Julien: Messi .

Abhi: You guys just, you know, can't, can't agree on anything. It's tough. It's tough. There's yeah, that's can't go wrong either way.

Okay, let's see if we can get, get a match here this time. Julien, I'll start with you. Frozen yogurt or ice cream? If you had to pick one ice cream ice

Julien: cream.

Abhi: Ice cream too. All right. Right. We got a match here. So , we get

Julien: a match on food. We get a match on food.

Abhi: Awesome. Awesome. Well, I three for three. I mean, I'm, I'm a, you know, I agreed on the ice cream part.

I think if I had to pick one for the rest of my life, there's way more flavor is diversity and, and ice cream. Final question before I let you guys go. I'm the biggest foodie in the. At some point we have to meet up and I would love to take you guys out. But favorite restaurant in in Brussels.

Who, whose thoughts? I'll, I'll leave it to, to Vincent. Vincent first and then Julien. Yeah. Yeah,

Vincent: I'm, I'm gonna go for a harvest. This is you know, they work with seasoned food find food, and I definitely, my my best entrance there.

Julien: Amazing for me. The name is Bar relatively small restaurant going astronomy.

They have one menu per day. Five or six cores. Also very, very local and, and, and very much into, we buy a piece of meat and, and, and we are going to use it. And, and, and, and what really they, they buy the whole piece, the wall animal, and then uh, On the Monday you'll get that that side, and then on the Tuesday you'll get another one, et cetera, et cetera.

So I like the, the, the vision, the philosophy, and then the food is amazing. And, and wine is also very good because they're very . Very good

Abhi: selection there. Very important. Well guys, listen, we'll have to come on over and see you guys and who knows, he is harvest one night and, and barge the, the next.

But those sound like fabulous recommendations. Vincent Julien just can't thank you guys enough for your time. I think there was really a lot of food for thought here. Just a lot that I think brands can, can think about.

Julien: Thank you very much for having us. Good discussion. And and happy to plan a part too, if. If we further need to discuss some elements.