A Brand Strategy for Productizing Innovation and Stepping Into Web 3 - Luca Dell Orletta Nestle

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I always say there are three ways  which we can innovate. One is to win,   one is to learn and one is to get noticed. I  also, let me tell you this today, I wouldn't   place web three on the to win for the Nestle  group' but it's more to learn or to get noticed. My guest today is Luca Dell'Orletta, the global  head of Tech Innovation for the Nestle Group. In this episode, we sit down  with Luca and we discuss his   personal framework to evaluate and  experimenting with new technologies.

So basically it's focus, invest, connect,  explore, learn, scale, and iterate luca offers a ton of valuable  insights for everyone interested   in the crossroad between technology and branding. So please enjoy this conversation  with Luca Dell'Orletta. luca, welcome to the show, Thank you so much, Sara. Thank you so  much. I'm super happy of being here today. and I'm super happy to have you. You've been  in the Nestle group for quite some time now.   Could you tell us about your journey, before  arriving to the group and also like inside Nestle? Indeed. Thank you, Sarah, for the, for the  opportunity. I think my career overall can  

be divided in two big portions. The  first one is about project management,   business analysis, program announcement. A  lot of that. I've been two or three companies   before, uh, lending to Nestle. And then  seven years ago, almost seven years ago,  

I had the opportunity to, build, a mobile  factory for the group for Nestle Group. So, leading the mobile space at that moment,  there was an incredibly booming ecosystem   of mobile applications and mobile  experiences So from there I've been,   then growing to the internet of space  and more into the marketing business   space. And then eventually, since today  I'm heading IT innovation for the group. So technology innovation for the group. That's beautiful. So you mentioned, you're  heading the innovation at Nestle, right?

What does innovation mean and how do  you innovate a company that was born   traditionally offline and serves  clients uh, around the globe. in general. Nestle's been innovating for over 150  years. it's a company that has been uh, able to be   very, very relevant for our customer consumers for  so long. I love to describe innovation as solving   problems that matters in a new way, which  could be a new mindset, new perspective,   new frameworks and new technologies. And usually  we have the best um, experiences or best use cases   where we are able to combine maybe a new mindset,  a new framework with new technologies together.

And those are perfect ingredients to do  something that really matter to our consumer,   employees, customer businesses, and uh,  and solving in a drastic different way,   some of those opportunity challenges  or problems that we see every day. And most recently, Nestle is stepping into  the web3 s pace. How is Nestle leveraging web3   specifically? That's, that's a big question, Sarah. In  general, let me allow me to tell you this,  

a small disclaimer. Of course. We, we  went through web one and then web two.   We are been in the web for 10, 15 years. If  we describe Web two as as an internet that is   more centralized with. Big tech companies,  social platforms that that own the space,   and then consumer consuming experiences  within those, those tech platforms.

Now, after one and two, usually three comesuh,  but what three is exactly uh, it's yet   to be discovered and yet a little bit  under construction, I will say. And I   truly believe that we'll see different  paths, even different directions. We'll   see the industry, the internet industry  overall pivoting and finding its own way. I'm, I'm never a black and white  person. It, it reminds me a little  

bit when we were going from Waterfall to  Agile. No. Where Waterfall was described   as the evil and agile as the new Paradise.  For me, Web3 is a little bit like that. Web   two is not evil. Web3 is not paradise.  But it's a lot about the gray aspects.

It's a lot about the different degrees.  So I think we will love to find ways   where the central model that is  that has been in use for those 10,   15 years and the decentralized model of  webrick can, can actually converge into   something that is meaningful for our consumer,  employees, customer businesses, et cetera. And I think in general for Nestle, if we  believe that that paradigm is going to be right,   interoperability, portability, and ownership  of uh, of consumer data, et cetera, then we'll   love to explore how this could impact  an organization site like ours in uh, in   the way we provide experiences to our customer,  consumers, and employees, which are a fantastic. Community to be leveraged. That is always willing  to contribute to the, to the greater good. And   it's a fantastic also playground uh, for us  to experience experiment web three activities.

Lots of things to, to unpack here, I agree  with you. I'm very much of the same mindset   that you need to strike a balance,  between the internet that has been,   you know in the past 15 years. And this  is what also Poly Web is all about, right? Finding this kind of balance and the best of  both Worlds, and you're quite a thinker also   cuz you put out many thoughtful posts on, on  LinkedIn, so like more in general. where is   it that web two and web 3 can coexist? Meaning  what is the best that you can take out of both? And specifically then, what is it  that you can take of both into Nestle. I think in general, if we think about  Web three within, with this new part,   portability, interoperability  ownership and rewarding on creativity,   et cetera, there are two main use use cases where  web three in the way we are thinking today could   make more sense that Web two as it is, one,  is when we think on those end-to-end process.

Where there are many players involved and you need  to exchange data across the different players,   and you need one source of the truth,  eh, that's one aspect. So when you,   when you have several players and you need  to exchange data, and we can experience   that in our everyday life with government  institutions, third party certifiers, et cetera. And the, the second one is in those areas  where there is a strong feeling of belonging.  

So I will be tapping now into the term of  community. We have seen this more and more,   but when there are these two aspects, so  exchange data with many players and community   and strong sense of belonging, I think web three  experiences are the right space uh, because it's,   those kind of technologies can  solve, well, these two aspects. So every use case that goes into that  direction could be maybe best served   with a web three approach. Outside that  there could be still many opportunities,   but I think the model that we have  today is still working very well. And,   and an evolution of web two in that sense  uh, is possibly the most likely to happen. So I think we, what we are seeing  today is we have use cases where   web better and cases where an evolution  web two, as it's today will serve better.  

Eh, also when, when it comes to web three,  there are some challenges that we're still   facing. Like I mentioned, interoperability,  portability, but that's not the case yet today. So if we build use cases or opportunities on top  of those, of those opportunities uh, we might   not fulfill the need of interoperability,  portability, because basically the tech   and ecosystems is not ready yet. So still  I will see web two winning in that space   and possibly we'll see an evolution  of. 2.5 in in many aspects, and maybe  

web three strongly entering in those two  aspects that I just mentioned before. Yeah, that's certainly an interesting point of  view. I think it also depends on the mission of. Company. There are certainly other  aspects uh, you know, that other uh,   entities companies can, can use of the  web 3 space. But for Nestle in particular,   how are you leveraging or you plan  to leverage if it's not yet in place,   right? That's also maybe something that we can  dip, dive the aspects that you find most relevant I think in uh, in a company as big as Nestle,  definitely tons of use cases we are exploring.  

Uh, And just to be clear, I made Web three  one of my focus areas when it comes to new   transformational technologies along with next  artificial intelligence. The advancement of ar   XR vr. So augment reality, virtual reality,  quantum computing uh, blockchain in general. Those are areas that I think for me are very  transformational when it comes to technology.   Uh, Specific to web three as I said, there  are possibly two angles of looking at that.  

One is the two supply chain manufacturing  logistics, and that's possibly is the,   is linking back to the first point I said where  you, when you have many players, eh, contributing   to an end-to-end process, imagine our farms, our  logistic suppliers, our agriculture environment,   et cetera governments and and third party bodies,  certifiers, et cetera, they need to exchange data. That's a perfect use case for  blockchain like capabilities.   The second is when we have, as I said before, just  to give some example brands that are very, very, Iconic and, and have a strong sense of  community. Like Nespresso could be one.   sparkling water could be another one,  could be one in India, for instance,   where you have consumer that are very attached  to a specific brands and want to contribute to   how that brand is, is also moving forward. Uh,  That's another way of leveraging non fungible  

tokens or digital assets uh, to deepen our  relations with our customers and consumers. And that's areas we are exploring  today in those specific iconic brands   to, as I said, strengthed relation.  Maybe provide experiences that that go,   that are little bit extra if you own a  specific digital asset or collectible,   et cetera. And the third case is, is  mostly in the imagine in the employees pay.

As I said before, employees are fantastic  way. Of leveraging our community, Nestle,   we have around 270,000 employees. And even  for my own positions, we do a lot of open   innovation or crowdsourcing innovation. So  we, we go back to our employees to see how  

they will go and innovate in certain problems  or areas that we are trying to tackle today. And think on the power of 270,000 people  that could leverage this decentralized   ecosystem within a more central  ecosystem, which is the brand itself,   the company itself. And unlock the power of  those individuals in a community like the   do like approach with some logics that  go through smart contracts, et cetera. When it comes to open innovation  or crowdsourcing innovation,   that's another area we're exploring today.  It's very, very close to my heart cause it's   also something that I do every day. And uh,  I see an opportunity for leveraging web three   in that space as well. So the enterprise  space I think is something that we are.

Overlooking a little bit today, but we'll be very,  very big in uh, three to four years from now. I, I agree with you and I certainly find it very,   very fascinated as a space and definitely  undervalued, or at least with a lot of   um, still discovery to do and experimentation to  do, because it's a lot about governance you know. yes.

Yeah. And experimenting with  different models. I don't know. What's your take on that? I'm curious. Well, that's that's a difficult  one. I will say today we need to,   we can't think when it comes to web three, We  should not be thinking with our mind uh, with   our web to mind on, on how things were  done before. That's that's my first   advice to everyone. When also when it comes to cus  customer intimacy uh, or leveraging the employees,   as I said before, we need to change  the, and go our new business models,   which are regulat regulated in a different way,  which will be giving different kind of benefits.

I always say there are three ways which we can,  innovate. One is to win, one is to learn and   one is to get noticed, eh, and for someone  that is in my position heading technology   innovation for the group, you need to be very  clear if you're doing something for winning,   for learning or for getting noticed, and  there is nothing wrong on the three I also,   let me tell you this today, I wouldn't place web  three on the to win. For the Nestle group in the   sense that it's a very shaky environment. It's  unstable. We have seen tons of of announcements   and episodes that have been happening in  the crypto space, et cetera. But also, as  

I said before, the interoperability, some of the  challenges, the user experience is not there yet. So for us, web three is not yet  to win, but it's more to learn   or to get noticed. Could, could even be,  and there are many things you are doing   in the, to win sometime that you cannot even  say to, to the outside. So you cannot get   noticed on that. So there are some things we do  to learn and some things we do to get noticed.

And it's very important that depending  on why you're doing innovation,   you act in a different way and you measure it in  a different way. So also in terms of regulations,   in terms of KPIs, in terms of measure  of success, et cetera and I guess.   Everyone needs to be very clear on where  we are playing and why you're doing that. I love the direction of this  conversation where it's going.   Yeah. So lots to unpackwith this answer  that you just gave so let's talk strategy,  

when you leverage innovation is either to  win, to learn or to get noticed, right? But what is the strategy that Nesta  adopted when entering the web 3 space   and how do you set this strategy, right? You mentioned that you're doing this to  win, but what does it mean exactly, and how   do you get the buy-in, because at your  level, one of the most important thing is   crafting the strategy and then getting the  buy-in of the group to execute it, right? all, When it comes to the strategies  or my actually very personal approach,   I have a rule which I call FICELSI uh,   reminds me of the Fibonacci  mathematician and and that's a way for me can you repeat that? it FICELSI and I will now tell you what is  this about. So basically it's focus, invest,   connect, explore, learn, scale, and iterate.  And this is a rule I apply for everything I   do in innovation. Eh, first of all, I do  select areas where I want to focus and   that I believe are going to have an impact for  the organization in the long run. As you say,   you need to convince people. You need to let  them see what we possibly don't see today. And we need to be very careful. And because  when I'm going back to my organization to say,  

we should focus on this, this,  and this, I'm living out.   Maybe 95% of the other things. So I need  to be very, very good when it comes to   understanding what could have a huge impact  for Nestle and what could have an impact, but   not necess necessarily that big for us as a group  in the space where we, where we playing today. So first is focusing on understanding what  are those areas I mentioned before next,   artificial intelligence or,  or quantum is very long run,   but if, if quantum arrives and when it'll  arrive, we'll change a lot of what we do in   terms of, of crypto space, in terms of the  algorithms that use processes, et cetera.

But in general, the first one is to identify  three or four areas. What we do believe that   the group should be focusing on when it comes  to new technologies and information technology   and web three is one of those. The  second is invest. If you believe   that is going to be big for your  organization. You got to be bold. And that's uh, possibly one of the most difficult  aspects. You got to be bold in all aspects. One,   in, in the resources you're having, in the  money you're putting on, in in the, in the   exposure you're going to have, for instance, for  the Web three or metaverse, I'm, I belong to maybe   for is Metaverse standards Forum where I'm there  to contribute more than to receive uh, because I   also have a responsibility being in a brand such  as Nestle to contribute to what's going next. What's, what's design when it comes to the  future of our, of our internet, and then is   going to be consumed by, by our consumers as  well. After the investors, the connect is the  

ability to connect the, the PE with the people  you mentioned the builder were, which is, for me,   super important. It's really with the people  that is building, shaping the space right now. I remember I connected few months ago  with the, with the developer that was   building so smart con contracts in Laos  and we had a three hours conversation on,   on how he was experiencing the build of this  uh, smart contracts in Ethereum, et cetera. Because I know that if I'm going to build  a use case on top of those infrastructures,   I need to understand exactly what's going on on  those infrastructure, be beside doing that myself. And then when it comes to through strategy,  say explore, do as many thing as you can   and learn from it. In general, in, in areas  such as web three, which are still unshaped,  

I'm doing many things around 10 to 15  uh, different activities with different   brands in different areas, categories, a bit in  supply chain, a bit with employees, et cetera. And outta those, I would expect that maybe two   will succeed. Two or three maybe. And that's my  expectation. I will not assume that the 10 or the   15 will succeed. But it's a lot about setting  the expectation, right? We are learning from  

that. We're not doing that for winning. Uh,  Otherwise we will take a different approach. We're learning from that. And maybe we are  learning which use case we could then win   as Nestle and as a group. And then as  soon as we see something that is working,  

we scaled. And then iterate of course, Thank you, Luca, for sharing your  framework. I'm taking notes as well   for myself, . It's, it's really fantastic.  You mentioned that, at, at any given time,   you're like, you have like 10 to 15  initiatives, that you're experimenting   with going on at the same time. so my next  question as a product manager myself, it's  

how do you set up those experiments, in a way  that it's rapid and cost efficient for the group. And the second question related to that,   how do you know when and if you are successful?  And therefore you pick those two big bets,   that you say, okay, this is what I'm  gonna streamline for the entire group. Indeed. Um, As I said, there are different  measure of success uh, depending on why   you're doing something. So if  you're doing something to win,   I'll give you an example. We have, we have  just moved all our infrastructure to the  

cloud. It's been. A big journey to cloud for the  Nestle group. And we do that for, for winning,   for any competitive advantage of leveraging cloud  capabilities that will allow us to be more agile,   more uh, more flexible and go at, at at faster  speed that we manage it as a big program. And then you can imagine there is a business case  behind, there is a return of investment. There are  

weekly updates to the stakeholders, et cetera.  That's one kinda activity that we have in big   digital transformation that we need to make  them happen to succeed and to stay relevant,   eh, as Nestle, the explorations, we  treat them in a very different way. First of all, Sarah, I'm not interested  of receiving weekly updates on, on how an   experiment is going. This is something I, I,  I say to the team, eh, I don't need too much   bureaucracy or admin or process. When it comes  to experimentation uh, experimentation needs  

to be very quick. Uh, The investment are  relatively small, but are very distributed. So that uh, that we know that if it doesn't go  well, it's okay. We knew that that was the amount   of resources investment that we had done, and  it simply didn't work out. Mentioning AI in ai,   for instance, 70, 80% of the things you  do don't succeed. Maybe the, the results   is that the algorithm is not good enough or that  maybe cannot be solved with ai, and that's fine. People in AI is used to those kind of uh, of KPIs  and success rate in uh, in web three, I would say   it's pretty much the same. Now, what we do at  the end of every experimentation is our point  

of view. That we provide them back to the to the  organization, our technical point of view. So we,   we might say this, we are tried onboarding with a  small subset of employees in uh, metaverse slash   NFTs experience, where they get rewarded  if they take more learnings, et cetera. Eh, if that is working, we write down that for  us, web three and Metaverse could be impactful   in the employee engagement and onboarding space.  And we will send that back to our HR organization   as a suggestion, as a recommendation,  maybe to have that within their programs   for the next year. Actually, this  is the case in our overall strategy.

We have, of course, and more, and. Willingness  to experiment new ways of engaging with our   employees, et cetera. So the feeling that's a  win-win situation where we see a technology being   at good of a, of a strategy, which called  people 2025 strategy, eh, but in general,   I would say those tech technical point of view are  uh, a scale from one to 10 on how much we believe   that could be impactful for the organization  based on the outcome of that specific experiment. And then possibly that is going to be  the basis for the next mass film uh,   activity that will might set  for, for the years to come.

This is quite ambitious, and frankly,   quite complex. So they have having so many  things going on at any given time, right? And, and I think it's many things going on, and  you got to be surrounded by the right people. Uh,   So people that are, that have an  entrepreneurship uh, mindset. And   you mentioned before you, you are  a product person. You need to have   product person as well in innovation. Uh,  People that can combine the two sources.

One is the data they are getting. One is that  they're feeling their. Feeling, oh, how this is   going, where this could be. And there uh, this two  component. One is the analytical, the scientist   part of what every product will give you of every  experimentation could give you the other one is   your, having been in that field, in the innovation  field for long, what would you say about it? What would you think? Sometime we are wrong, but  in general, we tend to improve our own algorithms   on understanding when something could have a  huge impact for the organization when something   is possibly going to have a huge impact for  the world, but not ne necessarily for us. And then we let it go. Cause if something, I  learned innovation that you go to be incredibly   focused, incredibly focused. Otherwise you, you  spread your efforts all over the places you go in  

a fear of missing out mode. Which is happening  every day based on what you see others doing.   And and, and you don't get to make an impact  anywhere cause you are trying to be everywhere. So being very, very focused and defining what   your battles are going to be and  what you want really to innovate And how do you define that? I totally agree with  you, but since this space, there are so many   things going on at the same time. So especially  if you do innovation in general, of course. You   have many technologies to choose from, first  and many use cases to choose from first, right? That, that's the first thing.  But let's say you isolate web 3,   you know and everything that goes with  web 3, you know that it's already huge,   right? It can be, I don't know, tokenization. It  can be the metaverse. It can be the blockchains   in the blockchain for supply chain. You  know, like many, many things, right?

So how do you focus and how do you choose  what's your, even your personal framework,   right? To choose which battle are you gonna  pick and which one you are not for now usually when you do this for for living yesterday,  I do, I do innovation for living since uh, since   this year. And it's slightly different. Everyone  does innovation as a role. Everyone has a,   has ISS component of innovation that brings  on tab when you do it for living. As you said,   you got to be very, you got to have  industrial ways of doing it, so you got to. Ways of that are very scientific on, on doing  that, which is, which is a little bit difficult.  

The way I do it is uh, is this one Sarah one  From one side, I have all the research firms,   the Gartner, the McKinsey, the Forester,  and every single day I go through and I,   we have Abbo rather on what's, what they  say will be the next thing in general. And that's one input. The second input is what  did we do in innovation over the past five,   10 years? Eh, allow me to give you an  example today. If you are not good at doing   customer intimacy with your CRM systems  and the loyalty platforms, there is no   reason to do that with Webstream.  Technology is gonna, is not going. Help you in any way of doing that better If  your processes of customer experience are not   good enough today. If you are if the, the quality  of your data is not good enough, leveraging ai,  

AI today doesn't make too much sense. So one is  research films. Two is what did we do the past   10 years and what's our level of maturity? If  everyone says we should be doing connet factory   next year. Are we sure that we have the, the  proper networking in place, the proper cloud   capacity in place, the proper device, the  proper, proper internet of things in place.

So if we didn't do these four things, it's simply  useless to go directly to connected factoring. So   it's a lot depending on the  maturity or where you stand. So based on what we have today and the things  we do well today, is that the right thing to   do? Eh, and the third thing is Sarah, our  business priorities. Business priorities,   of course, our, our, our North Star are uh,  independent from the technology. And so we  

also need to make sure that whatever we propose  back to the stakeholders and to, to the board. It's to support those business priorities. We  could find something that is very, very valuable   and maybe could be even big for us, but is not  necessarily attuned to the business priority.  

And as I said before, focus is key. Uh, So we  also need to make sure that whatever we propose,   it's going to accelerate those business  priorities that are a must win for the group. So if we take the research firms, what do we  do? So our maturity uh, today and our business   priorities, that will give us the train radiance  for us to choose where we want to focus based on,   on, on what the industry believes, what we did  do, and what our boards and our priorities were. How do you know if your, your strategy was  successful? Like, what is, what are the signal   signals that you are looking, in the market or  internally, if you're doing an internal initiative   that signals to you, yes, we can continue, we  can go this way, you know, and we can build on. I think it's many things. I think there is one  component that is the technology. Which we explore  

and try to understand how real one that could  be for a group. For me, the, the signal that is   the most impactful when it comes to this kind  of technologies, when I start seeing business   managers, brand peoples head of factories uh,  which come with very powerful use cases that we   had kind of anticipated, but that definitely those  kind of technologies cooled in power or power. The more I see that, the more I realize  that at scale we are doing that well,   at least the path we should be going. Sometimes  we could tech technology flavored people could be   very excited about something and new technology  even maybe blockchain, something. I'm really   passionate about it. But then you discover that  maybe from a business perspective there are  

other, and maybe even better ways of solving that  specific problems that leveraging a blockchain. Sometime I ask myself, Can this be done with  a normal database and any other way of doing   it? And, and today, reading no Rules, rules from  uh, the Netflix story, which is a 300 pages book,   which talks a lot about innovation and has  no references to technologies. No. So in   most of the cases um, what my question  to myself, to my team, et cetera is,   is technology today answering a concrete  business problem in the best way possible? Or maybe it's a change of process. Maybe it's a  change of framework. Maybe it's simply change of,   of perspective and doing it differently. But  in general, when we today, Sarah and I haven't   experienced that in the past 10, 20 years  as today, we're an incredibly convergence.  

Artificial intelligence, evolution of networking,  evolution of augment reality, virtual reality,   reality, the blockchain convergence,  all going toward the same direction. Something called maybe web three, maybe  metaverse uh, or maybe the, the two of them,   which is going to revolutionize the world.  And on that, I'm pretty sure uh, the more   I learn about it, the more I do things on  it, the more I'm sure that we are in living   incredible time because those were all  fields that were going their direction. And going back to your question,  the more I see people adopting   and understanding the uh, the benefits  of using maybe a more decentralized model   that could be without even taking care of  what's the technology behind? The more I   understand we're doing the things right and and  focusing a little bit less on technology and   more on the experience that we provide to our  employee, consumer, customer, and businesses.

That's true and like, continuing on  this kind of direction, How can brands,   born before the internet, how do you  think they should rethink their business   model? Because I think it's, it's about  that actually, to, to take advantage of   this increasingly digitalized World that  probably is moving towards the metaverse. That's that's uh, in general a big question. Most  of the brands today uh, need to ask themselves   what is our role? If the word, if the digital  world is going towards a more decentralized model,   what are we going to do? Uh, Imagine  a, a central bank uh, which is usually   providing central services to  its uh, customers and consumers. What's their role in that more decentralized  model? Eh, I think it's more going back to,   to our initial conversation is understanding  in your process where you have those end to   ends were required many players to contributing  to. And where you have a strong community behind   what you are doing. If you are fulfilling  one of the two, then I think you should  

be eligible for entering to the web three, even  if your digital presence today is not that big. Going back to the example of the digital  banks, if you ask for a mortgage today   the, the process quite long, it took me months.  And definitely yes, there is a central bank,   but there are also tons of different players  that contributing to that. And then even a   central organizations, a bank, will think on  how they could leverage web and blockchain   capabilities to strengthen that relation and make  it almost immediate to verify what is my account   balance, my balance, my, my financial statement  positions the, the capitals I have, et cetera. So shorten time to market for the  services they provide. So still  

within a central, if you wish body, but  yet leveraging distributed capabilities I brands need to get used, have less control.   Um, I'll give you an example. We are implementing,  we are exploring meta mask and wallet in general   for our experiences for our brands. But the  first thing every brand manager wants to have   when you have the, a user connecting through the  wallet is their email address or phone number. We need the, the contacts, we need, the records in  our databases, et cetera. We must move away from   that thinking. It might be that in the future  we don't have those kind of data or that those  

kind of data is not our exclusive. Ownership, but  it's may be distributed on a chain and the users,   they will understand or they will opt in or opt  out or make us see some of their data or not. And therefore we need to change our mind on  that. And we need to be start getting ready  

that that could happen and could actually  be good for our consumer. But also for us,   we need to think differently. And I don't have  honestly the winning recipe, eh, today, but two   things are for sure. One is there are people  that is willing to contribute to the future. People is more and more looking after a sense  of belonging and a sense of contribution on   sustainability, on a better future in general.  So we, brands must leverage that and and   get the, that willingness on board and and and  be enablers. More than a central body organizing   or orchestrating being facilitators and, and  enablers and I think it's, we, it'll require   different thinking and everyone is in, in his own  business needs to think who is my community and   what's making my community complex user  experience when it comes to consuming my products? Would that be simplified or could that  be shortened? If I use some decentralized   capability and the data is distributed, would  that be a better experience for everyone,   for me and for my consumer or customers? Those  are the two questions that Web3, could nicely.

Yeah. And we need also, as you mentioned,  to shift a little bit like our mindset,   and maybe really the business model because  Today, you mentioned the data. maybe one   day we didn't ask anymore about emails and phone  numbers, but until the internet, the main source   of monetization of the internet is advertising,  that maybe it's a bit difficult, but if you move   to web 3 that is natively, you know, monetize,  like the monetization is in the browser, right? Then you all of a sudden maybe you don't need  these anymore. And then, these enable you,   to build maybe, I don't know, more ethical  products if you want. Right. And use other   type of data, in a way that also, protect users  et cetera. So I'm totally on board with that. You mentioned something that you're doing at  Nestle, which I love. Which is communities,  

What do you think is the role  of communities and how are you   planning to leverage that inside the Nestle group. In general community, as I said, are a group  of people with, with strong sense of belonging   and a willingness to contribute for  the greater good in. we as Nestle,   we have the uh, responsibility to  put together a lot of communities. I said before maybe the the coffee makers  with the, the plantations with the farmers,   With the local logistic operators, et cetera.  Each of them is a community. And therefore,   going back to the question, how do the brand  relate into that? Well, we could be the enabler   of putting those communities together uh, looking  at the greater good with data that is shared   in in a way that is very transparent, available  to everyone, and everyone can contribute uh, for   something that is even a greater cost to  the brands, but, but really for humanity. And that could be sustainability would be healthy  et cetera, et cetera. So I think that's that's  

something. That's the role of someone as big  as Nestle with with these responsibilities.   And then I will say we need to be good enough  at Scott where we have those communities that   those strong sense of, of of belonging where  we already have huge memberships, for instance. With programs already in place that could get  to the next level if we start leveraging uh, the   new capabilities that Web three could, would  actually give us. And the third one, and we  

mentioned that this already, but it's the  power of the enterprise uh, communities uh,   we could even think on, on communities are  cross industries which, which are consortium. Our community today memberships in  general are communities today. Meet ups   are communities. How do, how can we enable.  That with usage of web three at a larger,   greater scale those could be all very, very  interesting for me to explore use cases. Absolutely. In your exploring , what are  your main challenges and what do you think is  

missing? Like for example, when you go to, your  discovery and then you're trying to implement,   some of these experiments like on a larger  scale, what is the most difficult part and   what do you think can simplify or  could help you, I think the first   overall is that web three today is  still a promise. As we mentioned before,   the interoperability, portability. Are not there.  There are tons of different blockchains today.   There are tons of different smart contracts, et  cetera. But in general, even in the metaverse   space, there are tons of different metaverse  that don't talk very, very, very limited way. So today the big promise of interoperability,  portability is yet not there. So if you try to   do that at scale for Nestle and you try to apply  it for all our categories as brands, market,   et cetera, it simply won't work something we  know. The second is that is very stable. Just  

to give you a few example, it took me, when I  started looking to blockchain, took me weeks   to transfer my, my crypto from Coinbase wallet  to to a meta mask wallet, which is a simple. Thing to do. Uh, But for the most,  it's, it's very difficult. You go,   you need to go through tutorials and YouTube  videos, et cetera. You'll not expect that uh,   something that has the ambition to go mainstream.  So the user experience in general, when it comes   to to this ecosystem needs to go hundred  times better with respect to what today is.

Today is webre is mostly populated by very  technical people and some consumers that   are consuming web three activities, but it's  still very, very limited when it comes to,   if you look at the numbers when  you say uh, how do you convince   your organization if you really  look into the number are very low. Uh, So if I just will focus on the numbers  of adoption usage today, any CEO of this   world will tell you is yet not relevant at  all. Unless you are specifically in a niche.   In that space. But for company like Nestle, many,   many, many others the numbers are not that  relevant. They will be possibly in the future. The third is that it's a very unstable,  unregulated environment yet. So we have  

a responsibility towards our consumer customer to  serve them with the best possible experiences and   to protect them. If we will build an experience  out of a, of a blockchain that is unstable or   using certain cryptos that will go bankrupt in uh,  in a month from now, we have the responsibility. And today, these space is very green in the  sense that uh, there is a lot of instability.   Eh, I'll give you a few example. If you  go into the land and you try to buy,  

you will have to convert your uh, crypto from  Possibly from material tomatic and then go back   to Ethereum Beside the user experience, you don't  even understand why you are losing money while   you do that, because maybe you are paying for uh,  gas fees, et cetera, but simply in four different   transactions, there is something going on that is  very technical and and you might not understand. We cannot expect our consumer  to understand perfectly what's   going, going on behind the scene. And  I also seen that experience myself,   small mistakes which made you lose your  digital collectible, nft or even your wallet,   the access to your wallet because maybe you have  lost your, your recovery password, et cetera. These are silly things about, are  extremely important when it comes   to making field consumers in a proper way of,  of using those experiences. And so it's super   unha. So I would say user experience, stability,  regulation. What happens if something happens?  

I remember what, and, and you will remember for  Sheara when there were these privacy concerns   with Facebook mark Zuckerberg sitting in front  of the court and, and answering the questions,   there was one visible person  in front of that court. This is web two. It's a central environment,   but at the end of the story, you have a  CEO response for that. Who will respond   in the future if something goes wrong  in the chain of a decentralized model,   who will take the overall responsibility? How is  this going to be regulated? Eh, so this is all   questions that need to be sorted out, and we, as  Nestle, as I said, participated to the standards   forum and we want to contribute into that and play  an active role and not just as a consumer role.

On what's going to be next. But we also  know that when you change business model,   when you change the paradigms  of how the internet works,   et cetera, there needs to be regulation. I've been  in iot in internal of things in the early days   and uh, I remember that connectivity with objects  and privacy, et cetera, was not there yet. And it took us possibly five or six years  to the ecosystem to get into a maturity   model. And you feel protected when you  connect to a connected device today.  

And I think this is the same channel web three we  have to go through during this four, five years. Absolutely. And those are great questions that  still needs some thinking, needs some thinking   before we can answer them properly. So keeping  in mind that none of us has a crystal ball,   like what do you think will the  next 10, 15 years look like? And specifically, you know, how  should the brands position themself   from today to capture this, the  upside of this possible future? First of all, I think. Something that worked  for me is brands need to invest on understanding  

what's going on. That's the first thing.  When I, when I start with my journey in this,   in this position, I immersed myself into the  blockchain AI quantum world. I was already   into those, but, but I really immersed myself  to understand firsthand what was happening. I hired the people, eh, with the right skills  to understand what was happening. The builders   of this work to making sure that we know what's  going on. If you don't know, it's incredibly tough   to to be the owner of your uh,  journey. Otherwise, you'll be  

executing what the partners will be doing and the,   and the technology ecosystem that surrounds you'll  be doing, and you'll be just a receiver of that. But if you want to be in the front, And in  the driving seat you need to understand very,   very well, very well. When you understand  you have a very good understanding of   if investing is that when investing really  massively is is the right moment, I would say.   So first of all, understanding.  Firsthand what's going on. The second is that I think now, as I said before,   is that moment where those five six are  coming together, ai, ar, vr, blockchain,   web three metaverse are really coming, networking.  We have huge advances in the networking space,   which will allow more and more experiences coming  together. In general, I think what we'll be seeing  

in next year is a digital work where we will  blend digital and and real activities together. My kid, he doesn't ask himself if he's  online or offline. This is something,   is our mind uh, because we have been  in the real world for long and then we   enter the, the digital world. But for,  for the new generation, there is really   no difference. The one is the extensions of  the other, and they complement each others.

We need to realize that. So we need to provide  experiences that are really seamless from the real   versus the digital. Eh, the portability not just  in the metaverse world, but portability in the   real end. Digital words in and that's something we  need to start thinking on is the same Luca talking   with you is the same avatar that enters into  a decent land or in a metaverse experience and   buy something or uh, or as a certain experience,  which we might not want to lose when we go back   into the real uh, there will be more and more the  connection between the two words more and more.

I'm a fair believer that AI is already  changing a lot of what we'll be doing.   So there will be more and more automation.  And the next big thing I think is going   to be augment reality. Apple is, is  investing a lot on it, but I think.   Out of the extent reality, virtual  reality, possibly augment reality   because it's an extension of, of the real world  we are living, could be something really big.

And and I would agree with Tim Cook when he says  that could be the next big thing. Especially in   the, in, in our everyday experience, but also  in the brick and mortar where you're able to to,   to maybe go and shopping but have different  experiences in a mented way. So I think we   need to start thinking on how and when those five  will mature and come together, what kind of other   experiences we will provide to our consumers. Thank you Luca. We, we are  approaching the end of the interview,   so I wanted to thank you for, for being  a guest here at Poly Web. I feel like I  

learned a lot and I took so many notes,  where you were talking also personally.   So and I'm sure also earlier our audience  uh, will learn a lot from your experience. But thank you so much, Sarah. It's been  truly, truly great to be with you today   and to talk about some of these topics that  are really close to my heart. Beside I do   them for a job that I, as a, as you can see,  I'm very passionate about those and I, I try   to help and contribute as much as I can. Cause  I think it's about our future in, in general.

And thank you so much for giving. Sit in the  space, in, in your event. Thank you so much. All right, Ben. see you everyone  on the next episode. Bye. Touch out. That's all from today's episode. Thank  you so much for watching or listening.

If you find this episode valuable, you  can subscribe to our YouTube channel or   to the Poly Web Podcast on Spotify,  Apple, or your favorite podcast app It will be fantastic if you  could leave us a rating,   a review, or a comment as this really  helps other listeners find the show. All the resources mentioned in  this episode will be linked in   the description and in the show notes. See you on the next episode.

2023-02-07

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