Translating Ideas into Products, with Jonathan Théry

Hello, welcome to another episode of Fashion Made. Thanks for joining us this week. It's certainly been a busy few weeks here at Pye Apparel as we've moved all of our events for the rest of the year online. Um, so yeah, if you like this podcast, head to apparel.pye.tv and check out what we've got coming up over the next few months because there's certainly a pretty busy schedule. Someone who I'm really happy to introduce today is a conversation that I've had with Jonathan Theret, who works over at Salomon, has been instrumental in developing digital transformation over there, um, not just the technological side, obviously the people side as well. And that's one of the things that we get into, into the, in the chat today. So yeah, hope you enjoy and catch you soon. Cheers. Jonathan, really nice to speak to you. How are you doing?

Yeah, I'm doing, uh, very good, thank you.

Excellent. Welcome to the show. I understand that you've created a whole new job role and department over at Salomon.

Yes, actually, it was under discussion and we— it was activated during the pandemic as part of the digital transformation team within the footwear department here at Salomon.

So what does it entail?

So, it's called Business Process Intelligence, and it's— well, the meaning behind intelligence is about collective intelligence, so things that we already have as a company and as a group creating products, digital intelligence, so how we are going to use digital tools and the power of these tools to our advantage. Ecological intelligence, so how we can embed environmental data in the product and in real time while developing new products. And the last part of this intelligence is emotional, and emotional is all about emotion, and emotion is what makes you move forward. Whatever, if it's fear, passion, or whatever. And it's also how you communicate as an employee with other people, how you can communicate on your ideas and on your opinions, and how you are enabled to express even what's going wrong or what doesn't work, like enabling everyone to express this. And the job was created as a very systemic approach, thinking that we have many different departments, commercial, design, development, marketing, and these departments are already working together, and the goal of the job is not to forget anyone while digitizing the creation chain. And this is not an easy task, and it means that we need to, like, have a kind of interdisciplinary team and creating, yeah, overlaps, areas of skills with other departments and with IT developers, with a bunch of different jobs that we didn't know or that we didn't really— that we didn't see, maybe. And knowing that this exists and that we have to work with all of these people, which makes a very big, big team.

Yeah, of course, you have to unite all of these departments to sort of, you know, all push in the same direction.

And yeah, and what helps us a lot is that we have a Playminded program at Salomon. It's our environmental sustainability program. And it's kind of a compass for us and for everyone in the company. And as an outdoor brand, like knowing, starting to understand how we can calculate the score of our product and how we can be sure that the score is correct. And from there, improving the score for the next year, for the next product. And this can be made using digitization and data.

You know, you can use all of the tools, but one of the most important things, and you kind of touched on this as well, is the emotional side, the human side of this.

Yes, there is like defining, even defining the perfect process or the best process in your opinion, in my opinion, what is the best way to work. So even defining this, we will always have people finding other ways to work. So the human impact of the best process on earth will always be there. So there is this part of the process and knowing that humans will always find a new way to work and new solutions. And the other side is skills. But I mean, we have incredible tools today already, powerful tools, PLM systems, CAD tools, and Sometimes we are using them only 10% or 20% of their capacity, meaning that the first step is bringing the skills at the same level with the power of the tools. And for me, in the digital economy, that's the first step.

Yeah, you guys, you know, and a lot of companies would be in the same position. They've actually already made quite large investments in tools. So is your job kind of, as you're saying, trying to get that 80% that you're missing? Is that part of the job, is to make sure that you're doing that first and foremost before you go and invest in something new?

Yeah, that's it, because what happens also is that while doing it, training the people and bringing the context, the digital context, and all the words that you have to know and understand to talk to an agile team, to an IT developer. This creates kind of connections between the teams and this, this curiosity to understand what other people are doing and how How in the way that you express your ideas or your needs, you make sure that the people in the room will understand what you need. And that also comes back to that, the kind of emotional or communicational intelligence.

How do you do it then, Jonathan? You know, for anyone else that's listening, in your opinion, What are the best ways to make that 80% work?

I think there's a lot of— there's a kind of barrier. There are some barriers like that face that needs to be worked around and explained. And the first thing is the fear, like the fear of the digital world. Like nobody's really afraid of an iPhone or of an app or whatever, but we have people being afraid of new tools that could help them, but being afraid of kind of becoming just a support to the computer or support to the machine. And that's not the case, and it's not going to be like that because all of the technical know-how around shoes is not translated today into a computer. And from 2D to 3D, it's very, very complex to do. And the other side is we have all this digital and 3D things that we see everywhere and everybody talking about it. Creating a 3D product is easy because creating a 3D shoe model is kind of simple, but when you scratch the surface of the 3D model and when you need to access to the data, to the bones and everything, the structure of the shoe, that's a lot more complex. And when you scratch even more and you go to the pattern side of it, of the parts of the shoes, it's even kind of— it's not complicated, but today the pattern maker, for example, they are the overlap area between 2D and 3D, and it's their job, and then they know how to do it. If you are able to give us— to give them a digital tool to make this job easier, they might free up many, many ideas, they might propose new stuff and create more. So yeah, that's— before, I think, before like adding new skills, already leveraging the power of the tools we have.

You mentioned this earlier on, there's sort of an ecological aim here as well. I guess this all falls under a sort of sustainability banner. The word sustainability quite overused, but in this sense it's about being more efficient as well as just being more ecological in terms of maybe some materials used. But obviously if you're more efficient as a company, then you are more sustainable as well.

Yes, yeah, because if you are able to use the power of the tools and the power of your people to create products faster and in a way that you are sure that you are creating something that you know and that you don't need to see in the physical world. And enabling this, it's also a way of being— going like towards more sustainability in the way we create the product, in the way we think around the product. And to, yeah, to make it happen, we need to give access to everyone in the company, to the to the score, to the environmental score impact of what we are creating, to be able to change if we have to, and to be able to measure if we are on the right path. And doing it alone as a, yeah, as a company, even like Salomon, it's It's not that easy because you have many different tools and in the industry other brands use different tools, but in the end it's creating a shift, a move towards the same needs because we all have the same needs. And while sharing our needs, we won't I think we won't lose our DNA and we won't lose what makes our brand a brand and what helps to sell the products. That's a kind of a fear that we need to also to fight against, saying we are sharing with other people, other industries, other brands.

How do you quantify your sustainability goals? You know, you were saying about scoring it. Do you use like the Higgs index or, you know, things like that?

Yes, we are cooperating with the Higgs index and the SAC, and we are very— we are working a lot with them also to make it automatic, to automatize the process. And how the data should be created and what's the format of this data and how we could create connections to our PLM systems, to our BOMs, and so on to be sure that the data is accurate because there is no mistake possible, I think, on this side. So it's a very critical topic. Moving towards more data around that, but visible for everyone, for the developer, for the designer, for the material team, for the CMF team, so for everyone actually that needs or that wants, because sometimes they don't need it, but they want to also know what's the impact of one material or one product. So giving them access to the data.

And sort of visualizing that in a way that they can relate to. Again, it sort of ties into that emotional buy-in.

Yes. And also having a single source of truth, meaning that the score is here and if you want to improve the score, you need to do something and you need to understand how you can improve. And it's not the job of only one person, it's the job of the, the whole creation team. And that's, that's part of the transformation of the creation process, is to, to grant an access, real-time access to all the needed data to make decisions. But for for everyone.

Are you still going through that transformation now? Whether it's in product creation, sustainability, I guess it's a journey that you never stop.

Yes, yes, it's, so it's re-engineering the process all the time. So how you translate an idea into a product in 2D and tomorrow how you do it in 3D and how you, how we are able as a brand to provide a shoe, physical shoe, but all the data that goes with the shoe, the digital twin or one version of the digital twin that belongs to the shoe and that then your customer will ask for. So a physical shoe, a 3D model of the shoe, and all the metadata that goes with the shoe.

God, there's a lot of different areas that you and your department are focused on.

Yeah, we were talking about digital twins this morning and create like— there are many, many different versions of digital twins. There is a version for the designer, his view, his keeping masks kind of for the digital twin. So everything that is around the digital aspect of the product from a designer perspective. But we have the same for a pattern maker, for example. What is the digital twin of a pattern maker? What is the digital twin of the commercial team? Of the merchandising team. So what do they need in terms of data, in terms of visuals? And yeah, I forgot one is the view of the developer, like everything around the bill of materials. How can we connect the 3D model with the BOMs and everything? And so yeah, all the brands working around that and many, many different perspectives and different ways to do it. I think it's by combining the different views and that we can, we can achieve a process. And on this process, each brand and each company will, will apply his his DNA and his cultural values.

So you've been doing this for sort of 3, 4 months, something like that?

Uh, yes, yes, starting, uh, mid of March.

Pretty much.

Wow.

Yeah, right at the time. Um, what, um, can I ask, like, what, what have you been most proud of in the last few months?

I think it's the, it's creating the— recreating the move, the move to like saying, yes, my job will change within 2, 3, or 5 years. My job will change, I know it, and I need you and I need the team to help me to shape the new job. Describe the new tasks and think about it. And think about it now to start building the skills, to start learning the new skills that will help me as a kind of a use case that will help me in my job to do my job in 2 years or 5 years. Yeah, and that's, uh, yeah, that's, um, yeah, that makes me proud. And to see, to see the, yeah, this move, uh, and the curiosity, like just creating curiosity and trying to understand, and that makes you learn in a way.

You're kind of changing sort of people's opinions of technology, you know. It was kind of bringing technology into a company, people were always worried about the cultural impact You know, people are resistant to change, all of these sorts of things. So to get people on board and bought in to, you know, using whether it's new technology or the technology you already have in place, using it in the correct way and why they're using, how it's going to help them, that's a big thing.

Yeah, yeah. And yeah, talking about that, I had a Skype meeting with my grandmother during the pandemic. She's 90 years old and she's using Facebook, but we sent her an invite and we had this conference with my grandmother and my mom and she said, "I didn't think it was so easy, but I wanted to understand how it works." I wanted to do it once. And so it's kind of a life lesson.

Yeah.

To see that kind of curiosity and just this, the will to understand.

Yeah. I think people are a lot more willing to change now. They, you know, they just understand. There's a lot more understanding amongst people I find over the last few months.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's one of the positive aspects of the pandemic, even if, yeah, we were not waiting for that. But yeah, you're right, it's pushing everything forward and faster. And on top of it, it's putting the human at the center of it.

That's really important, and I guess that's kind of what we're talking about today, is the human side of digital transformation. And luckily, yeah, as you say, that's one of the benefits that's sort of come about.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what makes me also very, like, enthusiastic about this job is seeing my colleagues working maybe 50% of their time on kind of manual tasks or Excel files or creating presentations, and they are here to create products, to work on the products, and to translate ideas into products. And for me, digital transformation is all about that. It's like giving more time to do what you're supposed to do. And if we're able to do that, we will free up time for human interactions, for creativity, and we will give also more power to our collective intelligence.

This is one of the things you're talking about, right? It's this collective intelligence. It's so important.

Yeah, it's important. And you see all the people having a part of the process in their brains and how they are able to connect with others, with people, without using software or systems, just by talking to each other. And the time talking to each other is very important and If we are able to give more time to talk to each other based on data, I think this will help the collective intelligence.

You're talking about business process as well. Is this just about technology, or is this, again, is this more about speaking to the human side and getting people to work in new ways?

There's a completely new, new like understanding of like processes together with the systems and supported by data visualization tools. And the visualization of the data of your kind of, it's like your job translated by an algorithm and Seeing that on the screen, like all the data around your job, everything that you process and everything that you have done maybe in the last 5 years or 10 years, everything that your colleagues have done in the last 10 years, putting everything together and having this in front of you makes you think differently and makes you like realize that there are pockets of interest for your job to improve the way you work. And so that's creating a new process, a new use case, a new story. Like, it's really like a story. You come to work and what you do first and how do you get access to the data and If you have access to the data in one click instead of one hour, you have this and you start your day based on this data.

Yeah, yeah, it makes you a lot more productive.

Yeah, yeah. And creating also new products for new consumers and for changing buying habits and creating products for the e-commerce. So it's also linked with the sales side of it. So it's how can we create a product that can help everyone in the chain after the creation.

Obviously consumer habits are going to change a little bit. Certainly in the short term, probably in the long term. How are you guys planning for this?

We have, you know, I worked on a Mesh project which was a Salomon innovation project, and in this project we had customization ID, customization and less components and everything. And there is a side of customization that is not yet doable, I think, in a mass— the mass customization, just because the supply chain of the footwear is not ripe for it. But Yeah, I see it like the customization or the customization for the retailer, different type of customization. It's definitely a way to go. And it's also maybe the way you shape your process before the customization helps you to go faster to the market with a customized product.

Do you think that there's some other risks coming up over the next 6 to 12 months apart from consumer habits?

Yeah, consumer habits and in a way that maybe not within or in the next 6 months or 12 months, but we will need as a company, as a brand to be fully transparent and to give access to all the data around the product. If we don't do so, Yeah, the risk that I see is not being beaten by the competition but is being beaten by your consumer, but your users, people that love your brand and that suddenly are not happy with what you are providing. And this, if we don't see it, we— that was the thing with the Pac-Man, is that we are going to be eaten by our consumers. They will kind of digest us and go to another brand which will be able to provide everything that they want. And what they want is That's changing. It's not only a physical product, it's the digital version of this product. It's a kind of also virtual experience that you can have around the product and all the data that needs to go along with the product, the Higgindex, the score. And everything, chemicals, everything.

Yeah, that's a tough one as well, you know. Chemicals is a huge unknown in the industry and it's not talked about very much, but, you know, not a lot of companies know actually what chemicals are going into their products.

Yeah, and I think if the companies don't know, how can the consumer know? And that's also an interesting aspect is if we are able to have all the chemicals data and that things that we can provide to the consumer in a transparent way, I think that's like digging into the product as a consumer to be sure that everything is clean or that what is not yet fully clean is under process. And that's also a way to be— for me to be transparent is to say, okay, we are not perfect now, but we know why we are not perfect. And we are this in this project, and we are moving towards something closer to what our consumer wants. And also the other side of it is closer to what our employees want.

Yeah, it's a big part of it for sure.

Yeah, yeah. And, um, yeah, coming back to the, to the environmental impact, uh, like for everyone here creating products, everyone wants to know, uh, what's the impact of the shoes and, uh, Maybe not today or tomorrow, but there is a day where we won't refuse or we won't agree to develop products which are not fully think or thought as a responsible product.

And that's materials as well as process and all of the other things you've mentioned. You know, we haven't really talked about materials. Obviously, this is a big part of your job as well, right?

Yeah, materials is a key process while creating footwear. And today, like, having access to all the data around materials the technical requirements, abrasion, elongation, and everything that you could need as a brand to say to a supplier, if your material doesn't meet our standards, we won't use it. So that's the first filter. And the other filter is the, is the environmental index, maybe tomorrow. And when you think that all the brands have different criteria, but maybe 90% of these criteria are common to the industry. If we are able soon to work together with other brands to support that and to help the supplier to enter all the data only once in one place and each brand will have access to its data and won't see the other data, I think we will solve one of the aspects of the digital transformation of the materials because the materials won't become fully virtual. So there is one thing with materials that they need to be materialized, and the other side is the digital version of the material. And it's also a tricky question because the digital render of the material needs to be accurate with the reality, but even in the aspect and the color, but what is accurate to me or to you might not be accurate to a different eye. So it's not an easy question to make sure that the virtual shoe has the same shine, the same render, the same look, the same stretch as the digital version of the shoe.

The slogan there is 'Time to Play,' right?

Yes, we have the slogan 'Time to Play.' And when I come to work, and I think for most of my colleagues, when we come to work, it's coming to work, it's not working, it's more like playing. And you can see it and you can feel it when you see our our people here. And so they should be able to play 80 or 90% of their time, and the 10 or 20% remaining part should be used for, yeah, for tasks that has to be done and cannot be digitized. But there is a, yeah, there is a away in the digital transformation, it's the kind of gamification and how you bring this gamification aspect back to a place where time to play is the slogan. And so playing, meaning how can you create like a video game, how can you create something, play with it, but not invest something And in the video game, you have one or two lives, and when you are— when the game is over, you can start again, but you didn't invest anything. So if we can bring this aspect of playing together with the virtualization of the shoes and digitization, well, I think it's It's gonna match perfectly with what we are doing here every day.

Well, look, it sounds like you've got a great position to be in and you've got a good team around you as well.

Yeah, it's— so the job is part of the digital transformation team and yeah, my role is to like bringing together the people and help them to talk together with the same kind, same words, and creating the area of common interest. And we already have this area of common interest because we all love shoes, and that's here. So that's how we bring tools, let's call them digital tools, but how we bring this to help having more areas of common interest.

Yeah, well, look, Jonathan, thanks so much for coming on the show. It's been really, really interesting.

Thanks. Thanks a lot.

Yeah, thanks again to Jonathan for joining us. Really, really interesting chat and great to see so many good things happening at Salomon at the moment. Well, look, I think that's all we've got time for. Look forward to hopefully seeing you all at one of the digital events coming coming up in the next few months. Until then, all the best. Bye-bye! Everybody get up!