Procter & Gamble Says Data and Technology Will Support Company’s Reinvention

Procter & Gamble is leveraging data and technology to support its work toward both an improvement in near-term results and a longer-term reinvention of the company, President and CEO Shailesh Jejurikar said Thursday (Jan. 22) during an earnings call.

Jejurikar, who assumed those roles on Jan. 1 after serving as Procter & Gamble’s chief operating officer, said the growth trends seen in the most recent quarter showed that neither the company nor the consumer packaged goods (CPG) industry as a whole have adapted as quickly as needed to a rapidly changing landscape.

During the quarter ended Dec. 31, Procter & Gamble saw its organic sales growth remain flat, according to a Thursday earnings release. By segment, beauty was up 4%; health care was up 3%; grooming was flat; fabric care and home care was flat; and baby, feminine and family care was down 4%.

Outlining the landscape that is “changing faster than it’s ever been in recent memory,” Jejurikar pointed to consumer media preferences and information collection that are increasingly fragmented due to social media, retail media and other new media platforms; inflation across food, energy, health care and other areas that has impacted consumers and how they assess value; and a changing retail landscape that includes retailers becoming media platforms, and media platforms becoming retailers.

“We will adjust to and leap ahead of these disruptions to invent the CPG company of the future,” Jejurikar said. “The way to break through consistently is to build the strongest brands in the industry.”

To do that, Procter & Gamble will use consumer data and the insights that can be gained from that data to support product innovation and marketing campaigns, Jejurikar said. The company already has a wealth of data, and it adds to it every day, but it is now building integrated data platforms and technologies to help do this work better and faster.

The company will also build brand relationships with consumers in the new media reality by creating and delivering brand ideas that make the brands memorable and valued, Jejurikar said.

Procter & Gamble is also deepening its relationships with retailers through the full range of supply chain and merchandising activities, Jejurikar said.

The company is already well into this transformation, having built data platforms, artificial intelligence capabilities, programmatic shelf tools, and media creation and evaluation systems, Jejurikar said.

“The next step is to connect the dots, to integrate the pieces from identifying consumer friction point to product idea, to product design, to supply, to creative concept, to purchase transaction, to usage in-home, to post-use evaluation,” Jejurikar said. “We will close the loop, and we believe this will create a different S-curve for our future growth and value creation centered around our consumer.”