The Lego Group’s Niall Edwards on customer-centricity and going MACH
Posted by Amanda McLaughlin on Aug 17, 2023
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Consumers today are hard to keep up with. Meeting their demands, as well as keeping pace with rapid market change, requires embarking on a holistic digital transformation. One person who knows this well is Niall Edwards, VP of Marketing & Channels Technology at The Lego Group. Niall is also on the advisory board of the MACH Alliance, a not-for-profit industry body that advocates for open and best-of-breed enterprise technology ecosystems.
In a recent interview on the Endless Aisle podcast with Marcus LaRobardiere, NewStore’s Senior Director of Marketing, Niall spoke about customer-centricity and transformation and how MACH is the new standard in retail. Read on for several highlights from Marcus and Niall’s conversation, some of which have been edited for clarity.
Prior to the pandemic, The Lego Group invested a huge amount of energy into its platforms and systems to make them more resilient, flexible, and able to scale. Although it remained in good shape as the market shifted, not all brands did. In speaking about the last few years from his perspective, Niall commented, “Something that fascinates me about retail is the obsession with wanting to stitch together channels. Quite often this is driven by companies seeking to suit their needs; however, what the pandemic highlighted is that we’re not resilient if we take the point of view of doing what’s right for us as a business. What we do, what we change, and what we invest in has to be right for us as a business AND it has to be right for the user.”
Behind the changes we’re seeing in retail is often someone or a team who questions the status quo. But what does it take to get buy-in for a project that flips the script? According to Niall, “There is a lot of pressure to remain in the status quo because it works. Transformation and being united in a pressure cooker – when something happens that forces transformation – can actually cause positive change. One of the things that is critical to making this happen is customer-centricity. Again, all too often we do the thing that we want to do as an organization and we forget to think about the shopper. Being user-centric and doing the research is important because it often reveals that what you’re offering is actually not convenient or helpful. So, the best thing you can do to drive transformation is know why you’re doing it and who you’re doing it for.”
The commerce technology landscape is crowded, but it doesn’t have to be confusing. For Niall, one way to make technology decisions is to align them with the MACH philosophy. “What MACH represents is the notion of flexibility. All too often organizations buy monolithic systems. But increasingly what brands are finding is the constraints that forces on you. You can’t have the experience you want or the ability to do a certain thing between channels. MACH services bring flexibility into the technology running your business so you can adapt to what your customer needs. The other thing MACH represents is composability. History will tell anyone that’s in technology that there’s been way too many multi-year projects that run forever. The thing you wanted to start is not the thing you get at the end. There’s a lot of sunk cost. It’s all complicated and big, and the change is huge. With composable technology, you can make smaller choices. You can decide on a vendor for this and a vendor for that, which opens up the door to innovation.”
For Lego, the future of retail lies in creating digitally-enabled physical experiences that elevate customer interactions. Niall spoke of an existing experience where customers can scan a box and get a 3D rendering of the product in front of them. They plan to reimagine this experience and bring it into a more connected ecosystem. “This is how technology should be. It should be deeply connected to the marketing ecosystem and also to the commercial experience. It should be delightful and invisible and helpful.”
Customer-centricity is the driving force behind modern retail. By harnessing the potential of MACH services and fostering a culture of business-driven innovation, Lego continues to build meaningful connections with its digitally savvy customers, setting a remarkable example for the retail industry.
