 Live from Las Vegas, it's theCUBE. Covering Adobe Summit 2019, brought to you by Adobe. Okay, welcome back, everyone. It's theCUBE's live coverage at Adobe Summit here in Las Vegas. I'm John Furrier, host of theCUBE with Jeff Frick, coach for the next two days live coverage. Our next guest is Amber Hamid, Vice President of Information Systems at the Dollar Shave Club. Welcome to theCUBE. Thanks for coming on. It's great to be here. So I love your title. When you're talking about four camera came on, it's Information Systems. Why is that different? Tell us what about the title? I think everything from a technology point of view, there's no such thing as a purist anymore. I think it's really important to understand every aspect of the business as a technologist to really evolve with the technology itself. I think from a role that I play at Dollar Shave Club, I have the fortune of actually working very closely with all aspects of a business, from marketing to fintech to data to technology, which is what our IT function is, is essentially embedded and ingrained within the entire holistic approach to technology. So it's not isolated anymore. And when we look at technologists, we actually look at how they actually interface with all of the aspects of business processes first. That's how we actually understand what the needs of the business are to then cater the innovation and the technology to it. So is there a VP of IT, information technology? Because IT is kind of a word that people think of the data center or cloud or buying equipment. That's a different role, right? I mean, that's not you. It is, it is. If you look at the information systems evolution, you will see that more and more systems are geared towards business needs and less and less towards pure play technology. So back in the day, you had a CTO role in an organization which was focused on infrastructure, networks, technology as DevOps is considered to be. Information systems is actually focused more on the business itself. How do we enable marketing? How do we enable finance? How do we enable digital technology as a platform? But not so much as how do we develop a technology platform? That's part and parcel of what the business solution proposes. That drives how the technology is. What's old is new is coming back, Jeff. Remember MIS, management information systems? You don't want to remember that. Data processing department? But if you think about it, we're doing management information systems and we're processing a lot of data. Kind of just differently. It's all with cloud now. It's kind of important. That's exactly right. So technology is one aspect of bringing information together. So data is one aspect of it. Business processes is another aspect of it. And your resources, the way your teams are structured are part and parcel of the strategy of any technology platform. Well, what you're involved in the topic of this show is really not using that to so much support the business, but to be the business and to take it another level to actually not support the product, but to support the experience of the customer with your brand that happens to be built around some product, some are what you're used for shaving. So it's a really different way. And I would imagine, except for actually holding the products in their hands, 99% of the customer engagement with your Dollar Shave Club is electronic. Well, I mean our customer experience is a very, very unique combination with the Dollar Shave Club and that makes it even more challenging as a technologist to be able to cater and bring that experience to what we call our members. So when we talk about a 360 degree approach from a technology platform point of view, we're taking into account the interaction with the customer from the time we identify them, who they are, who our segmented market is to the time they actually interact with us in any capacity, whether that's looking at our content, whether it's coming to our site, whether it's looking at our app, and then actually how we service them once we acquire them. So there's a big focus and arm of our customer strategy that's focused on the customer experience itself once they're acquired, once they become part of the club. And it's that small community experience that we want to give them that's integral to our brand. You guys have all the elements of what the CEO of Adobe said on stage. We've moved from an old software model, we're too slow, now we're fast, new generation of users, reimagining the product experience. You guys did that, that was our innovation. How do you keep that innovation going? Because you're a direct to consumer, but you got a club and a member model. You've got to constantly be raising the bar on capabilities and value to your members. What's the secret sauce? How do you guys do that? It's exactly right. So as I mentioned, it's an evolving challenge. We have to keep our business very, very agile, obviously, because our time to market is essential. How quickly the consumers actually change their minds. So we have to target them, we have to be effective and they're targeting and how quickly do we actually deliver personalized content to them that they can relate to is integral to it. When we look at our technology stack, we consider ourselves to be cut above the atlas because we want to be on the bleeding edge of technology stack no matter what we do. We have an event-driven architecture. We are, we invested quite a bit in our data infrastructure. I happen to be overseeing our data systems platform. And when I started with the organization, that was our central focus. In fact, before we invested in Adobe as a stack, which is helping us tremendously and drive some of the 360 degree view of customer centralization, we actually built our entire data architecture first in order to make the Adobe products a success. And it was that architecture and platform that then enabled a very successful implementation of Adobe Audience Manager going forward. How did you do that? Because this is one of the things that keeps coming up on the themes of every event we cover, all the different conversations with experts. People are trying to crack the code on the data architecture. I've heard people say, it's a moving train. It's really hard. It is hard. How did you guys pull it off? You take kind of a slow approach. Was it targeted? Was there a methodology to it? Can you explain? So essentially, as you can imagine, being a consumer driven organization, we have data coming at us from all aspects, from all of our applications, what we call first party data. We also have what we call second party data, which is essentially with our external marketers, information that we are using, they're using our information to channel, and we're using all of that channeled information back in to then use that and make other strategic decisions. It was really, really important for us to set up an architecture. That is the core foundation of any sort of a data organization that you want to set. The other big challenge is the resources. As you can imagine, this is a very competitive environment for data resources. So how do you keep them interested? How do you bring them to your brand to work on your data architecture is to make sure that you're providing them with the latest and greatest opportunities to take advantage of. So we're actually a big data organization. We run heavily on an AWS stack. We have leading edge technology stacks that actually resources are interested in getting their hands into. And learning and building on their skill sets. So when you take that ingredient in, the biggest driver is once you have that architecture set up, how do you get your organization to be as a data-driven organization? And that is when you start to start the adoption process slowly. If you start delivering the insights, you start bringing your business along and explaining what those insights look like. I was curious, what are some of the KPIs that you guys take a look at that probably a traditional marketer that graduated from P&G 30 years ago, wasn't really thinking about that? That are really fundamentally different than just simply sales and revenue and profitability and some of those things. Well, I mean, I don't think there's a magic bullet, but I think there are things that are key drivers in our business, obviously, because we're a subscription model. We are an industry disruptor there and we started out by really looking at what the value is that we can bring to our customers. So when we put them on a subscription model, it was very important for us to look at how much we're spending in the acquisition of that customer, so our CPA. And what we call the golden rule. And then how are we delivering on those? And the key KPI there is the LTV, the longevity, which is the lifetime value of a customer. So we're very proud to have a pretty substantiated customer base, these members, they've been with us for over six years. And the way we keep them interested and is refreshing all of that information that we're providing to them in a very personalized way. How much do you think in terms of the information that they consume to stay engaged with the company, is the actual, what percentage of the value, is the actual razor blade, or the actual product and the use of that versus all the kind of ancillary material, the content, the being part of a club and those other things. I would imagine it's a much higher percentage on the ladder than most people think. Exactly right. So our members are, we get this feedback constantly. I mean, once they get into usually a large customer base, we have over three million subscribers of our mail magazine, which is independent content delivery from our site. And when people come and read the magazine, they automatically, they don't know at first that it's part of the Dollar Shave Club umbrella. But once they get interested and they find out that it is, they automatically are attracted to the site and they land on it. So that's one arm that essentially targets through original content. The other aspect of it is, once you are a member, every shipment that you receive actually has an original content insert in it. So the idea is that when you're in the bathroom, you're enjoying your products, you're also enjoying something that refreshes, keeps your mind just as healthy as your body. So original content is critical to your strategy. It is, yes. On engagement and then getting that data. So I got to ask you a question. This is really an earned media kind of conversation that they use to parlance of the industry. Earning that trust is hard. And I see people changing their strategies from the old way of thinking of communities, forum software, log in, be locked in, to me being more open. Communities are hard and not to crack these days. You got to earn it. You can't buy community. How is the community equation changing? You guys are doing it really well. What's the formula? Obviously content's one piece. How would you share how someone should set up their community strategy? Well, I think it's also a lot of personal interaction. We have club pros that are exclusively dedicated to our members and meeting our member needs. And it's world-class customer service. And from a technology point of view, we have to make sure that our club pros understand our customers holistically. They understand how they've previously interacted with us. They understand what they like. We also do member surveys and profile reviews with our members on a regular basis. We do what we call social scraping. So we understand what they're talking about when they're talking about and social media about our brand. And all of that is part of the technology stack. So we gather all this information, synthesize it and provide it to our club pros. So when a member calls in, that information needs to be available to them to interact properly and adequately. So there's intimacy involved. They can get an alignment. Absolutely, yeah. It's hardcore customer service. Like, write information at the right time in the right hands of our club pros. So here's a trick question for you. Share a best practice in the industry. I think the idea of best practices is sort of kind of on its way out. I think it's what we call evolving practices. I think that the cornerstone of every team, every culture, every company is how you're learning constantly from the experiences that you're having with your customers. And you bring in ocean and it quickly goes out the door based on feedback that you've received from your customers or an interaction you've had. So you have to constantly keep on evolving on what are true and tested best practices. And that begs the question then that if there's best practices used to be a term like boilerplate standards, when you have personalization that's at the micro targeted level, personalization, that's the best practice but it's not a practice. It's unique to everybody. That's true. I think it's sort of kind of a standing ground. It's a foundation. It gives you somewhere to start. But I think it would be, you would be hard pressed to say that that is going to be the continuation of your experience. I think it's going to change and evolve drastically, especially in a world that we live in which is highly digitized. Customer experiences and their attention span is so limited that you cannot give them still best practices. You have to keep changing. So the other really key piece is the subscription piece. A, it's cool that it's a club, right? It's not just a subscription, you're part of the club but subscriptions are such a powerful tool to force you to continue to think about value, continue to deliver value, to continue to innovate because you're taking money every month and there's an option for them to opt out every month. I wonder how hard is that to kind of get into people's heads that have not worked in that way. You know, worked in a product, we ship a new product once a year, we send it out, you know, okay, we're working on the next PRD and MRD versus you guys are almost more like a video game. Let's talk about video games because a competitor will come out with a feature suddenly tomorrow and you're like, ah, stop everything. Now we need to, you know, we need to feature match that. So it's a very different kind of development cycle, as you said, you've got to move. Yeah, exactly right. So there is, there's different things that we deliver with every interaction with our customers. So one of the key ingredients is obviously we have an evolving brand and the content of physical product of our brand. We recently launched Groundskeeper which is our deodorant brand. And essentially we want to make sure that the idea is that our consumers never actually have to leave their house. So it's idea to, the idea is to provide cheaper products, right? That are good quality, effective, and they are delivered to your door. That the idea of convenience is never outdated, never goes out of practice. But to your point, it's important to continue to listen to what your customers are asking for. So if they're asking, if they're bald, you don't want to continue to market Boogie's products, which is our hair care product to them. But if they're shaving their heads, we want to evolve on our razors to be able to give them that flexibility so they have a holistic approach. Get that data, flywheel going, so you get the feedback loop coming in. A lot of touch points. I got to ask the question around your success in innovation, which is awesome, congratulations. There are a lot of people out there trying to get to kind of where you're at and to be at the beginning of their journey. Let's just say you have an innovative marketer out there or an IT information systems person who says, we have a lot of members, we don't have a membership, we have a network, we have people, we're different in content, we're great at original content. They have the peace parts, but not everything's not pulled together. What's your advice to that person watching? Because you start to see people start to develop original content as an earned media strategy. They have open network effect of content flowing. They might have members. Do they do a membership? What's the playbook? Well, I think the concept at the base of it all is how do we, we need to stay very true to our mission. And I think that's the focal point. That sort of brings everything together. We never diverge too far away from that. It's for men to really be able to take care of their minds and their bodies. So the area where we focus in on a lot is that we can't just bombard you with products after products after products. We have to be able to cater to your needs specifically. So when we're listening into people and what they're talking about in their own personal grooming, personal care needs, we're also going out there and finding information and content to constantly allow them to hear in on what their questions are all about, what their needs are on a daily basis. How do men interact with grooming products in general when they go into a retail brick and mortar environment versus when they are online? So all of that is the core ingredient when we are actually positioning our technology around it. When it comes to innovation, my personal approach to innovation is the people that are working for you in your organization, whether they're marketers, whether they're technologists, it's very, very important to keep them intrigued. So I personally have introduced what we call an innovation plan. And what that does is, as part of our roadmap delivery for technology, I allow my team members to think about what they would want to do in the next phase of what they want to deliver outside of what they do every day as their main job. That gets their creativity going and it adds a lot of value to the brand itself. And it's great for retention because innovative people want to solve hard problems, they want to work with other innovative people. So you got to kind of keep that going and also the company wins. Exactly, and the company is very approachable when it comes to lunch and learn opportunities and essentially learning days. So you keep your resources and your teams really, really invigorated and working on core things that are important to the business. Amber, thank you so much for coming on and sharing these amazing insights. I appreciate it. I'll give you the final word, just a final parting word. Share an experience of something that you've learned over your journey as VP of information. Something that you've maybe some scar tissue, something that was a bump in the road, that a failure that you overcame and you grew from. I think as a female technologist, I think I would say and I would encourage most women out there is that it's really important to focus on your personal brand. It's really important to understand what you stand for, what your message is. And one of the things that I have learned is that it takes a village, it takes a community of people to really help you grow and really staying strong and connected to your resources, whether they're working with you directly, whether they're reporting to you, you learn constantly from them and just to be open and approachable and be able to be open to learning and evolving as you grow. Amber, thank you for sharing your advice. Thank you so much. Live coverage here in Las Vegas for Adobe Summit 2019. I'm John Furrier, Jeff Frick. Stay with us after this short break. We'll be right back.