Good morning, my name is Olimpia Nitti and I lead information technology for the Global Baby Care division in Procter & Gamble. In this role, I report to the group president of Baby Care and I am accountable to the company CEO.
As you can imagine, a large division like Baby Care, with a turnover of multiple billion dollars, thousands of employees, maufacturing plants and research & development sites as well as general offices, has many IT needs. Some needs are not Baby Care specific. We need to equip employees with computers and communication tools, we need to have network and infrastructure, we need systems to manage accounting financials, we need to pay employees. Those IT needs are covered by P&G corporate groups that serve all P&G organizations so that we gain efficiency and scale.
I still oversee the IT operations and the cost of those services to make sure that they are in line with the Baby Care needs, but I do not have to spend time on everyday operations. Then there are IT needs that are Baby Care and business unit specific: they are primarily related to manufacturing, research & development and digital consumer engagement. This is where most of my focus is. My role is to make sure that we leverage new and existing IT capabilities to drive competitive advantage in Baby Care. This means increasing revenues, profit and cash flow.
Let me give you a couple of examples. In manufacturing, automation can help to reduce production costs, in research & development visual design capabilities can help to reduce development time and cost. In addition, engaging consumers digitally is becoming a critical need as consumers spend more time in social media, buy more online and even if they don’t do so they still form their opinions by searching online. In all the areas above, we generate and store terabytes of data that can be leveraged to our advantage if we have clear data strategies supporting our business goals.
To summarise: as IT leader for a product division in P&G I have responsibility for IT operations, budget and innovation, and I costantly look at IT emerging capabilities like artificial intelligence, machine learning and so on, trying to understand how they can create a competitive advantage, either to help us being more efficient or sometimes to create completely new different business models. I also own the data strategy for my division.
In essence, I love this job. It keeps me up to speed with the latest technology trends, and also allows me to see how technology can make a difference in the lives of our consumers or our employees.
I wish you a great career in IT as well. Bye!