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Today we talk to Bhavesh Unadkat, Head of Digital Marketing at Capgemini Invent.

We chat with Bhavesh about his ten years at Capgemini, what motivates him in his role and the brands he believes set the bar for data strategy.

Please describe your job: What do you do?

I am the Head of Digital Marketing at Capgemini Invent. My team and I work with our clients’ marketing teams to ensure they have the right strategy, skills and structure to succeed in the marketing world.

We support in 4 key areas:

1. Definition and design of your marketing strategy to make sure it is fit for purpose and carried out effectively. We make sure they are aligned with one direction and a range of outcomes.
2. Make sure the marketing function is data driven to track and measure marketing activities and performance across channels, markets, brands and customer groups.
3. Manage the content explosion – Ensure that they win with content by being able to manage, distribute and create great content, given the challenge of content overload and reducing customer attention span.
4. Effective marketing organization – Ensure that they have the right structure, skills, partnerships and working styles to effectively execute their marketing strategy and implement their KPIs.

What skills do you need to be effective in your role?

What a question! If I were to break it down into three key points, it would be the following:

Dealing with ambiguity. It is often clear that our customer is facing a challenge, but the root of the problem or underlying issues may not be as obvious. Therefore, the ability to apply problem-solving methods and uncover the root causes is key to delivering the solution.

Be a team player. The power of Capgemini rests on the power of our global experts and teams. In order to deliver first-class results to our customers, we need to involve our experts and work with our customers to find the best solution to their challenge. Capgemini is a people-first organization, one of the main reasons for my long tenure.

Be versatile. Our briefs, customers and their challenges come in many different shapes and sizes. The ability to customize and design the right approach, solution, and roadmap for our customers is vital.

Tell us about a typical working day …

No day is like the other! It’s exciting and daunting at the same time. I work on a global customer account, which means we have teams in all time zones. I have to adjust my day for an early start or a late end (luckily, never both on the same day). I usually wake up at 6:30 am and go for a walk first to focus on the next day and take a few steps. I’m online from around 8:00 a.m. and the day will be a mixture of the following activities, lots of variety, challenge and excitement:

1. Project Calls – This includes reviewing work, planning work, processing proposals, commercials, or requesting resources. Some of them are in-house and others with the customer.

2. Digital Marketing Development – This usually includes offer development, sales activity, team development or marketing activity.

3. Future Branding and Structure Planning – We will announce some exciting news around our new team branding that we are planning and moving to.

What do you love about your job What sucks

I love working in a team. The energy people bring and the ideas that are put on the road allow for quick problem solving. I am fortunate that the digital marketing team is made up of great people who bring such diverse value. When you combine all of these things, the magic happens!

What I don’t like about my role is that it can be pretty admin heavy. For example: booking meetings, booking timesheets, travel and delivery expenses. Sometimes it can also feel like we’re about to hold too many meetings. I started the year really thinking about the length, frequency, and need for all of my meetings, and I’ve adjusted my schedule accordingly. We have a company-wide initiative not to schedule meetings before 8 a.m. or after 6 p.m., which helps discipline working hours. On top of that, we’ve cut 30-minute meetings down to 25 minutes and 60 to 50 minutes, which means I have an extra couple of hours a week to focus on other things.

What are your goals? What are the most useful metrics and KPIs for measuring success?

In the consultation we look at a number of different metrics; The most important ones are customer satisfaction (how customers rate our work, results and value achieved) and employee satisfaction (how satisfied our teams are with their environment, work, reward and content).

Then there are new logos (the number of new logos we work with in a given period of time) and also team growth (the number of people we add to the team). We have been fortunate to double the size of the UK team from 12 to 24 in 2020 and hope to double again in 2021.

What are your favorite tools to get your job done?

I’m not one for too many tools. Miro was great for virtual workshopping. We use Microsoft Teams for video conferences and are also great for storing and sharing files. We also have several in-house tools and templates that we use for suggestions, commercial tracking, and time tracking that are useful.

How did you get to Capgemini and where could you go from here?

I was in industry for 10 years, working in various ecommerce and marketing roles for retailers and startups. I’ve always wanted to work in consulting and never thought it would take more than two years because I would miss the industry too much. I was also skeptical about the advice given because I thought people are a little robotic and the natural environment is highly competitive.

However, here I am 10 years after joining and I still love it! I really feel it’s where I belong. The variety of work – working with many customers and with many different internal teams – coupled with our growth and development. In addition, Capgemini is a people-first company. I stayed for as long as I did thanks to the great people and the wonderful work environment.

Which brands / experiences have impressed with the use of data?

I may be biased here, but one of my clients, Unilever, is phenomenal when it comes to a range of things they do across data and insights. For one, the People Data Center is an award-winning and industry-leading Insights ecosystem. They have also made significant strides in their quest to build meaningful relationships with 1 billion global consumers. Working with retailers and data partners, they use this data to drive engagement, value and exceptional consumer experiences by connecting the consumer journey.

Another company that impressed me with the transition from personalized to more precise personalization is Spotify. They have further developed their product to include functions like “Daily Drive”: almost like my personal radio station with news, songs and podcasts. The best thing is that I am in control, so I can pause, listen again or fast forward. I also really like their annual personalized stories (Spotify Wrapped) – instead of data intrusion, it seems to me that I am sharing my story, which I really appreciate. Spotify is a cool company; Your recent announcement that all employees (even after Covid) can work from anywhere makes them even cooler!

Do you have any advice for someone interested in working in your field?

If you like variety, dealing with ambiguity, solving problems, and working in a team project environment consultancy is for you. The line between industry, consulting and agency is blurring and my advice would be to work on all three if you can. If you want to work internationally, you can also achieve this through the various global projects that we offer. Try it!