[00:00:00] Welcome to Unpacking the Digital Shelf, where we explore brand manufacturing in the digital age.
[00:00:16] Hey everyone, Peter Crosby here from the Digital Shelf Institute. Accurate, complete, reliable data
[00:00:21] is the enabler of all business operations and particularly so in commerce. The trick is to
[00:00:27] create a set of people, processes, and technology that is set up for success every day, month,
[00:00:34] and year. After spending more than a decade at the center of the data governance processes at
[00:00:40] Georgia Pacific, Lindsay Savage, their senior director of business platforms and data governance
[00:00:45] graciously agreed to join Lauren Levack Gilbert and me to share the organization, process, and
[00:00:50] really community that she has helped build to make a value-driven data governance process
[00:00:56] a critical part of her company's success. Lindsay, welcome to the podcast. We are so
[00:01:02] excited to have you here. I am excited to be here. Thanks for having me.
[00:01:08] Gosh, you have been on a data governance journey for more than 10 years of your, I think, almost
[00:01:14] 16 years at Georgia Pacific and you've seen a lot over that time. You know the start of
[00:01:20] understanding the data needs for an omnichannel business, building out cross-functional teams
[00:01:25] to prioritize projects. I mean all of that, the whole sort of way we make money has evolved and
[00:01:34] the business requirements and what data can do and how to get it, it's all must be so different
[00:01:39] than when you first started on the journey. So we want to know what you've learned, what you
[00:01:45] do differently if you want to save our listeners from making the same mistakes so they
[00:01:51] can make new ones and then what's working well for you. But first of all, tell us about the start
[00:01:56] of your journey, how you got into this role. Absolutely. And Peter, it has been a journey
[00:02:05] for sure. That is the first thing I tell other organizations or other teams that I'm talking
[00:02:13] to. We started on our what I'll call data governance journey somewhere around, I would say, 2011-2012
[00:02:23] and it was a very focused approach. At that time we were very much focused around
[00:02:32] just the reporting and making sure that our measures and our terms were appropriately defined
[00:02:41] so that our business leaders when they would pull a report on volume or net revenue,
[00:02:47] they were all looking at the same number. And so there was a huge focus on
[00:02:55] getting a lot of that documented and aligned to. And from there it just started. We started
[00:03:02] very small. At Georgia Pacific within the consumer products division, at that time we had
[00:03:12] four divisions. We had our communication papers division, non-wovens, retail and GP pro or what
[00:03:21] we call away from home. And so there were roles embedded within each of those organizations
[00:03:28] that supported master data or data governance. And it was very focused around maintaining product
[00:03:38] data and maintaining customer data, which are two important domains for your organization because
[00:03:46] that information trickles down to so many different process areas. And then obviously
[00:03:53] over time as e-commerce has evolved, it is an important aspect for our partners and our retailers
[00:04:02] in their e-commerce journey. So we started very small and back in I would say 2016 is when we
[00:04:11] took the first step to just centralize a few of those data roles across those four divisions.
[00:04:19] Again, focus was really small, right? Because we didn't know what we didn't know. We needed to go dig in
[00:04:25] and figure it out. And about that time a year after is when we actually embarked on our ERP
[00:04:35] transformation project where we were upgrading our SAP ERP system. And so that was about a five
[00:04:45] year long project. And we knew going into something that big that we needed to have a pretty good handle
[00:04:53] on our master data before we go in and transform our ERP. So we had a focus, we brought in a couple
[00:05:04] more people and we focused really around cleansing our product information and our customer
[00:05:10] information to support that ERP transformation project. And then really over the course of
[00:05:20] the next several years, as we evolved our processes and as we tried to integrate our processes directly
[00:05:29] within the system, right? We wanted to get rid of the homegrown systems, get rid of the manual
[00:05:35] processes. There was a big reliance on data, right? Data is going to be your enabler to really
[00:05:46] set these processes up for success and streamline and get those efficiencies that you would hope
[00:05:54] to see in an ERP type investment. So that's where we started to pick up new areas of opportunity
[00:06:04] for further governance. And for us, it's say we look at each piece, you know, in its own way,
[00:06:16] right? Because not all of the data can be centralized and governed, right? We may not
[00:06:22] have the best knowledge or the best expertise to be able to efficiently govern that information. And so
[00:06:30] you want to avoid kind of inserting yourself as becoming a bottleneck, right? In the process.
[00:06:37] So it's a kind of fine balance of what is critical data that we can apply appropriate controls and
[00:06:45] standards to without impacting the end-to-end process. And then what data needs to stay within the process
[00:06:53] area, but maybe we can help just implement some more controls. So that's definitely where our
[00:07:01] journey has continued to evolve. We have pulled in supply chain master data into our realm of
[00:07:10] responsibility. And we've also have further centralized a lot of the roles. So as we kind
[00:07:19] of get into more of the e-commerce data, our digital assets and our marketing copy,
[00:07:26] a couple years ago, we've decided to pull those teams into our organization. And now what we have
[00:07:35] is an organization that touches the product from development all the way through syndication to
[00:07:42] our retail partners. And so it's what you're starting to see is there's a lot more collaboration
[00:07:50] just within our team. When our brand teams are talking about doing product transitions
[00:07:57] or product changes or packaging changes, my team is collaborating a whole lot more around
[00:08:04] these potential changes. And we're talking about, okay, what needs to happen to ensure that we're
[00:08:09] not impacting anything negatively downstream? Let's like handhold the process through so we can
[00:08:16] meet the needs of our brand partners, but also meet the needs of our customers as well so
[00:08:22] that we can push the data appropriately to them without a lot of downstream impact. So
[00:08:28] it's really cool to see the collaboration that has improved and grown over the last several years.
[00:08:37] And Lindsay, where does your organization report up into? Is this like sort of almost a center
[00:08:44] of excellence for data governance? Is that? Yeah, so we view ourselves, we call it a business
[00:08:49] capability model. And we reside on the business side. So we work in coordination with our brand
[00:09:02] and category teams, but we also work in coordination with other business capability models that we
[00:09:09] have as well, like marketing as an example or supply chain as another example. We are on
[00:09:18] the business side and we work hand in hand with our IT organization as well. So we are a team that is
[00:09:29] pretty much working with every process area out there, technical or not, which I find very
[00:09:37] fulfilling because that's really how you kind of see the big picture and how everything works
[00:09:43] together. And so the e-commerce journey part of this, because when you were talking about the earlier
[00:09:49] data where you started, it's data and you tell me if this is true, I'm going to sort of lay out a
[00:09:57] scenario like that data that's relatively stable and if you're going to change it, you want to
[00:10:02] know you're changing it for a reason. But then the e-commerce world sort of flies into town
[00:10:08] and all of a sudden it's like, it changes every hour sometimes. Like don't hold me back.
[00:10:15] Like I was wondering as you're sort of from your seat, how did you adjust and respond to the
[00:10:22] different, I don't know, sort of the wild west of e-commerce while still knowing how important is
[00:10:27] that data be approved and compliant and all of that other stuff? Yeah, it definitely has
[00:10:34] evolved as we've gotten more sophisticated in this space and honestly the demand
[00:10:41] from our customers has grown. They want to know more about our products. And so part of it is
[00:10:49] we're starting to capture more information than we captured before at a lower level.
[00:10:56] And so that just enables us to be able to provide that information to our consumers
[00:11:03] that maybe help improve the sale. Enabling the consumer with more information about the product
[00:11:12] might entice them to buy it versus seeing something that they don't really know much about.
[00:11:21] As far as kind of the ever-evolving standards that come along with e-commerce,
[00:11:29] it's really the key point in my mind is the collaboration with the key partners
[00:11:34] in your organization as well as your customer partner. So really just trying to understand
[00:11:41] what will help our organization sell the product but also still meeting the needs
[00:11:49] of the customer. So not that we were changing that standard every other month but I would say
[00:11:57] over the course of the last several years we've gotten smarter about what works, what doesn't
[00:12:03] work and the key thing is not to just go change it behind the curtain and not let
[00:12:09] anyone know. It's really bringing everyone to the table and talking through what is the
[00:12:16] problem we're trying to solve for. We obviously want to grow our share but also meet the needs of
[00:12:21] our customer. How can we do that with evolving our standard and we all align on what that standard
[00:12:29] should be. And I think for the most part they understand that while these attributes or these
[00:12:36] descriptions or assets are really put in place for our customers, there's also a lot of internal
[00:12:44] processes that rely on them as well. So we can't just focus on the customer even though they are
[00:12:52] very much important. We also have to take into consideration our internal processes
[00:12:59] to make sure we're not going to negatively impact something there.
[00:13:04] Your team is the dream of cross-functional collaboration. I absolutely love hearing how
[00:13:10] you work together across all these different functions and you're looking at the big picture
[00:13:15] so bravo to you and your team because it really is the dream for organizations to have that kind of
[00:13:20] cross-functional alignment. And Lindsay, so question around your journey. So I'm sure as you went
[00:13:27] through this journey and you built this team to your point about internal alignment, it
[00:13:32] probably took some internal aligning to understand why this was changing, how we were going to
[00:13:37] be working, explain to leadership why it's important. Can you tell us a little bit about
[00:13:42] that journey and how you helped get everyone on board to make this big change?
[00:13:48] Yeah, absolutely. I think we were pretty lucky because early on we had that leadership
[00:13:56] alignment from day one and I think where it began was when you see a lot of senior executives
[00:14:05] sitting in a room looking at a P&L or a report and they're all looking at different numbers.
[00:14:11] Right? So they've got to waste 30 minutes trying to reconcile which report is right and then go make
[00:14:17] the business decision that they were there to make. And so from there, that really kind of set us off
[00:14:24] on our journey and I think really trying to drive home to the organization and the leaders,
[00:14:32] the what if, right? Like if we don't have governance, right? And if this data is not
[00:14:39] set up efficiently or accurately, these are the things that could go wrong and really
[00:14:46] put it in perspective of how this impacts their roles or their organization.
[00:14:53] I think there was a lot of light bulbs that went off that said, okay, I get it, right? Like
[00:14:58] because if you don't have that then you're spending a lot of people's time trying to troubleshoot,
[00:15:05] reconcile where did it go wrong, rework things. And so there's definitely an efficiency play here
[00:15:12] where if you have the right controls up front, even though it may seem like it takes a little bit
[00:15:17] longer up front to get the process through, right? And get it set up, you get to mitigate all those
[00:15:24] downstream issues that you previously had to deal with. So not only do you gain trust within
[00:15:30] your organization, you gain trust with your retailers and your customer partners. And so for us,
[00:15:37] we just really tried to articulate it in a way of this is what could happen if we don't have it
[00:15:46] and try to tie it as much to monetary elements as possible. That is sometimes hard to do.
[00:15:55] But I think we had enough use cases that our leadership really connected with and they bought in
[00:16:02] early. And again, when we just started small, we were able to prove to them like where this was
[00:16:10] adding value. So then they have the trust and the confidence that this is the right thing to do.
[00:16:16] And as we tried to evolve our team in the area of responsibility in which we governed,
[00:16:23] it was a much quicker, easier conversation.
[00:16:27] And did that also require internal education for different leaders in different functions?
[00:16:33] So for example, like maybe supply chain didn't fully understand how this connected into what they
[00:16:39] were doing. Did you run that type of education as well?
[00:16:42] Yes, absolutely. We back in 2016, when we made the first kind of initial push to
[00:16:50] to centralize our teams, we went on kind of like a road show within the organization
[00:16:56] and really just do like a master data one on one. Because I feel like a lot of folks that previously
[00:17:05] had a responsibility around master data, they were thinking about it specifically for their
[00:17:11] role only. They didn't have a good enough understanding of how this impacted other teams
[00:17:18] within supply chain or our ability to deliver or order or whatever it may be. And so we definitely
[00:17:26] went in with a targeted conversation around these fields while you touch them and you maintain them.
[00:17:36] These are all the other areas that need this same information. So if you're not following
[00:17:43] the standard, you could negatively impact teams A, B and C, ultimately potentially delaying our
[00:17:50] delivery, delaying our customer order. It's a domino effect, right? So I think once we
[00:17:58] had those conversations, you start to see a shift in behavior. So now what happens is when our
[00:18:08] category or brand team is looking at potentially changing a product, they loop us in from day one
[00:18:16] and say, here's what we're thinking. What do we need to consider to make this an effective
[00:18:24] process? What information do we need to make better business decisions? They're looping us in
[00:18:29] much earlier versus in the past, they would just go down the path of making that decision
[00:18:35] without looping us in. And then something ultimately fell apart and we'd had to backtrack and we
[00:18:42] ultimately fixed it and moved on, but it caused us an extra week's worth of work to go through that.
[00:18:50] So definitely seeing a shift in behavior and them pulling us in much sooner.
[00:18:57] And that really does is the result of the early wins, the doing smaller tests and proving values
[00:19:06] and ultimately building trust. I know sometimes the way you talk about it sometimes feel like
[00:19:13] you're a data referee in a lot of ways. I remember you telling us a story about
[00:19:20] the some differing opinions over the definition of net revenue. Is that something you feel comfortable
[00:19:29] like sort of sketching out what that sort of referee job was? Yeah, well I think that goes back to
[00:19:37] really one of the biggest cases that help drive our start into data governance because
[00:19:47] people viewed net revenue with different definitions, right? Like do I include X type of program or do I
[00:19:56] exclude it? So I think at the end of the day because people were not aligned on that definition,
[00:20:04] they were making potentially some bad business decisions because they weren't looking
[00:20:09] at an accurate number. And so I think that's one of the reasons we said we need to have this
[00:20:15] governance built up front. And so what we've done over the course of the several years is
[00:20:22] we have data stewards in place where when we are introducing a new calculation, new measure,
[00:20:30] new term, they put forth with what they think the definition or the calculation
[00:20:37] is and we review that across a couple different process areas and data stewards to make sure
[00:20:44] we have alignment there. And then that's what we load, we have a data dictionary where we have
[00:20:51] all of these terms and calculations loaded in. And people can, you know, after 10 years maybe
[00:20:59] someone wants to challenge that definition. Do it but we still have to get the right
[00:21:05] eye in, right? And make sure that that type of change is going to work within the organization.
[00:21:14] And we've definitely had some not with net revenue but we've had some scenarios where
[00:21:21] we have some reporting unit of measures where owned which are owned by the finance team.
[00:21:29] Over the course of several years they've made the decision we want to change the
[00:21:33] way we define this. And they own that definition but before we could all agree on moving forward
[00:21:40] with that new definition, we had to loop in warehouse, supply chain, IT, marketing, sales,
[00:21:49] pricing. We looped everyone in and said okay here is the opportunity and here's the value
[00:21:58] of doing this opportunity. And then let's talk through all the things we need to
[00:22:05] include to make sure this type of change is seamless within the organization. So anytime
[00:22:12] there is a recommended change like that, we always start with what's the opportunity,
[00:22:18] what's the problem statement and then what is the value associated with doing this
[00:22:23] type of change. Because if it's just to do it to do it then it's not worth all of the effort and cost
[00:22:30] associated to execute something like that. So we don't do anything without that initial conversation
[00:22:38] and then once we get through that, we start talking about okay from a systems perspective,
[00:22:44] process perspective, let's kind of run through everything to make sure we've captured
[00:22:51] everything we need to before we go pull the trigger on something like this.
[00:22:58] So with your referee cap still on, I have to ask about one of the most critical and yet sometimes
[00:23:07] fraught relationships in any sort of certainly omni channel business but actually anywhere
[00:23:13] I've ever been that's business and IT. And they are so reliant on each other but they
[00:23:25] individually are dealing with, they all want the same thing at the end of the day. They want
[00:23:30] the business to be successful, they want it to be as low risk as possible. There's a bunch of
[00:23:34] things they can align on but the day-to-day demands of what they oversee are just different.
[00:23:41] And so that can sometimes lead to differences in terms of how things should work to prioritize
[00:23:50] projects, to define what the rules are, to define speed and choice and all of that. And I was
[00:23:56] wondering what your team's role is in helping maybe kind of bridge some of those gaps or drive
[00:24:04] some of those arguments. Yeah, IT and the business that is a relationship that can't go sideways. You
[00:24:13] really have to work hand in hand for you really to accomplish that vision that you set forth for
[00:24:21] yourself. So I feel like for the most part that is something that has evolved with our data
[00:24:28] governance journey is a tighter relationship and coordination with our IT partners. But I would say
[00:24:36] it really improved when we implemented, we call it a community center of excellence
[00:24:47] with our business process and IT platform leads. So this was something that was a result of our
[00:24:55] ERP transformation project. We knew that we just invested five years, a lot of money. We wanted to
[00:25:03] make sure we continued to move this thing forward and not move backwards to where we were. So we
[00:25:09] wanted to implement roles within the organization that encourage that partnership and that knowledge
[00:25:16] share across the organization. So we implemented two roles like I said there's a business process
[00:25:24] lead and then there's an IT platform lead. So you would have like for data, I am the business
[00:25:30] process lead for our organization and then I have a counterpart in IT who is our IT platform
[00:25:37] lead. We are joined at the hip. We don't do anything without making sure the other is aligned.
[00:25:44] And so that for the for the most part has been we had a lot of that implemented, you know
[00:25:51] prior to our ERP transformation. But what changed is the community aspect of it. We are now connected
[00:26:01] as a community where we are working together to understand, you know, opportunities or lessons
[00:26:11] learned. And so as a community, we meet once a month and we will talk about strategic opportunities.
[00:26:20] So if someone is doing something, let's say with AI, and we want to understand, oh, how can I
[00:26:28] incorporate that? What can I learn from you that may have worked well or may not have worked well
[00:26:34] that I can incorporate maybe in my process area. So we focus on strategic initiatives as well as
[00:26:41] operational initiatives. I think the key thing, especially with data, is that you don't always
[00:26:50] know the impacts right of where that data is going. And so that's where the collaboration comes in.
[00:26:58] I now have a point of contact in every business process area and every business platform
[00:27:05] that I can reach out to. And they can be my eyes and ears for that process area, right? And so I think
[00:27:13] that just further enables that collaboration and that communication across the organization. So
[00:27:23] it just it keeps us more in sync. And it also keeps us informed when things are about like if
[00:27:32] process area is working on a enhancement, whether it be a process enhancement or a system enhancement,
[00:27:40] maybe it's something that will impact my area. They just didn't know. So the fact that we're meeting
[00:27:47] on an ongoing basis to review those enhancements or opportunities in the system
[00:27:54] allows me to provide some challenge or ask some questions. How is that going to impact me
[00:28:00] before we pull the trigger? So it's just another way to further promote that collaboration.
[00:28:08] And it sounds like much more of a to your point, like a collaborative approach versus a top down,
[00:28:14] like, hey, this is what IT is deciding and the business doesn't align with it. And you're
[00:28:18] actually going in together to make the decisions where I think that's sometimes where you see
[00:28:23] the rub between an IT and a business lead where it's more of a top down approach or
[00:28:28] submitting all of the efforts that we want and only getting to prioritize. So it seems like
[00:28:33] you're all marching towards the same goal ultimately as well. Yeah, and we moved well
[00:28:40] beyond where, you know, certain capabilities may have historically gone directly to IT to get
[00:28:47] something done. Whereas now we've pushed them to this business process lead, like it really
[00:28:54] should come from the business process lead with IT being your support capability,
[00:29:01] because we want to ensure we're having those conversations up front around value. What is
[00:29:08] the value in even doing something like this? And, you know, are we going to a road value
[00:29:15] because we're not talking with these other teams? And so that's really where it helps
[00:29:21] with that prioritization because, you know, we want to make sure we're working on the highest value
[00:29:27] opportunities. And so that's kind of the shift that we've made within our organization is
[00:29:34] really requested and just be going directly to IT. You know, if they want to get into a new
[00:29:41] marketing platform or implement a new PIM, we need to understand the business implications
[00:29:47] and the value that that brings to the organization first before we invest time and effort to go
[00:29:54] explore like how to execute something like that. And how does that work from a reporting structure?
[00:30:01] So having the business and IT working together, but are you reporting to different leaders?
[00:30:07] Like how does that work internally? Yeah, so we have we are definitely reporting into different
[00:30:12] leaders. So our IT organization is a corporate capability. It has a CPG kind of leader per se
[00:30:23] that they report into and then the business process leads report into the kind of appropriate
[00:30:32] business capability lead. And from there, we've actually instituted what we call a steering
[00:30:40] committee or a sponsor committee, which is something we had prior to our ERP transformation.
[00:30:48] We had during our ERP transformation and we have post. And I do believe it's one of the things
[00:30:55] that was in a role in us getting through an ERP transformation is having that leadership.
[00:31:02] But we have capability leads that we call our sponsor group along with the IT lead.
[00:31:09] And so they really are the steering committee that needs to review kind of big initiatives
[00:31:17] or to be kind of that extra referee when the business process leads our meeting on an initiative
[00:31:24] and say we can't get to an alignment. We bring that to the business, the CPG steering committee
[00:31:29] or the sponsors to help kind of talk through, you know, and gain that alignment. So that
[00:31:37] it really just promotes that we have the right support and leadership.
[00:31:43] But they're there when they need to be there, right? They've really kind of pushed
[00:31:49] the leadership and the execution down to the business process leads and the IT platform leads
[00:31:54] and really we're just kind of working with them on a quarterly cadence to make sure we have
[00:32:01] the right metrics and visibility into the work and in the effort and making sure we're kind of
[00:32:09] following our business priorities and our vision. But it's good knowing that we have that leadership.
[00:32:16] Well, Lindsay, you know, where you started was saying that this is in fact a journey
[00:32:24] that's been going on for 10 or 12 years. And it's really impressive and
[00:32:33] daunting to hear, you know, where you've come from and what you've created together with all
[00:32:40] of your business partners to create a process and organization structure with people
[00:32:46] putting it all together that actually is very clear now. You know, maybe for some organizations
[00:32:54] who are listening today like the structure you're describing is too big for them or something
[00:32:59] like that. But the philosophy behind it, the questions that you need to ask the
[00:33:04] answers that you need, who needs to work together is the same whether there are,
[00:33:09] you know, I don't know 100 people in your organization or however many these days
[00:33:14] are at Georgia Pacific. And so if you were talking with a
[00:33:21] appear at another organization who was kind of either rebuilding or building this function
[00:33:27] from scratch and wanted to save, I don't know, maybe five of the 10 years that you spent
[00:33:31] figuring all this out, what are like the top three things that you would
[00:33:37] tell them they ought to be sure about or thinking about to make to bring clarity
[00:33:44] to the to setting it up inside their organization. Yeah, I it's a tough one, but I would first start
[00:33:53] with just spending some time on establishing your vision and what you want to accomplish
[00:34:01] with something like this and establishing some operating principles. Because to me that is key
[00:34:10] to to implement something and just stay aligned right as an organization it gives you a chance
[00:34:20] to pull something out and say okay these are operating principles are we following that right
[00:34:25] and that's perfect example something we pulled together at the beginning of our ERP transformation
[00:34:33] and I can't tell you how many times as we were designing our business processes that we had to
[00:34:39] pull out those governance principles to say all right we're going to always reference master
[00:34:46] data from SAP no other system something as basic as that and so having those operating principles
[00:34:57] at the beginning or establishing them and communicating them so everyone is clear I think
[00:35:03] is key. I would say starting small right because it is very daunting to you know build out a
[00:35:13] data governance organization and you don't always know what is important right so you start small
[00:35:22] start with those handful of critical fields that you know drive a lot of your business process
[00:35:29] or drive your e-commerce process start there and establish ownership right clear ownership
[00:35:37] for who is going to maintain those fields and make sure that is clear within the organization
[00:35:45] and then over time that will just organically grow as you learn more of how things are connected
[00:35:53] within your system and then lastly again start small but building out that framework
[00:36:03] of you know ownership within the different processes right and I think you know establishing
[00:36:14] that IT and the business work hand in hand and that is key to success so if you can just set
[00:36:23] those expectations up front and where possible try to drive ownership I think that is going
[00:36:32] to be key because I know I would not do anything without my IT counterpart and I know she would
[00:36:40] say the same for me and just making sure you establish like good working relationships
[00:36:48] because that is how you are going to gain trust right and then build upon that like start small
[00:36:56] start in one process area see what works see what doesn't work and then once you kind of
[00:37:03] fine tune that then you can build upon that and expand into other process areas or other
[00:37:08] capabilities yeah I love how you talked about you sort of by having a contact that you know
[00:37:15] and you can trust and you know how to reach them I could almost hear like the relief and joy
[00:37:20] in your voice I almost felt like you were picturing them and you're in your in your head at the time
[00:37:24] like yeah these are the faces that I rely on to make all of this work and in Peter in all honesty
[00:37:31] they may not know the answer right but they at least they are my representative into that
[00:37:37] capability and they will help me go find the answer and I can't tell you in the past how
[00:37:44] daunting it was to just not even know who to reach out to right yeah I'm just like randomly calling
[00:37:50] people do you know anything about this and so it is such a relief to know I at least have that
[00:37:58] one point of contact and they will help me kind of guide through their capability to get whatever
[00:38:05] answer I need so it definitely saves a lot of time um and saves me a lot of stress as well
[00:38:12] Lindsay it's so funny that you say that because if I put my old brand hat on for a second when I was
[00:38:17] going through this transformation they called me the bat phone and just having someone to call
[00:38:23] made such a difference in any change to your point if you don't have the right answer
[00:38:28] if you don't know where to go it was still like a contact so for any brand listening whether it's
[00:38:34] data governance or e-commerce or anything having one person and having the whole organization
[00:38:40] know who to go go to for that just enables a more streamlined process so that people do feel
[00:38:47] heard and they feel like there's at least someone to go to to find a solution so it just made me laugh
[00:38:52] because that was like when I first got in my role they're like okay you're the bat phone I was like
[00:38:56] okay I'm not sure what that means but it worked out so well because it's just a source of truth
[00:39:01] to go to yeah absolutely well speaking of bat phones Lindsay has kindly volunteered her linked in
[00:39:09] at least as being available for for connections and I'm you know I'm sure your time is limited
[00:39:15] Lindsay but but it's a very generous thing that Lindsay's on LinkedIn just to I just want to make
[00:39:21] clear Lindsay Savage and Lindsay is LIND SAY and you can find her on LinkedIn and
[00:39:28] and we are so grateful for you coming here and sharing your work at Georgia Pacific and
[00:39:34] and your perspective and experience here it really does make a difference to our DSI community and
[00:39:39] we really appreciate it happy to be here and always love talking about you know how to further
[00:39:47] evolve um and you know move this journey even further than I don't like can't even imagine what's
[00:39:55] possible but love to talk with anyone else within you know going through the same hurdles and
[00:40:05] exercises and implementations love to connect thank you so much Lindsay thanks thanks again
[00:40:13] to Lindsay for joining the podcast she will be live in person at the digital shelf summit so be
[00:40:18] sure to book your tickets and track her down for more valuable nuggets info at digital shelf
[00:40:24] summit.com thanks for being part of our community