Kamil Chudziński from PepsiCo Poland on digital transformation, technology impact, and the role of leadership | The Dev is in the Details #20 | S02

Whoever is implementing a technology just for the sake of a technology, that's the best path for a failure. If you have the right people on the market, just let them do this. We had maybe like several champions. They knew what to do, they had an idea for the platform, they were having a tremendous result.

All I could do on this market is to break what they achieved. Digital transformation cannot be done without IT. But I also believe that the transformation piece should be rather with people who deeply understand those people who the transformation will impact. Digital transformation rarely fails because of technology.

It fails when leadership avoids clarity, accountability, and hard decisions. Organisations invest in platforms and frameworks, yet progress stalls. Legacy systems remain untouched and teams lose momentum. When this happens, the problem is not the tech stack.

It is how the transformation is led. I'm Lukasz, and this is the Dev is in the Details, a podcast about technology, leadership, and execution told honestly. My guest today is Kamil Chudzinski, who leads digital transformation at PepsiCo Poland. Kamil has led complex transformation initiatives within global organisation, and today we will discuss what leaders must do differently to turn strategy into real results.

Kamil, welcome to the show. Welcome. Thank you for having me here. It's a great pleasure to share my experience from actually several different global companies where I had opportunity to work with different transformational projects, not only digital, but different transformational projects.

Fantastic. Do you want to tell us a little bit more about yourself and that past experiences before we even start with questions? Definitely, definitely. I live in Warsaw , born here as well, which is not a typical for Warsaw.

In Warsaw, everyone from somewhere else , comes from somewhere else in Poland, but born and raised in Poland, in Warsaw, Poland. I have 20 years of experience in global FMCG companies: Procter & Gamble, Colgate Palm olive, Philip Morris International, and currently PepsiCo. And over these 20 years, I have been working in four different functional areas. So I was gathering an experience on different projects, different transformations, and different changes in a completely different environment from factories to sales teams, where I actually put the most attention currently.

Oh wow, that's brilliant. So it's mostly about the processes or technology then or the intermix. I think the world is proving that the technology is not the main challenge currently. Actually, the technology is everywhere, and with the right finding the right vendor is currently easy.

We have a brilliant people creating a great technology, and I think the moment when I realized it's not about the technology when I was working in Philip Morris in a global team, where I was globally responsible for a B2B platform, so we had the same technology available for all the markets around the world. At that moment, we had around 65 markets live when I was there, and actually only half of them were having good results. Okay. Around one-third of them were having very good results, and the rest were struggling.

So when and I think this was my aha moment when I started to deeply understand that it's no longer about technology. So imagine a company where 65 markets all have the same tech. Right. The same brilliant application, but the way how they use it, the way how they do the change management was actually a game changer.

So we had markets very unobvious, like Algeria, which was absolutely brilliant, and we had markets which should be super digitalized, like UK, and were struggling with having an efficient B2B platform. Oh wow. So then, I started to realize that this is much more about people, about process of change management, about engagement, and all that we call holistically as a change management. My initial thought when I hear this is that main principles will probably be about cultural differences and challenges for applying the same tooling in different geos, but also incentives.

Am I on the right path here? I think this is always a combination of several different things. And I think it's a bit different for the B2C and B2B. Where I was mainly working, is a B2B environment.

An FMCG B2B environment is usually a large pool of people having contact with the customers. Imagine , I don't know, Poland or Turkey, where you have over 100,000 stores selling your goods. Not bad. And you have a large field force who is working with those customers, right?

So you need to have a good plan how to make the transformation of a customer being three, four, five layers from people who are actually having a direct impact on this transformation, right? So I think when I look at this, incentives is one of the elements, but I think it all starts from a pragmatic and actually valuable plan on what I want to achieve with a certain technology or certain change. We need to have a good strategy why this tool is really needed. So my experience is that whoever is implementing a technology just for the sake of a technology, if it's an image recognition, if it's a B2B platform, if it's any other tool, this is the best path for a failure.

So playing around, you know, having some system because a global team said we need to implement it. If you hear something like that from a senior person, it's kind of a first indication that something might go wrong. Okay, so if the motivation is that the global team wants us to implement something, this is not a good strategy to implement something, right? So I think it all starts with an idea of why we need this particular solution and what's in it for everyone, right?

Got it. Just wanted to bring it to the one-level app so I understand because it's very vague to me at the moment. So you have a business need, specific business scenario, right? Whatever it is, we don't have to deep dive into that level of detail.

And then there's an idea how to improve some sort of KPI on a specific geo or global scale. And based on this, people design the process, and for the process and those KPI improvements, they choose tools, get a buy-in, and then they implement. Is that the right order? Or if you could just walk through this kind of thinking?

My experience in global companies is actually two paths. So one is your path. So we have some need, we see an opportunity. And I think building on an example is a good thing to do, right?

Normally in FMCG, every company has something around how the store should look like. So we have a field force, a field force sales reps in every market, literally. They go to a store, they have a standard of how the store should look like, called perfect store, picture of success, whatever, whatever is the name. Let's call it a picture of success.

So a sales reps comes, he has a picture of success. So a list of information on how he should put the products, merchandise them, and so on and so forth. And then traditionally, it was reported through some kind of a survey. So there was a question: do you have a planogram in place?

Right? And then based on this, there was a reporting and there was an information and decisions were made. One of the ways how to improve the quality of the data is to introduce image recognition. So this is an example where a concrete need to improve the data, to have wider range of data, to have non-biased data is a great need, right?

If you can improve your data, that's always a good initiative. Absolutely. And then one of the ways, one of the ways to do that is to implement an image recognition. So instead of coming with some kind of manual survey, they are making pictures of the products and the tools are recognizing certain patterns and reporting is automated.

So this is a type of the change which comes directly from the need of the business. So a business leader, whoever that is, original sales manager, director sales, GM, whoever that is, says I need to improve the accuracy of the reporting of the what is happening in the stores. That's I would say a business need change. And he usually it's better because then what's in it for me is already there, right?

So I know why I need it. Okay. But and the person who runs the store is the same, what's their relationship to that business, local business representative, just to understand where the incentives are lying or what's in it for them for on the store floor to do extra effort or extra steps to get this data. At this moment, stores usually are not involved.

We talk about internal field force. Ah, I see. Okay, right. So in this in this context, we say the internal field force is creating a report, how the products are looking in the store.

Right? So this is more an internal internal data, right? We will talk what's in it for me when we will be constructing the programs for the retailers, because they also need to have a concrete benefits when it comes to anything we ask them to do for us, right? If we are a separate company.

Yeah, I'm I'm very curious about this part. We will be there in a second. But let me finish on that. So this is the first type of change which I have experienced.

So business has a need, they have a first idea how to improve something, and then it goes to the execution, IT supports, they come up with the image recognition tool, and then this is much easier. The second type of change in the global corporations are those which are part of a global strategy. So we have a global strategy that someone should use an XYZ system, and all markets should be using it, and then it's a top-down led, an initiative led from the top to the bottom, and it's kind of a need identified by someone very far away, and it's a part of a global strategy, and then it's much more about benefits are kind of given.

Someone in a global team has figured out that this system will provide these benefits, so this is then becomes much more about the convincing people that this is something that they really need, and usually the struggle is when people start to see these type of initiatives as contradictive to their prioritization. Yeah. So let's take the same example, right? So the business said my data from stores is good enough, and then the global say we need to have a standardized single tool, seamless data, and everyone should be using this system.

Then it becomes, you know, like I need to do this instead of my priorities. Yeah. And this is type of thinking which is , I think, one of the big struggles when whenever anyone gets into that kind of thinking, you know. So I think it's those are two completely different changes.

They need a different management of the change and they need a different approach. And I think both can be very successful, they just need to be managed very differently, right? In the second case, the friction is in a place where how the local, let's say, business unit receives that I don't know, command and request to do it, right? Okay, not at the top, right?

Usually, yes. If we are talking about changes for field force or key account managers or retailers, this is always super local. No one in the regional office or no one in the headquarters will have anything to do with sales representatives in Poland, Turkey, or Mexico. They directly cannot have them and have any contact with them, right?

So then the entire case building is around engagement and around you know a proper introduction of the initiative. And usually my experience is that the global provides the benefits on a high level. So what's in it for a company, right? So let's take let's continue with the image recognition example, right?

Okay, okay. The global team said we need to implement image recognition to improve the data so that everyone in a global can compare markets between them, can find the places where we need to invest more, and so on and so forth. Right, those benefits are for a region. True, yes.

Where and the people who are using it are sales reps, and they are worried not about the region making the good allocation of the billions of dollars, they are worried about how to pay their mortgage fee, you know, and this is so far away. Yes, exactly. And in reality, this program success relies on the sales reps buy-in. Totally.

Yeah. So this is why the local structures in any global initiatives when it comes to digitalization or when it comes to digital transformation is so important. Got it. When global makes this decision, do they use the same KPIs for everyone?

So, what I mean is if you have some physical product, be it a drink or some other consumable, I would imagine that local culture specific behaviors would mean different types of cells, not only because of how good the sales reps are, but because of what the local culture for consuming this kind of products locally is. So, you know, Polish are obviously known for drinking a lot of alcohol, right? So well, that's a stereotype, but just to dwell on this, while for example, effer acid would probably be spirits, right?

Well, for Germans it's probably more beer when it comes to alcoholic beverage. So selling vodka in Poland before the current regulations, which forbid to advertise it, was probably much easier than doing the same in Germany, and vice versa, right? Selling beer in Germany would probably be easier than selling beer in Poland. I know I'm overly simplifying here, by the way, totally a lot.

But just to understand would the both sales teams for the same product, let it be beer, have the same KPI in both countries, just to compare to each other, or the aim is something else? Never seen anything like this. So my experience is that KPIs usually have same or similar algorithm, how to calculate it. Okay.

But it's very rare to have the same level of KPI. Let's take an example of the of the global of the let's say distribution, right? Like you said, and new product distribution, there is new product coming in, right? And then if you have a market like Germany, where 80 to 90 percent of sales is through chains, then building 80 to 90 percent of distribution requires a negotiation with 10 companies, with 10 clients, customers, right?

Yeah. If you have Turkey, where 90% of sales for many categories is traditional trade, then you need to physically visit and convince 90% of the retailers to have the same results, it cannot be achieved within the same time frame. There are completely different challenges. So usually this is like this is benchmarked locally.

The same comes actually for a digital transformation, right? If you have markets which are highly structured, it's easier and more difficult at the same time to make dig to introduce digital tools for customers. Right. And so usually from my experience, at least when I was running a global B2B platform, and my experience is that it's good to use the same algorithm or a similar algorithm based on the market situation and market possible outcomes rather than using the same KPI.

One concrete example, I remember when we were implementing B2B platform globally for Germany, I mean it's not possible to have this type of platform in any discount chain. And when this is 50% of your sales, like your unaccessible universe is 50%. So they cannot have a target of 50% of engagement. Because from the start we know they will fail, right?

So we need to find the methodology to make it challenging for everyone and ambitious, but using some ground rules. And then sometimes it's easier to work with the highly chain, highly organized markets. Sometimes it's more difficult. If you work with digital platform with a customer and you go to Poland and you go and you talk with Żapka, and they agree so that all the stores use your platform.

Boom, from one day to the other, you have 12,000 stores using your application, right? Yeah. It's easy, but it's also very difficult, right? Convincing such a huge customer to use your app, they really need to put the concrete benefits for that out of this, right?

So it makes it easier, it makes it at the same time more difficult. So it is very dependent. And I think this is also why digital transformation is so difficult because it requires a lot of agility. Because it's very different from one program to the other.

For some programs, some things help. For some programs, some things actually work as a blockers. Like I said, for Germany, the high organized trade in this context channel, right? Some things are possible within this context.

And when executed, you have half of the market immediately covered. Some things are just not possible over there. So half of the market will never be you know covered. Okay, thank you for this.

That explains a lot to me how they differ on the local level. And I think I was missing this, and that is very apparent to me now. So with that in mind, how can you simulate or how can you mock the specific scenario, virtualise it, to try things without like do you really need to have expertise in every single local market and all of the caveats of the deploying to that market before you can actually do the digital transformation, or is it more business transformation, or is it more about having more abstract tools on a meta-level where you can simulate certain things and predict the outcomes first?

I think again, differently in different areas. I think for B2C, many companies are very successful running globally or global service centers for things like search adding optimizers and elements around this. Because they're , you base on the concrete behaviors, you base on this. My experience is that in B2B transformation the differences between local markets are huge, and you always need at least 20 to 30 percent of the local involvement.

Because it's very difficult to create a one scheme that will work for everyone. I've seen in one of my companies, I mean many companies are doing kind of an archetype approach, right? So you got TT markets, which has the one archetype, you got organized trade markets where you have a second archetype and so on and so forth. This works better, but still it does not , it's very difficult to fix like 100% of things, right?

So, my experience is that if you have the right people on the market, just let them do this. If you have a people who need more guidance, you need to guide them more. So, I remember when I was running a global platform, we had really like several champions. They didn't need anything from us, they were just amazing, you know.

Like they knew what to do, they had an idea for the platform, they engaged the field force, and they were having a tremendous results. All I could do on this market is to break what they achieved. Like really, I could only make it worse because I didn't have enough knowledge about the local particular situation with sales reps, with sales structure, with store structure, and so on and so forth. Right?

All I could do is to listen what they need and trying to implement it in a global technical solution. Okay. There were markets which were kind of asking how others are doing, how what we can learn from others, and those are usually open very for the best practices, and this is where the global team can usually help a lot to build the best practices book, to build a guidance for those type of markets, and the third type of markets are the markets which think that they know everything, but they just don't believe this is the hardest part, you know.

Like I know what to do, don't help me, but they then you see no progress, no progress, no progress, no progress. So this is also the case sometimes, you know. So then it's these are the most difficult ones to cope with. And as a transformation expert, you work with a global to identify these subtypes and decide where to help, where we can learn actually from local to global best practices.

I did this in my global role. Currently I work in a local team, so my role is a bit different now. I actually am the guy who sells the ideas, who create like what we need, create the roadmap, build this, what's in it for me, for all the people around the change, right? So when we are implementing a change, we are trying to build why and what's in it for a specific person.

So we have several what's in it for me for sales rep presentative for regional for regional sales manager. So I'm currently leading a very holistic digital transformation, but I do it within the local team. So we are actually right now, we are the ones who provide the best practices to the global team. So we are very happy to share our experiences, how we did certain elements, and this is how we are trying to be to help the global team and the other markets to progress faster and better in digital transformation.

How do you at a global level consolidate various different inputs? If, for example, you're receiving conflicting inputs, right? Let's say you have one geography and second geography, right? And they are doing exactly the opposite thing, and both of them it works perfectly.

How do you then at the global decide, okay, for this new market or for the third market, where we have, I don't know, some sort of struggles, we want to try this one instead of the other one, even if both of them work. How does that happen? And actually this couldn't be more true what you say, and this also proves what I said at the very beginning, right? So that it's not about the technology.

Actually, you can use it in two completely different ways, right? So and both ways can be successful. Yeah. It depends on what you need from the tool, how you will use it, and then what benefits do you expect.

And I think it's always understanding which business case feels better than someone who is asking for help. There is no golden rule, and I think this is why you know I just recently seen a Deloitte research which was in line with McKinsey research that around 80% of digital transformations fail. And I think this is one of the reasons, because it requires enormous agility. There is no one -size -fits-all or one approach which will be good for everyone.

And I think it's much more about really showing people what they will gain through certain technology or certain change, and what they will have out of that as an individual, you know, not only as a company. The company benefits are not enough. And let me give you a very concrete example, which is like number one blocker for B2B platforms for retailers in the FMCG sector. Let's imagine we both are sales reps working for any FMCG company in Poland, right?

And for the last 10 years, our main job is to visit the store and show the products are there, and our main point of the visit is to create an order with the retailer. So our job is around ordering, right? And then the company comes and says, we are introducing the new platform. The platform will replace the need for ordering from sales reps because retailers will do it by themselves.

Yeah. So here we are 10 years, we were doing ordering. Now they say the ordering will be automated. Yeah, or kind of done by retailer, right?

Okay. Normally, I would think that they will fire me. I don't know how about you, but my first impression would be... Fear is the natural reaction to this.

Absolutely, yeah. Yeah, exactly. So imagine that we are both afraid that we will lose a job. So we will not be engaged enough.

They might sell hundreds of benefits for a company, but if I don't feel that this platform will help me to achieve my things and will help me to do things better for me, it will be very difficult for me to drive it. Absolutely. And I think we underestimate the power of the sales reps. The average time of a sales rep is five to ten years in a company, in a single company, in Poland, right?

I don't know other markets, I think it's even longer in other markets, but in Poland it's five to ten years. So if I am visiting a retailer for five years, every week. Yeah, we have a relationship. I seen the retailer 250 times exactly, right?

So if I come and say, look, we have a new platform. Please make an order because I need you to make an order. It's my KPI, but please do not order on your own because they will fire me. Even if you don't like me, you will not want a big fat company to fire this poor guy, right?

So you will be ordering this, but you will not be ordering this by yourself. You will be ordering it because someone asked you to do that. It's very difficult in such an environment to create an autonomous usage of the platform and really create an environment where the retailers like the platform, and they really are using it because they like it, because they see benefits. That's why when we are introducing any change in our market in Poland in PepsiCo, we are creating this what's in it for me for each function, right?

So we tell sales reps what will be your benefits, how you will gain from this platform, right? And this is what helps to break through the fear and change the anxiety into a positive energy on how I can gain something out of it. Even if we start to, even if we are able only to make people think about positives, it's already a step forward, you know. So then positive attitude is absolutely a breakthrough in any change.

Rather, we were implementing the cashless solutions, so mobile payments, or we were implementing , you know, like a B2B platform or image recognition or any other tool, it's very important to create this positive attitude, this engagement, and it cannot, I mean, 100% people will not buy in on a day one. This is impossible, right? But at least making everyone think slightly positively about what's coming, that's already a first step, right? Yeah, totally.

And for this scenario, how would you recommend we do it? You would offer training for people and explain to them that the platform will be the orders will now happen automatically by the store owner or operator in the store level while I still get my commission, and I can actually spend more time with the family or open new stores, which even increases my chances of growing my commission. I think this is 100% context-based. Okay, so how the market is constructed, how the situation looks like, what are the tasks and how you, so I mean it all starts with a good preparation, right?

So I think first thing anyone needs to answer is how much time I will release from my field force. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. If this platform, when it achieves its goals, releases 25% of the time of the field force, then immediately I need to create a plan how I will utilize this.

Right, what I will do with this time, Or people are being let go. Will I invest in can be, but you know, like hiding it doesn't make people think, right? So when we will not say openly how we will utilize this time, this will open only a rumor-based and rumors are very rarely positive, right? Have you seen the positive rumors?

No, no, no, no. Of course, you have to drive this context, yeah. Exactly. So then you need to be very open and to say, okay.

I don't want to get into details of any numbers concretely right now. But out of the blue numbers, let's say we the platform should give us 25% of field force time release. How we will utilize it? Will we invest more in a bigger source?

That the visit is no longer one hour but two hours to be able to take care of the product on in a free space, to have a discussion about additional locations, whatever it is, right? So we will invest it in a quality, or will we invest it in visiting more stores, right? So we are visiting now 20,000 stores, maybe we want to start visiting 30,000 stores. It's very context-based, but I think it's at the preparation stage of any digital change, we need to make some assumptions on what will be the benefits and how we will use this benefit.

And I think it's a paramount importance of communicating as much as we can into people who otherwise will create their own imagination what will happen, and usually it will not be positive. And that's an interesting one, right? Because at a C-level, the immediate benefit you see is shifting your EBIDA, right? If you have 25% release of your field force, as you call them.

But that's not meaningful to anyone below the C -level. That's only what investor shareholders and the C- level cares for. And actually for people who are executing the transformation, because they will be executing the transformation, this is a big threat. This is a fear, right?

Exactly. But help me understand. So there are two extremes. One is we know we're gonna optimise the EBIDA so whenever the automation happens in any sort, we will actually let go to 25% of workforce in that field to actually save costs and increase our inner profits.

On the other hand, we have option that this is an investment, so not only we pay for the platform, but we keep everyone on payroll so we can continue expansion. That's another extreme. And there's something in between where we will let go some people and will maybe invest in some other people. How do you , as a person responsible for transformation, how do you know where does the C -level stand with their expectations and needs first?

Well, usually you negotiate a business case, right? So when you want to invest, when you want to launch something, when you impact the ways of working in a company, you need to discuss the business case and align it, right? So this is the moment where certain discussions should happen. Let me also be very open.

I don't know a single company in Poland, I also don't know a single market in my global experience which actually utilized vast majority of the savings into productivity. Yeah. Actually, my experience is that corporations productivity is super important, but growth is usually the same or even more important. When we are constructing a business cases for any of my programs, we are always trying to show three separate buckets.

First, we look at the growth. How much extra revenue, how much extra growth benefits we can generate. The second bucket is productivities, but a hard productivities which are non-debatable, for example, a savings on a paper or a printout. Got it.

We made a brilliant program in PepsiCo, Poland, where we eliminated paper from any deliveries within Poland. We saved 400 trees just in 2025 out of this. So imagine how much paper that is. So this is type of productivities we have, right?

Right. Okay. And then the third bucket is the time equivalent of efficiency in time in workload equivalent, right? So we're trying to see how much workload within the company, within certain group of people we will generate.

So I learned that this approach of growth productivities and time release is actually very optimal, because then it helps to understand how much it will benefit me in terms of growth, productivity, and then it gives me a bucket to think and it gives and it opens a discussion on what is the most optimal way to use this time, right? If we are releasing a one hour of time of sales reps, how we will utilize it. Like I said, will they visit more stores? Will they invest in bigger stores?

Will they invest in whatever, right? This type of approach to business cases in digital transformation, I found extremely efficient because it does really make people think about what will be the next steps. And this is very important to do, right? This helps us to prepare what we will do it, it helps us to communicate it, it helps us to manage it.

Even if we are not communicating it, it helps us to manage it in advance, right? Sometimes it will be require re-qualification, so then we need to schedule you know, trainings, and all of this, right? If we release 50% of time of the accounting team, maybe we have actually several areas which we never have time to handle. So maybe we reinvest 25% of that time into I don't know, whatever there is.

So I think that is a lot of different things, and to be very honest, I think it's extremely rare. I cannot remember any single initiative where all the time saved was utilized as productivity. Usually it's a mix or fully in a growth. That's usually the approach.

So I would imagine, for example, when you have a situation like private equity is burning its portfolio and acquires one of these companies, then someone like yourself would come in to optimise it before they can IPO the entire portfolio or something. Is that a solid use case for EBIDA optimisation for? I think it might happen. I never had a personally opportunity to work with a private equity or was never working in a company which was took over by a private equity.

But it is usually a good way to approach, right? So automation is one of the fortunately or not, one of the most efficient ways to do certain elements. You know, like even simple things, translation of the presentation. It used to, it was usually taking hours, right?

Today with Copilot or any other AI tool, you can do it in one minute. Totally, yeah. Like here you go. I mean, like so you know, like the technology gives us an enormous opportunity for optimizing our processes, but it requires a lot of proper change management and thinking on how we will utilize this, how we will use this time which is freed up.

And I think those are managerial and leadership decisions which are a part of the digital transformation, and this is the responsibility that everyone who do digital transformation must carry with him. Fantastic. And walk me through the time frame of the entirety process from day one when I guess you start, right? You come in and you evaluate the situation, negotiate with stakeholders.

And the second part of my question is do you build a team? Do you bring the team with you? Do you actually somehow convert existing team members in this organisation to help you with that digital transformation? And how does that process look like?

So both time frame and who we is in all of the statements that you made. Different experiences which I had. I had an opportunity to go into a team which was already in the middle of transformation. I was nominated as a leader of the transformation from day one, and I think the the model which I enjoyed the most is what happened in PepsiCo where I came with kind of an idea to improve the digitalization of the market.

So I was starting from kind of a blank page. There was directions, there was ideas, but I could really drive it almost from the bottom on how to create the priorities, how the roadmap should look like, how the strategies... Full ownership. And it took around six months to analyze the situation, analyze where we are, what could be the possible big bets or whatever we call it, like the most important projects.

I think this is a long project. For me, what made it fast or much faster was that I knew Polish market very well. Sure. And I knew the FMCG sector, right?

So depending where you come from, what are you analyzing, it might take quite longer. But I think six months was the time for me to create it and get an approval from the company to that this is the direction we want to go. And then, once the direction is there, there is a team building. Usually it cannot be you know by a single person.

So we're building team, establishing team, and then actually we started fully work as a team at the beginning of 2024. So 2023 was strategy alignment, approvals, and team building. Okay. And then usually you need the time for the technology discussions, for the detailed preparation, for change management planning, and multiple other aspects.

So for PepsiCo Poland, 2023 was a year of preparation, approvals, and team building. 2024 was a preparation of the tools and change management strategy. And 2025 was a year of really delivering the products. So literally like every quarter, we had at least one or two major program releases.

It went it already started Q4 2024, and then throughout the Q5. So then we had a very strong year in terms of releasing new strategies and new digital tools, and now 2026 is a year of pure value extraction. So right now we have no notion of this adoption stuff and all of this. So although we already have delivered 100% of our business cases, because literally I'm super proud of it, but we delivered 100% of our projects.

Fantastic. 50% of them are over delivered on their objectives. And then , this year is when we have all of that we covered, we delivered what we were expecting or what we were hoping in some cases. Right now we are focusing on extracting the value, extracting the growth.

Because I must tell you, it was not from the very beginning, but when we started to calculate the business cases, and in Poland we created it within four strategic direction frames. We had paperless initiative, when we wanted to eliminate completely paper from any commercial activities. We are very close to do that. Okay.

We had cashless, when we wanted to eliminate cash from our operations with customers. We had B2B platform for the customers, and we had the last strategy which is self-service and field automation. Image recognition is an example of the last bucket project. And actually, when we look at the collective gains and collective benefits from each strategy, it might seem at the beginning it seemed impossible, but in every single one, the growth part was larger than the productivity bar.

So and this also helped me to realize that actually, and this is what I say for a very long time: digital transformation, like the number one priority for digital transformation should be the growth. And it is really possible, even if we have programs which should eliminate paper from deliveries, we need to build it in a way that we will also be able to contribute to the growth. So by being faster, by being more efficient with the customers, how you will utilize it to drive certain elements forward.

This is the type of thinking I have and we have with my entire team. And maybe one also quite important mention to make digital transformation is not possible without IT. We have a great IT support, we have our colleagues from IT, but neither me or not a single person in my team is IT person. Because when we talk about digital transformation, the transformation is actually the tricky part, what we were discussing throughout the entire episode.

And to manage the transformation, we selected people who know the sales, the commercial part back and forth. So my team who is running digital transformation is previous channel manager in sales, amazing organized trade lead a key account. I have a person who was a business analyst working with the commercial systems and business analytics. Because these people, it's actually much easier to learn how to do a Scrum or how to do, I don't know, UAT than it is to know how this sales representative job looks like and what are his daily struggles.

Because you need to know these nuances to be able to create a credible what's in it for me, which will be really delivered within the language that those people speak on a daily basis. And that's why the team is not technical. We are not super at technical. We needed to learn a lot to get the basic level, but beyond that, we have our wonderful colleagues from IT who are helping us in really delivering the technology we we discussed.

We need so it's a separate, I think it's even a bit separate things that need to happen, right? So digital transformation cannot be done without IT, and they are absolutely like hand-in-hand partners. But I also believe that the transformation piece should be rather with people who deeply understand those people who the transformation will impact and their daily job and their daily duties rather than people who understand the technology. That's fantastic.

And Kamil, last question on this. The IT team was always there, right? That's an internal resource. Yes, from the very beginning, from day one, they were always there.

They we were co-shaping and co-creating the strategy. We were discussing on technology, but they always had the last say on the technology. I always had the last say on how we will use the technology. And I think in our case, this this came up to be a very brilliant mix.

And I think this was one of the critical elements of success which we have in published markets. Fantastic. That's amazing. Kamil, thank you for sharing your experience and your very practical perspective.

What really stands out is that successful digital transformation is less about heroic technology choices and more about everyday leadership decisions, accountability, and expertise on a contextual level with those local experts that you mentioned. Thank you for joining us today, Kamil. Thank you so much. It was a pleasure.

Looking forward to further endeavors. To everyone listening, thank you for joining us and The Dev is in the Details episode. If this conversation resonated with you, remember to subscribe and share the episode with someone who is leading or supporting transformation today. If your organisation is facing installed initiatives, legacy constraints, or leadership challenges in digital transformation, feel free to reach out.

The details for me and Kamil will be in the footnotes of this episode. Thanks for listening and see you in the next episode.