E219 Kolja Dobrindt, VP and Global Head of Analytics at Lidl

Today's guest is Kolja Dobrindt, VP and Global Head of Analytics at Lidl International in Germany. Kolja is responsible for the end-to-end analytics capability of a $100 billion+, 11,000 store, 32 country organization, ranging from decentralized self-service capabilities to large-scale, operational data products. Lidl are on a mission to build an operational analytics capability from vision and strategy, from hiring the right talent of experts and leaders to defining the organizational and technical framework to deliver data-driven solutions.

Kolja has gained broad exposure to the IT and retail industries as well as digital transformation, strategy and project, and program management. He works hand-in-hand with the board and senior executives at Lidl to build a project portfolio of over 20 initiatives with millions in realized benefits already delivered to date. He is also collaborating across business functions and IT to establish a common vision and roadmap to develop broad organizational data and analytics capabilities beyond the core team.

In the episode, Kolja will discuss:

Interesting projects the Analytics team are working on at Lidl,

The key to understanding the problem you are solving,

Challenges they need to overcome to achieve success,

How the pandemic has changed customer behaviour in retail,

The success of their Loyalty app, 

Upcoming projects and what the future has in store