Fossil Group

Marcela Gutierrez has worked in analytics and e-commerce for 18 years. As the head of global digital analytics, she excels in understanding business needs. She has built global teams and trained on diverse topics ranging from cross-cultural communication to the nuances of data visualization, and the intricacies of A/B testing, etc. She fosters learning environments and is known for over-delivering on expectations.

Through this article, Marcela Gutierrez emphasizes the importance of carving your own career path by identifying your strengths and passions. She highlights creativity and proactivity as critical to success, advocating for bringing well-thought-out solutions to the table. Gutierrez also outlines three key retail trends: personalization, AI integration and seamless automation, which are reshaping the industry. She underscores the challenges in managing data overload and ensuring ethical responsibility in data collection.

Carving a Path in the Industry

I’ve learned the importance of paving your own way. You have to be intentional in noticing what you are good at and what you enjoy doing. I have found this to be extremely valuable. I enjoy working with data, researching, finding insights, teaching and presenting in a simplified and entertaining fashion. This led me to pursue a career with IBM and then with Fossil. 

“We must do more with less when it comes to data. The question isn’t just about what we can collect, but whether we should.”

It requires creativity to create opportunities. If you come to your boss with a well-thought-out proposal, it’s hard to turn down. There is a significant difference between people who come up with problems and people who come up with solutions. I try my hardest to be the latter. I am obsessed with learning, and my current role fits like a glove. My team and I learn about topics impacting our consumers and the ever-changing industry through experimentation and research.

The Game-Changing Trends in Retail

I see three significant trends:

Personalization: It will soon be normal to tailor experiences based on where in the customer journey someone is (awareness, consideration, purchase, post-purchase), based on customer interest (categories or products), based on individual shopping tendencies (price sensitive, technical specs, socially influenced). This is done by understanding the consumer and anticipating their needs.

The Role of AI: We are at a pivotal time figuring out how to make the most of AI and its role within our industry. I see many retailers, including us, testing the waters and starting to see many benefits. AI shows excellent value in the speed and quality in which content can be generated. I think this will develop more in behavioral psychology, understanding the triggers that signal a true interest in a purchase and how to reach that stage quickly and effectively.

Seamless Automation: Most of us are channel agnostic without realizing it. Our store visit does not differentiate our experience with a brand, the marketing received or the marketplaces viewed. This will continue to get more attention as we try to seamlessly offer consumers the brand regardless of channel, device or location. Examples are “Buy online, pick up in store,” QR codes or integrating digital technology into physical stores. This will grow, and I’m excited to see more developments in this area.

Mastering the Art of Using Data

There are two main challenges: 

Data Overload: The amount of data we collect and have access to has grown tremendously. It’s too easy to get lost and confused over the truth and to know what to focus on. Teams with different agendas can look at the same data and develop various stories. It helps to have an unbiased analytics team trained on suitable methods to find root issues and outstanding insight. 

Ethical Responsibility: Data privacy has become a big topic and should be even bigger. I love the idea of doing more with less. What is the minimal data you need to collect from your customer to do the most? We should not acquire customer data and pass that information to partners just because we can. There is a bigger question we should constantly ask: just because you can, should you? Data is power, and I believe more laws are needed to regulate data access, transfer and use. 

The Tech Secrets Behind the Success

For our A/B testing, we went through a robust RFP (request for proposal) process to select the right vendor. The process involved internal stakeholders from different departments, including IT, Legal, E-commerce, UX, Project Management and Analytics. We invited around ten vendors to participate. The process considers different aspects, including price, contract details, legal requirements, implementation efforts, upkeep efforts, levels of support, user access, etc. To our surprise, Kameleoon beat some big names in the industry. We have been using Kameleoon for over a year and have been pleased with them thus far. 

As our main analytics platform, we use GA4. Like all Google Analytics clients, we were forced to migrate earlier this year and to be honest, I am very disappointed in how Google handled this migration. The tool is yet to be what Google promised it would be.  We use content square heavily. We are long-term clients, and I love the technology they offer. We use heat maps, track customer journeys, see where people click most and watch session replays to understand our customers better. 

Other vendors worth mentioning are Tangiblee, SFCC, Emplifi, Metrical and Wunderkind.

Lessons for Retail Innovators

The best advice is to never tire of learning, read and challenge yourself to think bigger. Follow industry leaders, go to conferences, read blogs and anything that presents new or old ideas in new ways.  There also seems to be this idea that you need the best and most expensive technology, but the truth is that you should outgrow your tools. You can do much with what you have if you learn to use it to its full potential and beyond. 

Lastly, surround yourself with a stellar team and people you admire and can learn from. I work with intelligent people every day. My closest friends are people I admire and look up to for different reasons. Having a circle of people you respect pushes you to grow.