Wesfarmers OneDigital Enables Secure, Efficient Data Sharing and Collaboration

Hi, everyone. I'm Rosemary Dearagon, the Global Head of Industry at Snowflake for Retail and Consumer Products. I'm here today with Nicole Sheffield from Wesfarmers. Nicole, nice to be here with you today.

Nice to be here, Rosemary. 

Could you give an introduction to yourself, your role, what you're working on? And yeah, that would be great to start. 

OK, great. Well, my name is Nicole Sheffield, Managing Director of Wesfarmers One Digital, which is a new division that launched earlier this year. But it brings together our Data Asset One data, which is our shared data asset across our Wesfarmers businesses. So we're a conglomerate, so that is across our retail divisions and our other businesses. It brings together OnePass, which is our subscription program, which is a subscription program that offers free delivery and different benefits for customers. And it also includes catch.com.au, which is a marketplace that reaches 3 million Australians every month. 

Oh, wow, that's amazing. For our audience, that might be global. Can you give a background into Wesfarmers, as I understand it, to be kind of the largest or one of the largest conglomerates in Australia? Just a quick background into the company or the subsidiaries as well would be very helpful. 

Yeah, sure. So Wesfarmers is an amazing organization. It's nearly 110 years old. It started off as a Western Australian farmers co-operative, hence Wesfarmers, and it went on the stock exchange, the Australian Stock Exchange in 1986 from memory. So it houses some amazing businesses, things like Bunnings, Kmart, Target, Catch. We just acquired earlier this year API, Australian Pharmacy Industries. So that includes Priceline, Healthcare, Officeworks. And then we also have a number of mining businesses. So WesCEF, which is in lithium. It is a conglomerate, it is a top 10 ASX listed company in Australia. And IT services over 13 million Australians every month.

That is amazing and I'm sure data is at the heart of that. Can you talk a little bit about what data means to Wesfarmers and to yourself as well? 

Yeah, data is at the heart of that because behind every data is a customer or a human being. And so the more that we service those human beings, the more you want to understand them. So it's actually a new muscle for us, data. Like it's not something we kind of naturally know how to service and we're very much a retail shopfront environment. But we've started on this journey and of course COVID really accelerated everybody's understanding of the importance of really not just data but also digital touchpoints for your customers. So it is at the heart, but it's also the heart of what Wesfarmers One Digital is and the reason this whole division has been set up. Because we have to service those divisions but we also have to build out our own using data, our own business and value creation mechanisms for our customers.

Wow, that's quite a lot of interactivity even within just one company. Can you talk a little bit about Snowflake, the Data Cloud and what that has brought to the business? Yeah, Snowflake's been absolutely central to the success of our data journey and I still think we're pretty early on. I think we've had Snowflake for over three years now, getting close to four years, but it's still early in terms of what we're doing.

But Snowflake really enables us to really collaborate closely with those divisions, securely create those use cases. The speed of Snowflake and the safety of Snowflake is really critical. And so for a business that has been all about divisional autonomy and doing our own thing, all of a sudden being able to collaborate safely and create those exchanges has been critical. And Snowflake's been a real partner for us in that journey.

And it's a partner, not just for Wesfarmers One Digital, but each of the divisions and they all feel like they can actually manage and control and understand securely their data and that allows you to build out new value creation opportunities. 

Right, right. It's such a good point. And in terms of looking into the future and what you're saying about having Snowflake for three years, what's the future look like? What are you excited about? What are you working on that you're excited to bring to Wesfarmers into the market? 

Yeah, the future is really exciting. I mean, the reality is we've just launched OnePass. Similarly, I mean, you’re from the US and you once worked at Walmart and I had to ask you the question before, what's Walmart+? I mean, there are so many opportunities for us on that journey. From a data perspective and what we're doing in One Data, it is about unlocking value for each of the divisions. You know, we've got a number of use cases where we've actually focused on certain categories and really optimize those categories.

We've seen 300-400% growth in terms of not just average order value but in terms of customer, in open rates of marketing collateral. I think the opportunity to use data in efficiency gains in-store where we can use Snowflake and data in terms of supply chain benefits is significant. And for us, the more we can provide speed, security, and drive growth for our business but also for our customers and what they need, I think Snowflake is going to be pivotal in that. And so the future is very exciting

Amazing, and the customer is at the center of all of that, which I love.

Absolutely. 

Thank you so much for being here, Nicole. It was really a pleasure to have you and the entire Wesfarmers team here at Snowflake. 

Thank you so much. It's my pleasure as well.