Should global brands have a central team for their eCommerce strategy, regional teams, or both, in order to ensure success?
We’ve worked with many of the world’s largest brands leading the way in innovation, success and brand awareness. However, this question comes up in consulting and conversations with pretty much every brand we work with. So we thought it would be useful to share some of our thoughts:
Overall we believe to be successful in the eCommerce space, global brands often benefit from having a combination of both a central team and regional teams for their eCommerce strategy. Let’s explore the advantages of each approach:
1. Central Team
A central team dedicated to eCommerce strategy offers several benefits:
– Consistency: Ensures one brand image, messaging, and user experience across different regions. They can establish global guidelines and standards, ensuring that the brand’s identity remains intact.
– Scalability: Central teams can leverage economies of scale and implement standardised processes, technologies, and platforms. They can develop strategies and initiatives that can be easily replicated across regions, reducing duplication of time and efforts.
– Knowledge sharing: A central team can accumulate expertise and best practices, fostering cross-regional knowledge sharing and collaboration. They can conduct research, identify emerging trends, and disseminate valuable insights to regional teams.
2. Regional Teams
Regional teams bring localised expertise and insights, offering the following advantages:
– Cultural and linguistic understanding: Regional teams are familiar with the local culture, language, and consumer preferences. They can tailor ecommerce strategies to specific markets, ensuring relevance and resonance with the target audience.
– Adaptation to local regulations: eCommerce is influenced by various legal and regulatory frameworks that differ across regions. Regional teams can navigate local compliance requirements, such as data privacy regulations or taxation policies, more effectively.
– Market responsiveness: Regional teams can quickly respond to market dynamics, trends, and competitive landscapes specific to their respective regions. They can execute agile strategies, adapt promotions, and optimise customer experiences based on local market conditions.
In practice, a hybrid approach that combines the strengths of both central and regional teams tends to yield the best results. The central team can set overarching strategies, guidelines, and performance metrics, while regional teams implement localised tactics within that framework. Collaboration and communication between central and regional teams are crucial to align goals, share insights, and foster synergy.
It’s important to note that the optimal balance between centralisation and decentralisation may vary depending on factors such as the brand’s global footprint, market diversity, industry specifics, and organisational structure. Regular evaluation and adjustment of the strategy based on performance and market dynamics is also necessary to ensure ongoing success in the ever-evolving ecommerce landscape.
Whether it is regional or global upskilling, we’ve been providing many of the largest global brands with eCommerce consultancy, capability building and upskilling. Having a fresh pair of outside eyes along with a wider vision of what’s going on is a highly valued and effective way to help guide your organisation on its successful path to long term eCommerce success.