Digital transformation for external – and internal – customers

Tony Mok says he didn’t have a crystal ball four years ago. At the time, Dah Chong Hong (DCH) – a highly diversified motor and consumer products distribution partner operating in 12 Asian countries – was grappling with how to respond to massive customer demand for access to more products and services through more digital channels. New disruptive digital service technologies were coming out of China. Competitors were moving to digital platforms, and customers wanted better online experiences. DCH needed to adapt or would lag behind.

As CIO, Mok embarked on a digital transformation journey at DCH. The goal was to not only provide better experiences for external customers engaging with DCH businesses, but also to improve experiences for its internal users – a diverse set of employees and distribution partners spanning industries including motor, food and fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG), healthcare, electrical, logistics, and cloud technology.

To put it in perspective, DCH business lines in part service more than 1 million vehicles annually, operate over 100 motor showrooms, distribute over 1,000 consumer brands, and manage more than 60 food and electronics shops across Asia. In Hong Kong alone, over 70% of the items found in any supermarket are touched by DCH business in some way. Transformation at this scale would require an agile digital platform with the marketing and commerce capabilities that Adobe Experience Cloud provides.

It all starts with “A”

Driving this digital transformation was Mok’s vision to re-engineer the DCH business operations model with innovative technologies, including cloud and AI, that followed the company’s internal Three A’s Principles – Agile, Access Anywhere, and Automated. “By following these principles,” says Mok, “DCH would be able to better meet its internal and external customers’ needs while differentiating itself from the competition – technically, operationally, and culturally.”

Mok engaged his IT team to identify which technologies best aligned to the Three A’s Principles. Take Agile. “Customers should be able to navigate from any product category to any brand in a one-stop shop,” explains Mok. “If a customer has a motor vehicle being serviced, they should also be able to see what they’ve ordered from the electrical appliance site, or log in to see a healthcare-related product – all under one platform under the DCH brand.”

In addition, DCH needed to drastically improve its Access Anywhere via the mobile experience for online transactions – something they had never done. By launching a mobile application, internal and external users would be able to gain quick insights, like the ability to look up sales figures or order status.

DCH also was striving to improve its Automation by tying new, efficient systems with existing tools to eliminate manual data transfer processes and labor-dependent legacy systems. Additional requirements included API-enabled security enhancements and two-factor authentication to provide a strong trust element to the systems.

Moving from offline to online

As a start, Mok and his team looked to DCH Living – a site that offered the top home, kitchen, and audio/visual brands and appliances – but did not support online transactions. Raymond Lai, Senior IT Manager at DCH, explains, “We needed to move to a more interactive platform, something very flexible that allowed us to take advantage of data and analytics so that we could incorporate it in future marketing campaigns. This was previously non-existent.”

After a comprehensive review process, the team selected Adobe Experience Cloud as the best fit for fulfilling DCH’s Three A’s Principles. They deployed Magento Commerce on DCH Living and immediately saw an improvement in the customer journey. “From the moment customers landed on the site, they were able to register and self-identify their interests under the DCH brands,” says Lai. “Moreover, customers could see all the membership benefits and new flash deals available to them. It was a completely new experience.”

Data drives decisions

In addition, DCH site administrators and marketers could use Magneto Commerce to gain quick insights into the customer journey, identify customer segments, and determine best-selling items in just a few clicks. With this greater understanding of the customer, DCH could make better recommendations on merchandise that fit each customer’s needs.

Key to enabling these insights was the tight integration between Magento Commerce and Microsoft Dynamics 365 that allows the sales and marketing teams to see an end-to-end view of the customer. “Our customers are remarkably diverse,” says Lai. “They could have purchased a car through DCH, and at the same time be interested in a healthcare product while shopping for a new electrical appliance. With all the varied backgrounds and interests, our teams really required a unified place to view the information to effectively engage with customers.”

To help keep DCH Living customers happy with their electronics and appliances, the team also uses Adobe Campaign to manage the warranty renewal process. As customers reach the end of their warranty, Adobe Campaign initiates the customer journey by triggering digital touchpoints to retain and renew customers through timely discounts and offers.

New site performance drives traffic up 50%

Mok and his team expected that there would be an uptick in sales, but the proof of how well the DCH Living site performed was based on traffic, which they set as a baseline for their KPIs. “The first thing we saw when we moved to Magento Commerce was a 50% increase in traffic. Then, we looked at new member registration and found an increase of 63% - a huge surprise for us since nothing changed besides the migration,” said Mok. “By simply moving to Magento Commerce, we’ve already seen drastic changes. Now, we are looking at new KPIs that focus on sales, traffic, registrations and campaign results.”

Of course, there were some challenges along the way. The technical challenges of migrating to a new site were to be expected and were easily mitigated with support from Adobe; however, Mok believed the bigger challenges came from a cultural perspective internally.

“Our digital transformation provided customers with a beautiful, easy-to-use website, but equally important, we wanted to ensure our internal users also had experiences that translated into immediate benefits,” says Mok. “One of the powerful ways that Magento Commerce allowed us to do this is was by giving our users quick access to meaningful data and analytics so they could truly understand how our business runs – and how they can better run their business lines.”

Retail in the time of COVID-19

Fast forward to March 2020. The new DCH Living platform launched at the same time the pandemic hit worldwide. While COVID-19 rocked businesses and economies, Mok and his team firmly believe that they have not only weathered – but thrived – during the pandemic thanks to the digital transformation that began four years ago. Because internal staff were already working from anywhere while accessing data and collaborating together, there was minimal change internally at DCH. And, the new commerce website capabilities drove increased traffic, registration, and sales during an otherwise challenging time.

As for Mok’s crystal ball, Lai says, “It was all meant to deal with the new disruptive technologies coming out of China. But when COVID-19 hit, it was an even more immediate impact, giving us no time to change. When Mok implemented the Three A’s Principles four years ago, it was like he knew something like this could happen. And now with Adobe, we feel even more empowered because COVID-19 didn’t stop us – we can soar even further.”

Moving into new markets

With the success of DCH Living, other DCH business lines are excited to onboard and learn how to use data and run campaigns to manage their businesses more efficiently. Mok takes a very team-oriented approach as they migrate the businesses to the new platform – helping them map their customer journeys and leverage Adobe expertise. “At DCH, part of who we are is that we never treat our vendors like a vendor,” says Mok. “We always treat them like partners because our success is their success.”

Looking ahead, Mok is working closely with Adobe to further his team’s expertise in interpreting data and customer segmentation, particularly as they plan to use Adobe Campaign to increase traffic through media buys. Mok is also optimistic about the future for DCH as a subsidiary of CITIC Pacific. As the middle class in China and Southeast Asia continues to expand, DCH’s customer demand grows stronger than ever. With its proven success in digital transformation, DCH has an opportunity to further extend its market through the CITIC platform – opening up new revenue streams and opportunities to better serve customers.

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