"But the magic ingredient beyond teamwork is when you find real purpose around which to innovate. Purpose creates that bold vision that people can align to and identify with."
As Group Innovation Lead at Distell, one of South Africa's leading alcoholic beverage manufacturers, Caroline Snyman is not only leading innovation strategy and implementation for the group but is also building innovation as a strategic capability across the organization to shape the business of tomorrow.
In this episode, we speak with Caroline about the value teamwork can have for a company like Distell, especially when it comes to staying relevant as a business, even under the intense and unexpected pressure of events as the Covid lockdown.
If you want to learn more about the power of purpose-driven innovation and the smart move the South African company made to stay afloat during the pandemic, then this is your episode.
Below you will find the full transcript for the episode.
Distell's business-critical imperative
Chris: Hi, and welcome back to the innovation rockstar interviews. My name is Chris Mühlroth, and in this episode, I am pleased to welcome Caroline Snyman from Distell. Caroline is leading innovation strategy for the group and, moreover, she is building innovation as a strategic capability across the organization through internal and external collaboration to build the business of tomorrow. So in this episode, we will talk about why purpose-led innovation has become a truly business-critical capability for Distell. So Caroline, thank you so much for being my guest.
Caroline: Thank you, Chris. It's great to be on your show.
Chris: All right, so we kick this off, as always, with a short 60-second introduction sprint about you, your career, and your role at Distell. So Caroline, the stage is yours for the next 60 seconds. Let's go.
Caroline: So I live just outside of Cape Town, which is based in beautiful South Africa, and I've been with Distell, which is one of the leading alcoholic beverage producers in South Africa and Africa, for the last 20 years. I've had the privilege of having an incredibly varied career. I started off in the supply chain. I was the technical manager there, and so I oversaw all of the technical aspects of distillation, spirits production and also new innovations in the spirits department. And after that, I was promoted to Business Director for the spirits business, which was really all about leading and driving the growth strategy of our spirits business. Thereafter, I actually got into marketing, and I first looked at establishing a premium portfolio of brands for Distell. And after that, I was Marketing Director for Southern Africa, which basically entailed the oversight of our full brand portfolio for the Southern Africa region. And today I'm the group innovation lead, which is a hugely exciting role because I get to take all of my technical skills and all of my commercial capabilities and put them together and spend time understanding where new frontiers for growth for Distell may come from in the future.
“I get to take all of my technical skills and all of my commercial capabilities and put them together and spend time understanding where new frontiers for growth for Distell may come from in the future.”
Chris: Beautiful. Okay now, as the next thing, I will give you three sentence starters. And I would like you to complete them. So the first one is: “I did my PhD in wine biotechnology because…”
Caroline: Because genetics really fascinated me, and I had a huge interest in understanding how wine chemistry can take on such magical proportions from a sensory perspective.
Chris: Wow. Okay, so I'm curious to hear your answer to the second sentence, your completion of the second sentence, so number two is: “Today, for the first time in corporate life, I reveal that…”
Caroline: That I probably do my best problem-solving and idea generation on the back of my horse, when I'm riding around the farm.
Chris: Got it and finally, number three: “When disruption is knocking, you better…”
Caroline: Think long and hard about the consequences, and have more than one plan.
Chris: Great answer. Alright, so Caroline, here is something else that interests me personally, so I got to know that you are a judge, for example, at the old mutual trophy spirit show. Can you tell me what it is like to be a judge for spirits, and what does it take to be one?
Caroline: Because that's a really interesting facet, and it's something that I really enjoy. And I always find it's a great privilege and a learning experience to be a participant in those panels. A spirit is something that takes long to really train for, to be able to judge and evaluate objectively and consistently because you're always dealing with very high alcohol strength products. So it did take some years of training to be able to do that. But I really enjoy the experience because it gives me an opportunity at both local and international shows to really see how South African and international spirit products are evolving and standing up in terms of taste and quality, and generally, I'm very pleased to say that, in most instances, South African local spirits really do stand up very well to international benchmarks across the categories.
How to stay business relevant during a pandemic
Chris: Oh well, certainly they do. So that's great to hear. Thanks for this insight. And now let's turn our focus to your story. So, you know, in this show we often talk about innovation and strategy and how they positively influence the corporate mindset and also the corporate processes in the long term, and why that is, of course, true and incredibly useful. In this episode, we talk about tangible examples where the innovation capabilities of an organization really had to manifest themselves quickly to ensure the relevance of an entire company with 1000s of employees under severe and unexpected pressure from the past COVID-19 lockdown. And it gets even better: I guess in August 2021, I found the report from your Head of Investor Relations that Distell actually celebrates triple profit growth despite the booze bans, right? That blew off my mind and I thought to myself, "I have to learn how they did it." But first, let's go back in time. Can you describe the situation in South Africa in the days leading up to and during the announcement of the lockdown and how it felt during that time?
Caroline: I guess for all of us, irrespective of where we were on the planet, March 2020 was a very uncertain time for all of us, and from a South African perspective, Europe started entering a lockdown a couple of weeks before we did, so by early March, we had seen half the world go into lockdown and we weren't quite sure what the South African situation was going to be, whether we would also follow, or whether the government would take a slightly different route.
Chris: So that, of course, indeed is a highly dramatic situation, and at what point in time did it become clear that the lockdown would have such a drastic impact on Distell and its entire operations?
Caroline: I think by the 18th of March, it was the middle of March. We had our borders closed and all our big public gatherings, much like the rest of the world, had been banned, but it was actually only a week later, on the 23rd of March, when our president announced that we were going to follow suit with a really hard lockdown starting on Thursday of the same week. And what we knew at that stage was that it was going to be a full lockdown for 21 days. But what only became clear on the 23rd of March is that we were only allowed to operate with essential goods and services. And in this instance, what that meant is that alcohol wasn't considered an essential good for sale, and alcohol production wasn't seen as an essential service that could continue with its operations. So we had four days to try and figure out what that impact would be on our total organization across the country. And by Thursday night at midnight, all our operations and all of our sales activities had to stop. So this is certainly something that we hadn't expected. It wasn't a precedent that had been followed in any of the European countries or in the States. So it did catch us by a big surprise. And what else? At the time, what we didn't realize is that we'd all anticipated that it would be a 21-day lockdown. So we closed operations for 21 days, which I think we could reasonably get our heads around, but in actual fact, what materialized was a 66-day hold of all operations before we went back into business.
Chris: So only a very short amount of time to actually understand the impact when you compare this to the classical foresight activities that take, I don't know, weeks, months, or even years to evaluate and understand the impact. There was certainly no time to do that. And now we are exactly at that point. In such a situation, you really have just two options: innovate or die. And now that it has become clear that the only real option for this is to innovate as fast as possible, how did it go? Did someone just make the call and say, 'yeah, we're just going to do it like this and let's go,' or how did you proceed?
“Your foresight and your insights work from an innovation perspective doesn't prepare you when big change suddenly comes knocking on your door, but it's also created a tremendous opportunity for us.”
Caroline: Yes. Chris, I think that's a great question, and I do think you're right. We all made a call to see what we could do. Basically, the lockdown affected our entire business, so there weren't any products that we could actually sell. Even though we had one or two small non-alcoholic beverage brands in our portfolio, being able to supply that at the time in the midst of everything else was just not possible. And so we sprang into action. It was a collective team effort. And I think you set it upfront, you know, your foresight and your insight work from an innovation perspective, doesn't prepare you when big change suddenly comes knocking on your door, but it's also created a tremendous opportunity for us, because I think my biggest learning and experience out of all of this was how immediately the situation created an incredible platform or purpose, and we had employees working virtually from home, and everyone somehow wanted to make a difference, even though they weren't able to do their day jobs, and I think that was an incredibly compelling piece of energy and focus that really enabled us to think about how we could accelerate innovation.
“Everyone somehow wanted to make a difference, even though they weren't able to do their day jobs, and I think that was an incredibly compelling piece of energy and focus that really enabled us to think about how we could accelerate innovation.”
Chris: And from a timing perspective, how did that look on the timeline? Can you elaborate on what happened when? How quickly did you move? What kind of steps were taken?
Caroline: Actually, just before lockdown, we had started a very small innovation project that actually kicked off just when we saw the first COVID case announcements coming through in South Africa, and there was an incredible scramble for hand sanitizer, and we had national shortages in hand sanitizer almost immediately. That market had just not foreseen what was coming down the line at all. So we started a very small project. It was probably the second week of March, it was a team of three people, and we sat down, and we said, "Well, is there a way that we can produce hand sanitizer internally and at least make enough available to all of our sites and our employees inside Distell?" Then what ended up happening was the hard lockdown, and our sites weren't operating and the government, the public, and charity organizations all across the country were crying out for sanitizer to try and keep people safe. So we turned a three-man project into a 28-team, creating cross-functional initiatives across the business. And I'm very proud to say that we managed to go from ideation to the first product produced within 28 days. It was a real team effort.
Harnessing resources and capabilities to forge a new path ahead
Chris: So, 28 days is no time, right? Can we talk a bit about resourcefulness? What are some of the best resources or capabilities that have helped you change direction that fast?
“It was a huge learning for me, that you must have the availability of open-minded, very resilient, nimble, fast-acting cross-functional team members in a situation like this (COVID).“
Caroline: Well, I think in this instance, we were incredibly fortunate because, normally with any of these innovation projects, I'm sure most corporations need to think long and hard about how they prioritize and which resources they make available for projects, but in this particular instance, we had a huge base of able and willing and highly skilled employees who were really working from home too, and wanted to participate to make a difference. I think that was a huge learning for me, that you must have the availability of open-minded, very resilient, nimble, fast-acting cross-functional team members in a situation like this. And then, what we also experienced is that, coming out of that, as much as we have built a brand new category in a very short space of time. We saw the other knock-on effects- of thinking differently and just getting a new perspective on what other opportunities may be out there. Another example, if this was actually in our marketing environment, as you can imagine, we weren't able to communicate to our consumers about our products because we weren't able to solve them. And over a period of time, we started to see some real opportunities for our brands to align with things that were actually important to them. The best example that I could give you is that we have one of the leading premium Cider brands in South Africa called Savanna. Savanna, for the last 20 years, has stood for its dry sense of humor and has always showcased local comedy. What happened in the lockdown is that the entire entertainment industry, as it did globally, came to a screeching halt. So here was a perfect opportunity for Savanna to actually showcase the plight of our local comedians and to create online platforms where people could still enjoy the entertainment and for us to, in some form, at least provide some continuation of livelihood for our comedians, and there were many other examples of that in our business over time as well. I think it catapulted our thinking around non-alcoholic beverages, so we saw ourselves as an alcoholic beverage producer, and suddenly, when you're not able to sell what you're really good at, you have to start thinking differently about that. So, in the short term, we had incredible work done by our marketing and technical teams to produce a non-alcoholic cider in record time. And from an innovation perspective, we did quite a lot of deep, thorough work on understanding what a longer term low and our core portfolio could look like for Distell, and I'm quite pleased to say, and excited to see how it's going to work out, we have a product that is launching in October in South Africa. So we'll see the results of those efforts go and come alive.
Distell’s strategy for the future
Chris: This is really an inspiring and great story about pivoting. So what about the factories and the machines that you have kind of reused or put them into another purpose? Will it stay the way it is? Will you keep on producing, for example, hand sanitizers, or will you just revert back to normal after the situation is back to normal?
Caroline: So that's a great question, Chris, because I do think it's one thing to pivot quickly when you have an imperative or a burning platform. But then, big businesses always need to ask themselves, strategically I've created a new product category, is this still worth it for me in the long term when business normalizes, and at this stage, we are still selling and producing sanitizer, nothing like the quantities that we were 18 months ago. But I do think we'll see how that has to pan out over the next few months as the pandemic shapes and morphs over time. From a non-alcoholic perspective, yes, that momentum has stayed. The brands are actually showing consistent sales momentum, and I think that's also in line with global trends in our industry.
Chris: So, what does this kind of disruption actually do to the mindset of an entire organization or an entire group? So, of course, the past 18 months have been immensely intense, right? So, can you talk a bit about how the past 18 months changed the perspective of Distell on strategy and innovation as a whole?
“Pre-COVID Distell always viewed innovation as all of the collective efforts that you could do to make sure that your business remained cost-efficient and really relevant for consumers. “
Caroline: Pre-COVID Distell always viewed innovation as all of the collective efforts that you could do to make sure that your business remained cost-efficient and really relevant for consumers. So I think we were very much driven around a core innovation strategy, and coming out of COVID, we're actually living through COVID. I think it's made us realize as an organization that we have to think beyond the core. When your business is suddenly just stopped by factors that you hadn't seen, you've got to start thinking about where else you might prevent or mitigate future scenarios that could put you in a similar position. So for us, it's created an immense shift in our innovation strategy. As much as our core business remains business critical, and we're really committed to driving innovation in that portfolio. I think it's made us realize that we also need to focus on adjacent and professional growth because of the huge opportunities that change brings with it. They can create incredible horizons for future growth. So that is really where our focus has shifted now as a team.
“It's made us realize that we also need to focus on adjacent and professional growth because of the huge opportunities that change brings with it. “
Chris: So, you mentioned the focus shifted away a bit from the classic core innovations, and you're also now exploring adjacent and maybe also transformative opportunity fields or innovations today. So, how did it go? Can you talk about what these adjacent opportunities are, or even transformative innovation opportunities? Obviously, I'm not saying anything confidential today, but I'd be interested in hearing what fields you are exploring, what's kind of up next?
Caroline: Probably the easiest way to explain it is to just think about the definition of adjacent innovation and transformational innovations. So, how we view adjacent innovation is by really thinking long and hard about existing assets or existing capabilities that we have inside Distell and how we could put them to use in different ways. So for us, there could be other beverages given that we are really great as a beverage business. It can also be about leveraging go-to-market capability, deep consumer insights, and understanding the future needs of consumers and what may be required next. So for me, that adjacent innovation piece is really understanding where there are pieces of an existing organization that we can continue to leverage and build in other directions. And then, on the transformative side, this is where we are starting to look at completely new and different business models. And probably the easiest way for most businesses, and I don't think there are any surprises here, is to just understand the value of digital platforms and shift consumer and engagement models in completely different ways. What's really transformative for us is businesses that take on a completely different shape and form to where we are today, but somehow, ideally, you want to be able to link them back and provide additional value to the overall organization.
“That adjacent innovation piece is really understanding where there are pieces of an existing organization that we can continue to leverage and build in other directions.”
Chris: So that's a valid point. I think, recently, we have also seen a couple of stories where, for example, from the sports industry, where before this, let's say heavy digitization push actually took place, they were just investing, not a small amount, or small sums of human capital and also financial capital into, digital formats of engaging with fans, for example, right. So we've seen a couple of soccer or football arenas now heavily investing into finding new ways, similar to engaging customers, maybe by digital platforms on your side. It's interesting to see that there has been a tremendous push for these kinds of formats and, ultimately, of course, for the business models, because certainly you can earn money differently with that than before. So Caroline, if I asked you to summarize some of your learning from the past 18 months, what would be your advice to other organizations out there that have faced similar challenges or are highly likely to face similar challenges in the future?
Caroline: So, reflecting on the last 18 months and then thinking very specifically from an innovation capability perspective, I think most of us innovators across organizations spend a lot of time and effort investing into futures, future starts thinking, foresight, and insights. And then, probably the second capability that we're all intent on building is really making sure that we follow human-centered design principles. But I think what I've learned over the last 18 months is, as much as those two are excellent core foundations, that you need to enable innovation. It's also really important that you build team capacity within the organization. So, building strong cross-functional teams with open-minded, resilient, and agile team members who, most importantly, are able to connect the dots across various pieces of the organization - I think is another critical skill that you really need to implement innovation very quickly. I think, for me, it's the difference between having a great innovation strategy that's built on human-centered design and great foresight. That strategy still has to be executed, and for me, that successful implementation really centers around very strong multidisciplinary or cross-functional teams that can move quickly to make it happen.
Chris: Caroline, before we reach the end of this episode, I have two more questions for you. So, the first one is, I'd like to hear from you: when you look back on your career at Distell, what would you say was your greatest Innovation Rockstar moment so far?
Caroline: I think it comes back to teamwork and the incredible privilege and amazing experience of just working with a fantastic cross-functional team over the last 18 months during lockdown. I think that's been my greatest innovation experience so far.
Chris: Great one. And finally, you know, when we look into the future or try to look ahead, what does your personal future actually hold?
“We have a couple of projects in the pipeline, and it would be great if one or two of those could really land with disruptive impact and land in a way that really meets the unmet needs of the consumer and future.”
Caroline: Well, Chris, I think the future is an incredibly exciting place. I really look forward to all of the changes that it brings and the many, many opportunities that it will provide for us to think differently and to find new frontiers for growth. I think that the future and its many scenarios are very, very exciting places. I guess personally, from an innovation perspective. We have a couple of projects in the pipeline, and it would be great if one or two of those could really land with disruptive impact and land in a way that really meets the unmet needs of the consumer and future. But time will have to tell you that.
Chris: Time will tell for sure, and I am excited to see what these innovations and your products could possibly be. I'll definitely look out for that. Yeah, and with that, we have reached the end of this episode already. Thank you again for sharing your story and your valuable experiences. It was a pleasure to listen to you.
Caroline: Thank you, Chris.
Chris: And to everybody listening or watching, if you want to learn more about this story or get in touch, simply leave us a comment on this episode, or just drop us an email at info@innovationrockstars.show. So that's it. Thanks for listening, and I'll see you in the next episode. Take care. Bye-bye.
About the authors
Dr. Christian Mühlroth is the host of the Innovation Rockstars podcast and CEO of ITONICS. Caroline Snyman is leading the Innovation Strategy group at Distell.
The Innovation Rockstars podcast is a production of ITONICS, provider of the world’s leading Operating System for Innovation. Do you also have an inspiring story to tell about innovation, foresight, strategy or growth? Then shoot us a note!
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