As a retail business that prides itself on being down to earth, it stands to reason that Peavey Industries would prioritise customer excellence in its technology transformation journey. After experiencing a huge boom during the COVID-19 pandemic, the business found itself needing upgrade its technology. This was in order to keep pace with that growth as the world recovered. Enter the knowledge and experience of Shaun Guthrie, SVP, Peavey Technology and Ecommerce.
Guthrie considers his career to be split between two time periods. The first was his technical career, and the current utilises and expands on that strong foundation. The first part gave him knowledge of how things work ‘under the hood’’, while the’. The latter part is where Guthrie’s executive leadership journey began.
“I’ve been in leadership for about 14 years now, supporting industries like oil and gas engineering, automotive, and municipal government,” he explains. “Now, I’m in an organisation that supports consumer retail goods. I think while technology, overall, is the same regardless of industry, I’ve always had this knack of understanding whatever industry I’m in. It’s given me a different perspective on how to leverage technology to generate business value.”
Approaching the transformation
The first step at Peavey was really understanding the business and the stakeholders. He believes that, in order to understand how to add value to a business, you need to know how it makes money.
“If you don’t take the time to investigate that and figure out how your organisation makes money, you’re ill-prepared to come back with the strategic initiatives and changes you want to make,” says Guthrie. “Retail is a fascinating industry with lots of functions and moving parts. It’s important to remember that you can’t make changes in one function without creating an impact.”
That’s why taking the time to understand where all those moving parts are is so important. Through his initial discussions to figure out the core of the business, Guthrie was able to understand where the most significant efficiencies were. That information benefit influence and lead to building out a technology roadmap.
“For me, in the first year, there isn’t really a strategic plan. In the first year, you’re really putting together a tactical roadmap. And for us, because of how much technical debt we had, it was a two-year tactical roadmap.”
Focus on the customer
What’s vital for Peavey is the focus on the customer as the number one priority. Customer experience is the biggest thing for this company, so how does the business ensure that customer experience and operational efficiency remain the main focus during a technology transformation?
“We keep this our focus by hosting ‘voice of the customer’ sessions in various parts of the country,” says Guthrie. “This allows our customers to provide that direct feedback so we can gather insights on what they value, what their pain points are, and how they expect to use technology, whether that’s in-store or online.”
