Danone and Campbell’s Snacks Drive Digital Commerce With Organizational Transformation

Digital commerce is gaining market ground totally and proportionally.

Ecommerce sales are on track to pass $4.3 trillion worldwide, according to Statista. Meanwhile, online sales now account for 16.3% of total sales, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis — a number which saw massive growth in 2020 and has climbed steadily ever since.

To capitalize on this shift, companies need to deliver on the digital shelf by creating experiences that are consistent, convenient, and meet consumers where they are. 

Before brands and retailers can deliver a complete digital experience, however, they need organizational transformation and bold innovation.

In their 2025 Digital Shelf Summit (DSS) session, “Driving Transformation with Organizational Design and Efficient Processes,” Jennifer Angelus, director of digital shelf and capabilities at Danone; Josh Metzman, product manager of ecommerce capabilities at Danone; and Sarah Williams, digital commerce at The Campbell’s Company, share their tips on making organizational transformation a reality for your businesses.

3 Tips for Unlocking the People Potential

“Digital transformation is less about the ‘what’ and more about the ‘how’,” Angelus says. This “what” starts with people.

“At Danone, we say you either sell or help sell. There’s no in-between. No matter your role, you drive the business,” Angelus says.

She offers three tips to help drive transformation with people.

1. Have an Ownership Mindset

“I often ask my teams a question: What can you be doing today that impacts tomorrow?” Angelus says. This helps create an ownership mindset that sees staff thinking ahead to help the business succeed.

2. Be a High-Performing Generalist

Angelus argues that generalists now outperform their specialist counterparts. She uses the example of her career — along with those of Metzman and Williams — to showcase their work in multiple roles with multiple companies.

By building teams of high-performing generalists, brands are better prepared to meet digital shelf goals.

3. Live and Breathe Flexibility

Finally, she highlights the need for flexibility.

“We need speed over perfection,” she says. “It’s all about creating consumer-first content.”

The more quickly brands can connect with consumers, the more likely they are to spur interest, engagement, and action. 

Angelus also points to the role of process in enabling people.

“Where there is ambiguity,” she says, “create structure.”

Angelus recommends creating an in-house commercial success activation guide along with a commercial activation checklist to help identify the tactics and inputs required for success.

While the content of success guides will differ across organizations, five elements are common:

1. Readiness timelines
2. Path-to-purchase tactics
3. In-store execution
4. Digital shelf best practices
5. Creative best practices

Finally, she highlights the need for an omnichannel approach that delivers a seamless experience for users. Data reinforces this requirement: Seventy-five percent of consumers expect to get the same experience from a brand, regardless of channel, according to Salesforce.

3 Steps To Unleash the Technology 

Metzman offers a simple rule of thumb when it comes to technology: “Do the difficult right vs. the easy wrong.”

Just because a technology-driven process is simple doesn’t mean it will be successful. Optimal processes may take time to create, test, and refine, but are worth the effort. For Metzman, three steps are critical to effectively unleash technology.

1. Map Your Processes

“The digital shelf is a process, not a project,” Metzman says. “Please, please start by mapping your processes.”

He conceptualizes the digital shelf as a circle rather than a straight line. Content strategy leads to content development, which drives omni-syndication. From there, companies can test and learn, measure, and optimize operations, which allows them to create an improved content strategy.

2. Standardize, Automate, and Test

Repetition is critical for technology success. Metzman offers a simple mantra: “Standardize, automate, test, optimize, test, rinse, repeat.”

Just like managing the digital shelf, deploying technology is a cyclical process that is never complete. Instead, brands must continually evaluate the scope, reach, and impact of their technology to maximize its efficacy.

3. Develop Ambassadors and Resources

When it comes to ecommerce technology, one common roadblock is adoption. Tools and applications that are meant to streamline processes may end up overlooked in favor of more familiar technologies that don’t offer the same feature sets or functions.

Here, businesses are best served with a two-pronged approach. The first is identifying ambassadors — C-suite members or team leaders who are willing to champion the use and integration of new technologies and help encourage adoption.

Next is the development of resources. Metzman recommends that companies record their technology training sessions for later use and then update these sessions incrementally as new solutions become available.

Understanding the Review Reality

Ratings and reviews can have a large impact on customer conversions and sales. 

However, according to Williams, “ratings and reviews are very complicated. Measuring conversion to sales impact is not an easy task, since ratings and reviews don’t typically have a KPI [key performance indicator] associated with them.”

The experiences of other customers play a huge role in new buyer decision-making. According to Bazaarvoice, 78% of shoppers say reviews were the most influential part of their purchase decision.

For Williams, connecting the dots on reviews and ratings was difficult.

“Historically, we had a dead-end workflow,” she says. Product launches were followed by sampling and syndication, but this didn’t provide context for review content.

To help solve the problem, The Campbell’s Company created a flywheel model. After syndication, the company leveraged sentiment analysis and causal sales analysis to better understand reviews. The company spent $600 on product sampling, which resulted in ratings and reviews, and in turn drove $6,000 in sales tied to these reviews.

Making the Digital Shelf ‘E-Mazing’

For Angelus, Metzman, and Willimans, “good” isn’t good enough when it comes to the digital shelf. Instead, it’s about creating ecommerce experiences that are “e-mazing” — engaging and entertaining enough to keep customers coming back.

Achieving this goal means taking a three-pronged approach that combines people, technology, and reviews to build a customer-first, data-driven experience.