Bridging Gaps and Breaking Silos - How IT Drives Growth with Lauren Livak Gilbert & Jon Harding - Episode 389

Welcome to The Ecommerce Braintrust podcast, brought to you by Julie Spear, Head of Retail Marketplace Services, and Jordan Ripley, Director of Retail Operations.

Today, we’re thrilled to welcome two fantastic guests: Lauren Livak Gilbert, Executive Director of the Digital Shelf Institute, and Jon Harding, SVP and Global CIO at Conair.

They’re here to share insights from a recent report they released in partnership with MikMak—a practical guide to managing technology change across the business, specifically how to leverage IT teams to accomplish transformational growth.

Tune in to find out more!

 

📙 RESOURCES

Download the Bridging Gaps and Breaking Silos report from the Digital Shelf Institute.

 

KEY TAKEAWAYS

In this episode, Julie, Jordan, Lauren, and Jon discuss:

• The Evolving Role of IT: How IT has become the “nervous system” of modern consumer brands, with technology playing a bigger role in driving business outcomes, particularly as sales and marketing become increasingly tech-reliant.

• Increasing Complexity and Collaboration: The rise in technology tools (especially in digital commerce), the necessity of integrating multiple systems, and how IT and commercial teams can work together more effectively.

• Successful Cross-Functional Partnerships: Strategies for engaging IT early in business initiatives, overcoming past tensions between IT and marketing, and why collaboration leads to faster and more successful project outcomes.

• Agile and Nimble Planning: Why annual planning is no longer enough—Quarterly or even monthly reviews help teams stay agile and responsive in a fast-changing industry.

• Showcasing IT Wins: Insights on the importance of IT teams communicating their successes and impact to the wider business, including tactics like internal newsletters.

• Prioritizing Technology Initiatives: How to make sure business cases for new technology are clear, prioritized, and tied to measurable business value—especially when competing with critical back-office projects.

• Organizational Models for IT-Business Alignment: A look at different structures (shared services, embedded partners, PMO) and the critical need for shared goals and metrics between IT and other teams.

• The Future with AI: Predictions around the next wave of AI adoption—both top-down from enterprise platforms and bottom-up from grassroots productivity tools—and the transformative potential for digital commerce and omnichannel organizations.

 

MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

Connect with Lauren Livak, Executive Director of the Digital Shelf Institute.

Connect with Jon Harding, SVP and Global CIO at Conair.

Download the Bridging Gaps and Breaking Silos report.

Connect with our host, Julie Spear.

Connect with our host, Jordan Ripley.

Learn more about Acadia.