I’m Laura Lamard, and I live in Bordeaux, France, with my partner and two kids. I like music festivals, diving, biking in cities, indoor climbing on Sunday mornings, visiting Kyoto or Corsica, a good book when time allows, and a good glass of wine! I have worked in the UK, Germany, Mexico, and China, and have been in marketing for 15 years.

As the Global Marketing and Customer Activation Manager at Henkel Adhesive Technologies I oversee marketing programs for the Manufacturing and Maintenance business unit across 30+ countries. Over the past five years I've supported the digital transformation and growth of my business unit with two main projects:

1. LOCTITE XPLORE - our e-learning platform where we scale access to adhesive application- and engineering-expertise for assembly and maintenance professionals. So far, we have 6 courses certified and +40,000 users, including 8000 certified users, and have been recognized with three major awards.

2. LOCTITE Pulse - our smart maintenance solution (IIoT), which supports industrial plants to use data intelligence and sensors to boost their plant maintenance, reliability, and sustainability.

In collaboration with three international creative agencies, we craft brand positioning, key messages, overall campaign toolboxes, as well as action the go-to-market plans across all our markets.

With its brands, innovations and technologies, Henkel holds leading market positions worldwide in the industrial and consumer businesses. The business unit Adhesive Technologies is the global leader in the market for adhesives, sealants and functional coatings. The company's three strongest brands are LOCTITE, Persil and Schwarzkopf.

Henkel was founded in 1876 and today employs a diverse team of about 48,000 people worldwide – united by a strong corporate culture, shared values and a common purpose: ‘Pioneers at heart for the good of generations.’

At Henkel Adhesive Technologies, innovative thinking and entrepreneurial spirit are in our DNA. We are curious and passionate experts with deep market and application knowledge. Our unrivaled portfolio of adhesives, sealants and functional coatings is designed to transform markets and the way you work. We’re your global partner, prepared to work together with you to handle any challenge and develop a solution that is smart and sustainable. For the better.

In our LOCTITE Manufacturing and Maintenance business unit, we help assembly engineers from 800+ industries increase operational efficiencies. Our products and services are here to co-design better-performing solutions (more reliable, cost-effective, smarter design), and on the other side, we help maintenance professionals boost their plant productivity and safety while increasing their sustainability.

Receiving this beautiful TITAN Business Awards win is truly an honor, especially as we spent 5 years on the project, with hard work and dedication from around 120+ people involved. This award symbolizes the success of our online knowledge hub (www.loctitex.com) in transforming how we scale access to adhesive, sealing and coating expertise.

LOCTITE®X, developed in partnership with the talented team at Frankly, a Danish creative digital agency, provides an engaging learning experience for both novices and advanced professionals. Already +40,000 learners have subscribed and +8,000 are certified.And all from an initial idea to create a physical book of expertise to which we could scale access, so anyone could access knowledge anytime anywhere from their pocket!

The journey was challenging, with long hours and intense effort from start to finish, but every bit of it was worth it. We had a first success back at the start when we managed to launch the e-learning platform with two courses and a 130-page book in just four months. Quite an achievement in a large organization like Henkel, where a lot of alignment and perseverance is needed!

But we did it: we got the platforms (the website + the LMS - learning management system - Litmos) and all the steps in between. I.e.: building the brand, the e-learning vision and identity, the characters and the content approval with leadership and internal experts. Not to forget that this e-learning development was a project we did run "on top" to prove the case. And so we did! We achieved 15,000 users in year one, with amazing qualitative feedback!

Users were positive about the style of the content and 40% became active users (going through at least three chapters). With full course completion time being only one hour, not only did people like it, but they stayed and continue engage on the platform! So the pilot became a key program for Henkel Adhesive, and is now being scaled across the business as a blueprint.

This is a testament to our dedication to innovation and delivering value to our customers and partners. It recognizes and celebrates the significant transfer of insightful knowledge into a meaningful online journey, in collaboration with the agency. We acknowledge the vision and creativity involved, as well as the Henkel engineers who have paved the way by transferring 70 years of expertise online, one step at a time!

And it underscores Henkel’s commitment to digitalizing and enhancing customer experience, investing in cutting edge tools and platforms to democratize access to knowledge, and ensuring anyone can access content easily at their own pace, including future generations of workers.

As well as the previously mentioned challenges, I would say our main challenges were to:

Dare to have a unique and fun look and feel: to build a less formal e-learning with cartoon aspects, jokes and gameplay, and to prove to leadership that this style is the right one for our brand on that space. We felt the operators might also like to enjoy some jokes and fun time when learning.

Change the status quo on how we build expertise content for LOCTITE (lighter, less formal).

Prove that digital formats work as well as physical training and other traditional methods of sales and marketing where we already knew the perception but cannot scale the access.

Get the investment and leadership buy-in to continue the program with a dedicated team of both engineers and marketeers, combined with consistent budget to build on and enrich with strong end-product only.

I am not a business owner, but our team was a small pilot group, so it has similarities.

As mentioned before, we took a pilot approach. The goal and vision at the start was to create e-learning that is:

-Easy to access.

-Fun.

-Bite-sized.

-Localized in 10+ languages.

- With timeless content.

- Timeless content.

- Centered on wider engineering and application knowledge.

- Less on product specific content.

- All certified by LOCTITE and signed by the Global SBU Head as well as the SBU Technology Head.

We will continue sticking to it.

To me, a successful team shares the same vision, with a clear goal and understanding of what it wants to achieve, and does it step-by-step with the right people and budget, while being empowered with leadership buy-in and sponsorship. Last, but not least, it’s key to define the program as a key priority for the business.

Here we were aiming to launch two modules per year and reach 15,000 users annually with 40% active, and we are very close to it. The teams involved had the project in their annual work objectives, which also supported the focus and sense of ownership. Having good communication is also key.

We tackled challenges weekly and met face to face bi-annually to set milestones, and we achieved those. We secured the right team with weekly time commitment and budget. It helped hugely that we had leadership buy-in from day one. Kudos to our BU Head Dr Kourosh Bahrami for being our ongoing supporter and promoter!

A successful organization empowers people to have a balanced life while being empowered at work to run the mission and keep growing; offers a dynamic and modern work environment while keeping a close focus on customers; and all this with strong leadership fostering collaboration, strong positive culture and with a clear vision!

- Our core LOCTITE and TEROSON products are trusted and proven by the industry as key solutions to tackle the challenges of the vast majority. Our constant innovation too continuously fuels customers’ new projects and helps improve their existing processes.

- Our 70 years of industrial adhesive expertise is also valued by our customers in 800+ industries worldwide. We know and understand their industrial challenges. We work with them day to day, and each exchange brings joint success.

- Our global footprint and ability for customers to access the solutions and services globally, with strong distribution channels.

- Our pioneering DNA, continuing to innovate and partner with those that dare to make an impact.

- Last but not least, the passion you feel from day one of working at Henkel. I am regularly the person in the room who has been with the company for the shortest time (even after 7 years). A lot of my colleagues have 10-20 years in the company and still have a strong passion for their roles and adhesives. This is the power of working within adhesives - they also bond people to the company - for all the right reasons!

We work in a global team, so the program resonated globally:

- In APAC games and humor work well, especially the characters.

- In LATAM they were in need of expertise content.

- In Western Europe and North America, the program resonated with distributors, who also leveraged the modules and some of the materials for their channels and customers. They were very positive about integrating our courses and content within their marketing plan.

I would say that Henkel has been an amazing company when it comes to managing the crisis. The CEO said to prioritize families first and take care, but do what we can to continue to run the business and support customers. I believe this also helped us see the value and importance of working in a company with a strong people culture.

On the project itself, developing remote e-learning modules made a lot of sense to me, and we even accelerated the program during that time. I remember our sales colleagues wondering how to continue working without visiting the customers, and lots of colleagues struggling with working remotely with family and kids at home, missing the social life and physical connection. Same for our customers.

Unfortunately, I personally lost someone during the first week of COVID and that pain made me quickly realize the reality of it. It has been a tough time, but we were well supported at Henkel and feel we've been lucky overall.

Digitalization.

- Digitalized end to end customer engagement: bringing access to solutions and services online; AI; getting more insights and data on people; increased data driven decisions; end to end tool integration (website, CRM, campaigns, Marketing automation). Allowing more personalized approaches and experiences is exciting me a lot as a marketeer!

- Smart manufacturing for assembly and production, but also smart maintenance with AI and Industrial IoT (this one is close to my heart with LOCTITE Pulse where I started to enter this field). How can we benefit from digital advancement to simplify and optimize tasks and routines?

For predictive maintenance, the benefit of IoT on people and businesses is clear, saving on cost, and offering stronger reliability, safety, productivity and peace of mind! But also tackling the key challenges of industrial markets, the skills shortage in maintenance, energy cost rises, and aging infrastructures and plant machines.

The fact that you can monitor your critical equipment ongoing with sensors and AI to benefit from strong data intelligence and get notified when something needs to be repaired (early on to avoid asset failure and shutdowns, even big incidents) is very exciting. And then there’s the impact on the planet, with reduction in energy use, fewer CO2 emissions, and fewer critical incidents like hydrocarbon leaks outside... this is what we do with LOCTITE Pulse.

There are still many people not ready for this, in Europe especially, but those who start now will see results and keep growing in the next 2-5 years. As always you have early adopters and the late majority follows a few years later, but this will be soon as early adopters are on it already!

Sustainability (Not sure we can call this a trend when it’s a clear priority).

- Companies need to drive a sustainable future and be committed to reducing their carbon footprint, and this is not an easy task. Henkel is leading by example. By 2030, we aim to be the first carbon-positive global adhesives manufacturer: a great ambition in my view.

- The importance and urgency for sustainable businesses is clear and very important to me. My generation and following generations will be keeping a close eye on this.

At my level as a marketeer, the initiatives I have seen make the biggest impact in the last two companies I worked for are:

- Stronger synchronization of sales and marketing. Use tools such as the OKR target, regular face-to-face workshops, if in a big organization use the steerco meetings to bridge the gap with cross-functional teams, adding a number of customer visits as part of employees’ annual target).

- Having a clear business goal and GTM plan. OKR can help set quarterly milestones.

- Communication is key: Having a dedicated and strong internal comms strategy. Ensuring to listen and share the customer voice widely, organize live events involving customers, have social moments and events to celebrate wins, communicate on changes.

- Creating a strong company culture and allowing it to grow and be actioned, not just on paper. I.e.: When you say you’re caring about people, show it with action and clear leadership principles. Ensure it’s consistent across the organization levels. Top down.

- Investing and giving power to your team with trainings and also partnering with external experts. For example, working with creative and dedicated agencies for brand and key initiatives to stand out. Ensure people have the right skills and tools for efficient project management, meetings, and leadership.

- Investing in the right tools (CRM, Marketing automation, website, etc.) that integrate together. While this is an investment, it makes your business much more data-driven and efficient in the long run.

- Allocating around 10% of business plan to marketing for yearly activities.

- Making sustainability a priority: think long term and business impact! People like to buy from sustainable businesses.

- Give space for people’s well-being and growth, offer coaching, training, and maybe a free afternoon once in a while for sport, reading, or personal development. This will increase talent retention.

This is only my view and probably not comprehensive, but from what I see:

- More advanced technologies.

- More automation of repetitive tasks (AI, robots, intelligent machines).

- Sustainability comes first, with an even stronger focus. This is becoming a number one priority alongside revenue.

- New energy models and resources (i.e.: hydrogen, e-mobility).

- Even more focus on people’s well-being and driving strong teams (more coaching, more feedback, more transparency, etc.)

Steve Jobs, Simone Veil, Gandhi. Different focus, different characters, different causes. The three shared a common strength in manifesting their revolutionary concepts into reality, defying conventional limitations with remarkable tenacity and commitment.

I like how they fought and represented their causes without stopping. Steve Jobs as the creator of Apple brand and vision is special: he supported market disruption and was a remarkable marketing pioneer!

Simone Veil, a towering figure in France, endured the horrors of the Holocaust, shaping her relentless battle for human rights, particularly women's rights. Her unwavering strength in adversity, from concentration camps to political arenas, epitomizes resilience and serves as a profound source of inspiration to me.

My recipe for success comprises two vital elements:

1. Unwavering determination and perseverance: Embrace ambition, trust in your vision, execute with conviction, and progress steadily, while consistently communicating key performance indicators and achievements.

2. Engage leadership actively throughout the journey, ensuring that successes are reiterated. As one of my cherished mantras goes, "You can't win if you don't shoot!"

3. Another lesson I've recently learned: prioritize self-care to the fullest extent possible as well as never forgetting your personal growth (block time for it and prioritize!)