April Month notes — from Tech to Textiles
In the spirit of working in the open and continuing with regular blog posts I’m going to attempt to do month notes ( rather than weeknotes). This is inspired by Simon Wakeman. He’s someone who I think strikes a good balance of working in the open but in a monthly format which is less pressure than every 2 weeks.
My aim with these month notes is to capture the key things I’ve been working on in my new role as Head of Digital and Sustainability. I’m re-adjusting to working in an SME business as the last 4 years of my career have been in large scale retail. Though I’m loving the pace, variety and genuine autonomy I have to drive things forward.
Career Pivots and how to introduce yourself — from tech to textiles.
As I’ve moved into an unusual role as Head of Digital and Sustainability it’s made me realise I need to work on a revised bio and elevator pitch. After spending the last 6+ years of my career explaining what a Delivery manager does, which isn’t driving vans! I’m now having to learn to evolve how I convey my role and impact. At the moment I’m finding the breadth of the role is allowing me to lean into different domains depending on the audience. Although I will say as a newcomer to the textiles industry I’m learning lots which I’ll be sharing as well.
So watch this space as I refine how my skills, experience and passions are making an impact in this space.
Digital
At the start of me joining Swiscot I did a full audit of our digital channels. It’s been 6 years since I’ve worked on an e-commerce site but some fundamentals still ring true. A clear and compelling online proposition drives online conversion. As we’re selling bed, bath, kitchen and table linen to SME businesses the cost of delivery is an additional cost to the product and the buyer. So I’ve been benchmarking our delivery rates and doing some testing on different delivery messages.
Sustainability
The other focus of my role is building out our sustainability strategy across the business. There’s lots to learn in this space. It’s an area I wanted to move in for a while and have had a long-standing interest with sustainable businesses which was reflected in my dissertation on B-Corp perceptions.
Pro Manchester Green Economy Committee
I had the chance to attend the Pro Manchester Green Economy Committee at the start of the Month. There’s a wealth of knowledge across the group and there’s a lot of potential to share learnings from PLCs ESG journeys to SMEs.
There was a lot of discussion on the role of storytelling and communication. How do we convey the net zero opportunity in business case terms to secure investment and capacity for SMEs to work on decarbonising their businesses.
I’m looking forward to bringing an SME importer and manufacturer perspective to these discussions.
Set up on-site composter — behavioural nudges
A key win for April was setting up our on-site food waste composting. We have a Hotbin composter at home and I’ve successfully turned organic food waste into nutrient rich compost for home.
Ensuring the team knew what could go into the composter I set-up some fun little labels to provide some guidance.
- Feed me
- Don’t feed me
Conveying sustainability within business purchases
I attended an unusual event which was a cleaning innovation seminar hosted by Bunzl BCHS. It was really fascinating to see the closed loop innovations showcased by a number of cleaning manufacturers. For example Tork can now recycle paper towels from washrooms and put them back in as fully recycled hand towels.
BCHS Head of sustainability Anna Edwards gave a talk about the journey they have been on in setting out their sustainability strategy. It was really inspiring to hear from another B2B business. In particular I thought the way they created a product award model to help educate buyers on the environmental impact of different cleaning products was a great way to showcase the way they work in collaboration with manufacturers to reduce their customers’ carbon footprint.
Achievements and recommendations
Reading this month
- Wim Hoff iceman paper back
- https://www.wimhofmethod.com/the-wim-hof-method-book
- This has been a fascinating read and the scientific evidence is compelling, better breathing and cold water exposure can have a huge impact on our health and wellbeing.
Podcast this month
- Cotton capital https://www.theguardian.com/news/series/cotton-capital-podcast
- This has been an insightful podcast on the history of Manchester’s cotton industry. In Particular it looked at how the founding members of the Guardian used profits from the sales of American slave picked cotton to create the paper.
Running distance
- 15km
- I’m doing the Wilmslow triathlon in September so I need to work on getting my km’s in. I need to be able run 10km so I can handle a 6.2km run after a 24 km bike ride. Wish me luck!
