Making technology a company capability at Foot Locker

Retail is dynamic, ever-changing, and generates a lot of data, and through merchandising, in-store transactions, supply chain, digital, and pricing, the opportunities to leverage data are endless.

Omni-channel retailing puts even greater importance on the ability to manage and integrate data effectively across the enterprise. For Adrian Butler, who has been CTO of the $8 billion global business for about two years, the key is to focus on the data that matters most, and to help the entire business understand how to use its data to inform decisions and better serve customers.

What transformation is currently underway at Foot Locker?

Last year, Foot Locker set out on an ambitious strategy called “Lace Up,” focused on four key pillars: expand sneaker culture (unlocking the inner “sneakerhead” in all of us); power up our portfolio (driving and elevating the best in-store experience), deepen our relationships with customers (utilizing loyalty and data to improve their experience); and be best in class omni-channel (driving experience and engagement through all channels).

We are a customer-obsessed organization and work to ensure we have the best product assortment from our partners, both in stores and online. As a multi-brand retailer, we’re uniquely positioned to give our customers the products they want, coupled with great customer service. A big aspect of our transformation is to lean into sneaker culture and leverage our unique global position to build deeper engagement around all things “sneakers.” As we interact with our customers and learn more about their needs, we can deliver a better shopping experience. What excites me is the critical role technology plays in enabling this.

What are some technology solutions that are driving your growth?

Foot Locker is undertaking a large-scale technology transformation to drive growth and further engagement with our customers and partners. We recently launched a reimagined version of FLX, our loyalty program, which allows customers to use points for cash for new products. How they use those points gives us insight into the products most important to them. FLX also gives customers an opportunity to use their points to better their chances of getting access to limited availability launch products.

Later this year, we’ll launch a new mobile app that directly ties FLX into an enhanced mobile experience, including future feature capabilities like “in-store mode,” so customers will be able to scan the label or take a picture of the shoe, see size availability, and request a shoe to try on.

Another example is in our merchandising organization. One key to success in retail is to buy the right products and make the right allocation decisions about what should be in stores and offered digitally. As part of our Lace Up Plan, which aims to differentiate ourselves in the market on product availability and assortment, we’re modernizing our core retail technology.

We’re a mainframe shop today and are currently transitioning to more distributed software-as-a-service capabilities, so we can put more data in the hands of people making those key buying and pricing decisions. Not only does this drive maturity of critical capabilities needed for global omni-channel retail, it also gives us the flexibility to evolve in the future.

How have you changed the technology organization to drive this transformation?

We’re building a deep architectural and engineering capability, with depth in AI, digital, analytics, and the back-office systems that run our business. We need leaders with strong soft skills, too, and the ability to break down a problem and think critically about the solution. We’re also moving from a traditional infrastructure organization and building skills around cloud, platform engineering, DevOps, and software-based infrastructure.

Overall, we’re building an organization that’s agile, has a problem-solving orientation, and can articulate solutions while balancing design, architecture, and implementation. My team supports our colleagues across the organization by enabling their strategies, and my ask of them is that they not wait for the action to come to them but be active participants to drive our agenda and solve problems. We’re building a tech culture focused on three key principles: enterprise mindset, functional expertise, and collaboration. Our internal rallying cry for the team is “Own Your Stride,” which means owning business outcomes, the technology we employ, and growth — both for the individual and the company.

How did you achieve this integration?

We started with the Lace Up plan and assessed the role technology had to play to deliver our strategy. We identified a set of capabilities essential to deliver the strategy, and developed a comprehensive roadmap tied back to Lace Up.

When we build our overall strategy, technology plays a significant role, and we’ve ensured our voices are heard. Technology changes quickly and the impact a new capability or tool can have on our business isn’t always easily understood. We’ve partnered with our colleagues across Foot Locker to understand the role technology can play, and we work hard to demystify it. A big part of integrating technology with our business strategy is to ensure teams across the enterprise can see how it impacts the company, brand, and each department’s strategy.

Today, as we go through our annual strategic planning process, we ensure each leader understands how technology impacts their part of the business, and develop roadmaps and aligned investments needed to achieve their desired outcomes.It was also important to help our executive team and board understand the “why” for the company, team, and individual. In our case, the why is driving company growth, empowering our teams to better support our customers, and providing tools so we can be efficient and drive value.

Another big part of ensuring we remain connected to our strategy and hold ourselves accountable to the commitments we make has been to focus on creating transparency. This includes traditional governance structures like steering committees and tracking delivery and value creation metrics that we care most about, along with an executive council that owns decisions around prioritization of our technology investments.

What’s been your approach to developing a data strategy?

Retail consists of multiple businesses in one. We have a supply chain, distribution, and 2,700 owned and licensed stores in around 30 countries. We collect data on our sourcing and merchandising, and then there’s the transactional data that happens inside stores, and data from our digital channels.

With all this data, we must resist boiling the ocean and keep focused on the key parts of our Lace Up strategy where enabling data, analytics, and insights support our ability to empower our teams, inform our decision-making, and glean knowledge about our customers to help strengthen partnerships. We’re also using data to support a wide range of capabilities, from our distribution channels to create more efficiency around shipping times, to focusing on how to improve the customer experience.

What leadership lessons have you learned throughout this process?

Throughout my career, I’ve thought about leadership in three dimensions. The first is the traditional idea of leading people, which starts with modeling behavior, setting expectations, and laying out the vision and bridge between where they are and where they need to be. The second is thought leadership. We’ve invested a lot of time to ensure our colleagues — many of whom have been here for a long time and have deep company knowledge — are on the journey with us. This involves developing their skills around the changes, and hiring new skills and expertise from the outside. The third dimension is stakeholder leadership, which is earned by having a strategic point of view and building credibility by delivering on our commitments. Now that we’ve established this with our stakeholders, technology has a true seat at the table.

It’s great to see the success we’ve achieved. It’s no longer only me and my teams talking about technology; the entire organization is talking about it. The whole company views technology as their capability, and it’s integrated tightly into the overall company strategy.