Enablers and Service Providers to Operational and Customer Oriented Functions

Luis Marín tells us which city he likes most – after Barcelona of course; gives us an insight into his daily interaction with various company departments, and tells us where local artists are best incorporated in airport architecture.

Luis, you are one of the people who has been with Dufry from the very early days as you joined in 2004 just before the company was publicly listed and initiated a remarkable growth period. You started as Business Controlling Director and you were then appointed Chief Corporate Officer in 2014. With your business and financial background, you have managed Business Controlling as well as M&A for several years and you are now responsible for the key support functions such as HR and IT, as well as Corporate Development and Indirect Procurement. How has your daily life changed with the new organization and your new scope?

Yes, I was lucky enough to join Dufry at the beginning of probably one of its most exciting periods. In my previous area of responsibility, I had the opportunity to develop the Business Controlling department and contribute to growth from the M&A function. Now, the perspective has widened with a more internal focus, making sure that our internal resources are planned, developed and adapted to the needs of the company at any moment in time. So now I interact with different people and for different topics.

You have now been in your new role since September 2020 and gained an in-depth view on the tasks and challenges. Did you experience any surprises?

I have not experienced any particular surprises, because these areas were well managed and integrated in the day-to-day operation of the company. What I have gained are additional insights and perspectives.

What are your current focus points?

While Business Controlling was basically focused on analysis, monitoring, reporting, etc. and was mostly interacting with the Finance area and the executive team, and M&A is a more specialized function, the new areas have much more impact on the day-to-day operation of the company. If something in IT does not work, the impact can affect just one area of a specific entity, or the whole company! Likewise, HR interaction with other areas, especially Operations, is essential. Both areas need to respond to the needs of the company and provide solutions.

In parallel, within Corporate Development and Indirect Procurement we focus on the coordination and control of investments and expenses. As you well know, Dufry has been going through a major reorganization because of the impact of the recent pandemic on the business, with many valued colleagues and skilled employees unfortunately having to leave the company. This situation requires that we adapt to the new reality efficiently. Today, while we are still facing a challenging business environment, the newly created Organization and Transformation Department lead by Salvatore Aricò has facilitated an important step forward to ensure that we are ready for the recovery phase, as they have successfully switched to new procedures and the new ways of working.

The key focus points of the role itself, which mainly include the management and evolution of the HR and IT functions are still the same. IT and HR are key integrators of the different areas in any company. We see ourselves as enablers and service providers to the operational and customer oriented functions, who serve and provide solutions to other departments, making sure that they can focus on satisfying the needs of our customers.

More specifically, the overall topic of digitalization – and here I do not necessarily mean only the customer facing online-services and tools – does and will facilitate simplification, standardization and automation of processes and will continue to be a key element of our evolution as a company. In this context, IT plays a major role.

Is the tight cost control a challenge or a hurdle for our digitalization process?

Clearly, we have to be careful with all our investments given the current scenario, but Dufry has traditionally been very cost conscious. On the other hand, if the investments allow us to improve the customer experience, or to automatize and reduce complexity and costs going forward, it makes perfect sense to implement new solutions and invest in them right now. Dufry needs to go through this digital transformation and this is going to cost money, but we need to see it more as an investment in our future.

Will we have to adapt the organization again once the recovery accelerates and we get “back to normal”?

This is a question more for the Organization Department, but in my opinion, we will only need to fine tune a few aspects here and there, assess workload levels and needs for additional capacities and cover some skills we may not have in the company yet, but I would not consider this as a redefinition of the organization. One of the main changes out of the recent reorganization is that by taking out one operational decision making level – the former divisions – we got closer to the countries and the market. In the same context, we have also revised the back-office functions, with the aim of clustering repetitive tasks or duplications into centralized service departments and highly specialized teams, such as for example the Financial Shared Service Centers, which support the organization globally.

Talking about back to normal. Assuming travel restrictions would be fully lifted tomorrow, what would be your first destination to visit?

After so many months of restrictions, I need to pay a visit to my family!

Recently, we have increased employee engagement through intensifying and adding new formats of internal communication. What are you planning going forward?

Yes, we have launched what we call the re-engaging campaign to increase the engagement level with our employees in view of the recovery, but we also intend to maintain and evolve these initiatives going forward. I think it is important that the employees receive both corporate information, but also other kinds of communications, more related to development, wellbeing or other topics, given the times we are living in. With this in mind, several initiatives have been launched during the lockdown in different countries to re-engage with colleagues – even though mostly virtually for the moment. An important element is also the further expansion of Beekeeper, our internal communication APP. As well as our Basel headquarters, we have just added Greece, Hong Kong and Macau and we are currently launching it in other countries in The Americas. This is in addition to the other nine countries where Beekeeper is already implemented, and we want to continue to extend the roll out to enable us to reach all our colleagues around the world.

A new and important initiative we have also started to develop with a group perspective is the evolution of our Women@Dufry initiative and its transformation into a group-wide “Diversity & Inclusion” initiative. In this context, the recent appointment of Sarah Branquinho as Chief Diversity & Inclusion Officer and member of the Global Executive Committee is testament to Dufry´s commitment to promote diversity, which we believe represents a strong competitive advantage for our company.

What is the purpose of and how will “diversity & inclusion” contribute to the companies’ growth and success going forward?

As a global travel retailer, we serve customers from 150 nationalities every day, on top of which, we see many different cultural backgrounds representing different ethnicities, genders and religions. All these customers expect to be treated in exactly the same respectful and professional way. The same applies to our employees, and as a company, we want to make sure that internally they all receive this equal treatment. This means they need to have access to equal opportunities from the moment we recruit new colleagues and throughout their whole time at Dufry – including career evolution, remuneration and daily working environment. While we are traditionally used to and strongly believe in the value of working with colleagues from different nationalities – we have employees from over 130 countries worldwide – we also still have opportunities to improve our diversity and inclusion profile. This will further enable us to provide all our colleagues with fair and equal treatment based on their professional skills. While our customers increasingly want to shop in a company fulfilling these expectations, we are convinced that with this initiative we will contribute to Dufry’s success, by being able to recruit and retain the best people for the company.

In one of the next editions of Dufry World, we will present our “Diversity & Inclusion” initiative in more detail, but in the meantime all of us can begin right now to nurture its success by contributing every day to a respectful, pleasant and enriching working environment with colleagues from around the world.