How Whirlpool's CIO makes digital business models run end to end

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How Whirlpool's CIO makes digital business models run end to end

During a recent CIO Leadership Live session, Danielle Brown, SVP and CIO of household appliance giant Whirlpool, detailed how collaborative teams and data management are integral to both product leadership and the entire customer journey.

As a household name in household goods, with annual sales of $22 billion, Whirlpool has 54 manufacturing and tech research centers worldwide, and bursts with a portfolio that includes several familiar brands including KitchenAid, Maytag, Amana, Yummly, among others. The company employs 69,000 globally as well, and Danielle Brown, the company’s SVP and CIO, has a unique perspective on how best to lead the company’s digital transformation strategy.

Having joined the company in November 2020 to lead its Global Information Systems, Brown understands that cross-collaboration and effectively leveraging data to create new products and services are not only essential to future success, but speak to the responsibility of a privileged position to lean into that seat at the table, which means having a voice and an understanding of where technology is headed.

“Our vision is to be the best kitchen and laundry company in constant pursuit of improving life at home, which has become even more evident and important over the past couple of years,” she says. “Data shows that people continue to use our products on a more continuous basis. We’ve also seen people at home researching, browsing, and purchasing more online. All of these things have been transformational.”

Of course, the end-to-end consumer journey is always a work in progress at Whirlpool, which began prior to Brown’s arrival. “But working across our leadership team,” she says, “one of the things I always say about IT is we have a unique view of the company. We can see all of the various processes. So with that unique vantage point, part of our role is to connect a number of those dots. That’s where we have the opportunity to talk about this as a full journey and know what a consumer has. We have to think about that technology and how it’s layered together as an IT organization. That's part of the value we bring to the table. So with my coming in, those are some of the things the IT organization focuses on as a leadership team.”

Brown recently spoke with CIO Leadership Live host Maryfran Johnson about advancing product features via sensor data, accelerating digital twin strategies, reinventing supply chain dynamics, and more. Here are some edited excerpts of that conversation. Watch the full video below for more insights.

On the enterprise data strategy: I am a self-admitted data geek. When you leverage internal data, you need governance around that data. The two are extremely important. Our priority is around delivering product innovation and having that digital twin or that digital thread where data is fundamental. This is working in partnership with the strategy of our product organization, and how to simplify the data and ensure it’s threaded throughout—in a digital way—or whether it’s embedded within our systems of record. The right governance around that product data has to be in place too so it can be used throughout the full product lifecycle. That’s how data governance is critical to our organization and analytics are a way to unlock value.