Using Digital Tools to Move a Candy Company Into the Future

A: My job is to help move the company forward in a world that’s digital. We’re a traditional manufacturing company, and we need to be ready for the future.

I consider what opportunities the future will present, how we can best react and how we’ll make decisions about them.

I explore the ways in which we can take advantage of new technologies and tools, such as artificial intelligence; how we should experiment; and whether we are even looking at the right problems. Mars is based in McLean, Virginia, and I work remotely in Manhattan.

A: It’s a new type of role, and one of my goals is to explain what’s possible in simple language so people understand.

Part of my work involves prototyping, such as growing peanut plants in a fish tank using digital automation — without human intervention. To do this, I worked with a few colleagues in Mount Olive, New Jersey, a unit that I’m part of, though I don’t work there all the time. We implemented an automated watering and fertilizing schedule to see how the plants would grow.

We don’t only produce candy. We also offer pet care expertise and produce pet food and human food, like Uncle Ben’s Rice. With the peanut plants, we wanted to see if we could learn anything for partnering with our farmers, everything from how we might use technology to how a team comes together and tries different ideas.

A: Yes. I’m part of a six-member “user centricity” team, in the digital technologies group. We help Mars solve problems by focusing on people’s needs. Recently, we set up our team as if we were a product we were selling to other groups in the company. We had to figure out how we would organize ourselves to be forward-thinking as we set up services, such as training sessions.

We were learning how we actually engage with the rest of the organization as we get people to think critically and expand their vision. We set up weekly goals and focused on driving our own progress to guide others forward.

A: No. I grew up in Silicon Valley, so technology was all around me, and I had family members working in the field. But I didn’t understand the opportunities that were available, and a job like this would’ve never entered my mind.

I graduated from the University of California, Davis, with a degree in international relations and communication, and my first job was at a mobile startup. Every role I’ve had since then, mostly in emerging technologies, feels like it was created that very year in response to what’s happening in the world.

A: My group is measured on whether we achieve our objectives, and on how much we’re actually contributing to the progress of the Mars teams we work with, including improving their digital skills. So by a mix of quantitative metrics and the qualitative responses we get when talking to people about whether we have helped them.

A: The world is changing quickly, and I need to keep up with the pace. I’m optimistic about the future, but I need to make it realistic for us.