Intelligent CIO North America Issue 13 | Page 50

COUNTRY FOCUS : EAST COAST
More power to enforce standards and encourage agility
Financial district , Manhattan , New York
intuitive nature just felt right for both creative operations and creatives ,” adds Olivia Legere , Vice President of the Global Creative Center of Excellence .
Simpler UI with better functionality
Estée Lauder quickly realized how intuitive Wrike was , giving leadership the simplicity and transparency they needed to effectively manage creative work . “ We manage creative projects , and Wrike is a great tool for that because creatives want a nice interface ,” said Wolfe . “ So the UI shouldn ’ t be bulky , clunky or slow . It needs to be clean , intuitive and easy to use like Wrike . It ’ s also easy to initiate and load projects in Wrike , which is helping us avoid the adoption issue we had with a competitor to Wrike .”
By using Wrike , Estée Lauder teams have identified simpler ways of completing the same work . “ So teams are willing to move from very complicated templates to Wrike Blueprints because it ’ s a great opportunity for them to simplify how they ’ re running their programs in addition to having a simpler tool to run their programs on ,” explains Frangos .
Wrike ’ s simplicity is also paired with powerful and practical functionality that enables Estée Lauder creatives to develop high-quality assets effectively . “ The proofing functionality is just an easier user experience ,” said Alpers . “ I love how Wrike saves a new version every time changes are made . It creates an archive , so if you need to see what has happened and why a decision was made three proofs ago , it ’ s all there in an easy-to-use side-by-side comparison .”
“ Wrike ’ s extension to the Adobe Creative Cloud is also a big thumbs up from our creative design team ,” continues Alpers . “ The interface and user experience in the extension is very intuitive in Wrike .”
To effectively manage 30 different creative teams across multiple regions and time zones , the Creative Center of Excellence at Estée Lauder uses Wrike to strike a unique balance : standardize global processes to maximize efficiency while still empowering each team with the flexibility to work how they want .
“ Our brands have individual ways of working , but we ’ ve discovered that our creative development processes don ’ t differ that much ,” said Legere . “ We ’ ve just all been talking about things in different languages and using a different taxonomy . So Wrike ’ s demystified that by allowing us to standardize our approach in Wrike . It alleviated a huge pain point for us because now a ‘ task ’ means the same thing to every team . Wrike has shown us that we are more common in our ways of working than we thought .”
Even though Estée Lauder brands ’ general processes are relatively similar , every team and region does work a little differently – and Wrike ’ s versatility helps everyone follow structural best practices while working out how they work best . “ Our workflows are standardized , and the Blueprints have required steps in them that all teams have to adhere to ,” said Frangos . “ But they ’ re able to add on to them the specific nuances and steps that they need to . We also have a standardized request form that every brand can tailor to exactly what they need .”
Wrike ’ s flexibility also increases the creative teams ’ agility . “ Our business priorities are continuously pivoting ,” said Alpers . “ Because we all follow the same processes and have everything in Wrike , we can implement any changes to the creative processes quickly and update everybody in real time . This used to be a manual process , but now it ’ s very easy and transparent with the visual timelines and Gantt charts .”
Superior onboarding and support during COVID-19
Deploying a new tool can be challenging under any circumstances , and 2020 was anything but normal . As teams shifted to remote work during the pandemic , Estée Lauder relied on their existing partnership with Wrike ’ s Professional Services team for support . “ We
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