Jilles Eissen is leading the global digital transformation of coating resins and additive manufacturer allnex as the company’s CIO. He joins Knowde CEO Ali Amin-Javaheri to discuss where and why allnex is introducing AI, the importance of finding and supporting internal change agents to help with digitization and how he finds food metaphors to explain the importance of digital transformation.
He joins Knowde to share key digital insights, including:
Leveraging AI requires a solid, accurate data foundation
For digital transformation, enterprises must think end-to-end solution rather than separate at each stage
AI tech is moving faster than implementation — use it where it makes sense just to get started
Put effort into identifying and supporting change agents to implement AI – it’s not the tool, it’s the adoption and the people
Interview Transcription
Ali Amin-Javaheri: Hello and welcome, everyone. I’m your host, Ali, CEO and co-founder of Knowde. Our goal with this series is to share quick perspectives from the leaders in our industry on the changing digital landscape.
I’m thrilled to welcome Jilles Eissen, CIO at allnex. allnex is a leading global manufacturer of coating resins and additives with a rich 75-year history, a research and operations network spanning 35 countries, and a workforce of 4,000 employees worldwide. They’re dedicated to creating innovative and sustainable chemistry for all next generations.
Jilles, as CIO, is leading the company’s global digital transformation with over 11 years in the chemical industry and 12 years in the financial industry. He obviously has a broad range of experience that’s very applicable here.
Jilles, thanks so much for taking the time. Before we dive into it, maybe share a little bit more about your background.
Jilles Eissen: Hey, Ali – thanks. First of all, thanks for having me. I’m truly honored to be interviewed today among such esteemed industry veterans in the rest of the series. So let me first introduce allnex.
I think allnex is everywhere around us because just look around: what is not coated in your home or in your office space? It’s the plants and the water – the rest is all coated. So potentially we’re everywhere around you already for many years. And so we’re inside your soda can; if you drive in your car you don’t want scratches on your dashboards; we’re in the outside of your car; we’re in construction; so literally we are everywhere around us. And that is, I think, also the interesting part of allnex.
Me, myself, I’m a passionate professional. I’m a true innovator. I like processes, I like transformation – otherwise it gets boring. I have extensive backgrounds in different roles within companies going from operations, commercial, even HR. And this also makes you a good trusted partner in my current role because yeah, digital and IT literally touches everything. And on a personal note, I’m a father of three sons and a passionate foodie.
Ali: Okay. All right. Out of my own curiosity, what’s your favorite country to eat?
Jilles: I love Italy.
Ali: Ah, of course.
Jilles: And I also love the States. I’m a big grilling fan, going to the Texas area and really going to US grill restaurants is also one of my favorites.
Ali: Amazing. I just got back from Houston and I can’t agree more. And by the way, I appreciate what you said about allnex. This industry is the innovator behind everything. It is the brand behind all the brands. And so I love it when people make what your companies do real for everyone.
I’ve spent some time reading how you describe your transformation journey and one thing caught my attention, when you said it’s like transforming from spaghetti to lasagna. Can you go through what this metaphor means and what inspired the approach?
Jilles: Yeah. So I’m already, I think 20 years plus in transformation and what I learned over all these years is that language is very important and storytelling. There’s always a risk that you are talking your own jargon and you talk about very technical terminologies like technical depth and data, and that’s not always very easy to understand for people that are not in that day-to-day.
So I thought maybe a foodie metaphor would be more effective. I used the spaghetti-to-lasagna approach, including some visuals, to really explain to executive stakeholders, board members, but also to everybody in the company, how complex our current landscape can be.
And that’s no criticism! With all good reasons we have set up all kinds of applications, peer-to-peer connections, which I described as the straws in spaghetti. So if you start touching a straw in the spaghetti, you don’t know what will be the outcome. You don’t know exactly where it’s coming from. So I use that metaphor a lot to describe what we’re after and also to explain what, in my opinion, is needed for AI to really become alive, which is a far better architecture with layers, with connection points. I think it’s very similar to what you’re driving with your platform. And we make a leapfrog new setup for the industry.
It resonates very well, people understand – maybe they like spaghetti most in private life, but they understand for the business we really need lasagna. And although it’s architecturally not 100 percent correct because it’s actually ravioli, but that’s again too complex. It needs to be easy to understand.
Ali: Did you actually draw up the different layers on a slide and share it with the board?
Jilles: Yes, we did.
Ali: What was the reaction?
Jilles: It becomes far more understandable and it also helps explain our AI journey. It’s 80 percent about data. And everybody, of course, reads newspapers; they get compiled and pushed towards the desktops. It’s not a magical wand, Ali. It’s not something you can just say, “Okay, now we have AI” and everything is a miracle. It’s still hard work and getting your foundational platforms in place, that can be CRM systems, ELN systems or any others, your SAP system. It’s all required to have that data foundation that you also need to really benefit from AI. So putting it on a slide is really helpful.
Ali: For sure. As our industry goes through this transformation making it as simple to understand as possible is so important. Especially when you’re asking for the amount of capital that is required for this process. You brought up ERP; let’s talk about that for a second. A lot of companies are focusing energy right now on ERP implementations, or at minimum, they’re in a consideration and planning phase. S4 is what everyone’s looking at. Where are you guys in the process and why implement now?
Jilles: First of all, I think we have to make a big compliment also to the folks from SAP. So in the past years I think they’ve really transformed into a business process modeling approach. Instead of opening up or providing you with a toolbox and companies can just set up the process they want, I think they really are now also more and more in end-to-end process thinking, sharing best practices and where we can really benefit from.
And I think that’s also something we realized within not only allnex but also in my previous chemical companies. I always ask the question: Are we that special? Of course we are special because we make very special products that in the end lead to customer products that you all know, but in the core, are we that special?
We do very special when we cook soup, right? That’s also how I explain: we cook soup and that chemical soup is our product. That’s where we do fantastic stuff. But outside of that, we are like any other manufacturing company. We have logistics, we get material in, we have to pay invoices, we have to hire people. How much different is that from any other company? So why do we then have a complete bespoke ERP system set up with our own processes in it?
And I think that realization also makes into the core of the decision. So we are using a global setup, we have one SAP instance, which is great. But we also see the benefits from moving into the cloud with benchmark processes that are improved also by the SAP HANA setup [SAP S/4HANA] that is now coming to market more and more and it will become available also for us.
Ali: Has that been one of your biggest challenges to convince folks internally that all the customizations are not necessary?
Jilles: That’s absolutely something that is ongoing in our company and also in other companies. We need to shine the light that if you think end-to-end process, and you think what is the benefit of driving standards and not trying to fix all kinds of elements with different tools, because in the end, all that complexity leads to cost, it leads to the spaghetti that is hard to manage. But of course, a lot of people think they are very experienced. If you work 35 years (and we have a lot of employees that work even 50 years with our company), have you seen other companies? Have you seen other best practices?
So sometimes you really think the way how we work is the greatest work or process that we have seen, where it’s sometimes good to reflect: Is that really true? And that’s sometimes not easy because, yeah, people work already for 20 years like this. And sometimes you say, okay, maybe we need to change. So adoption, not only bringing new implementations in, but also changing setups. I think that is the biggest challenge with also doing a HANA implementation.
Ali: So you are now down to one instance globally?
Jilles: Yes, we are on one instance. A couple of real good decisions were made in the past. One of them was let’s deploy one SAP instance. So that makes also our transition easier, but it’s still, I compare also ECC and HANA with, I think we’re from a similar birth year.
You compare the Nokia generation with the current iPhone generation. That’s a good comparison. If you look, ECC was born in around the same year as the Nokia 310. There’s of course a lot of benefits of working with an iPhone nowadays. It’s a different UX. That’s the whole brain and far more power in your hand. And the same counts also for HANA. So it’s time also for a change. It’s a 20-year-old to your people.
Ali: Yeah, there’s lots of companies that are going through this transition right now, but even those that are actively going through it, I rarely hear that they’re able to get it down to one instance just because every region wants their own little wrinkle to, to [whatever]… good for you guys!
Jilles: It is also not easy. And we also, it took us also quite some years. And there are also good reasons why sometimes in a local setup, look into the Brazilian setup, the taxation – that’s a template you have nowhere else. So sometimes there are also good reasons why they have different processes.
But that’s done with specials. And I think we need to zoom out – is the rest done [that way]? Truck unloading, build truck, pack trucks. Is that very different from site to site, from region to region? Invoicing can be also different, but in the core, it shouldn’t be that different. So where it’s really differentiated, you should make the call. Otherwise you shouldn’t do that.
Ali: Agreed. You brought up AI. We can’t get away from that topic. What is the top use case within allnex?
Jilles: So I think we make continuous assessments on how fast this space is moving. Technology is going at exponential speed.
We all know that implementing such new technology in companies is not going at exponential speed because we have to deal with people and people are just… we have natural habits. We have automated our own behavior. So it’s not so easy to start changing from one day and another, even with AI use cases.
So we’re introducing AI where it comes out of the box in certain use cases, but we also assess where do we see real competitive advantage? Where do we really want to put the focus on? And I think our R&D, we are developing products for our end customers. If we can improve on speed and the amount of attempts before we have the next best coating resin developed for their end products with all the variables, I think that’s really a key initiative where we can benefit from AI and where we also see that we are benefiting from AI.
Ali: Yeah. The R&D use case comes up quite often. Did you guys consider any others, maybe commercial use cases?
Jilles: Yeah. The commercial space we are, of course, also exploring what can we benefit from having LLMs on top of all the data that we have on customers. And not only internal knowledge, that’s also sometimes often forgotten, but also making sure that our data platform can connect with the outside world to really connect the different dots, data dots and present that to sales folks.
But also I’ve been experimenting already with a priori algorithms in the sales field just to see “Can we sell more by using our own data to existing customers?” We are a global company, we’re all humans, so people sell what they are used to selling. Customers also know that. And sometimes it’s good to also bring in other ideas that come out of the AI space by using the data. In the commercial field, absolutely.
I think a big topic for us is also safety; safety is crucial in the chemical space. We are implementing currently a solution which is increasing workplace safety in our factories. So really, on top of standard CCTV cameras you layer in the EHS rules that you want to monitor. It gives a lot of data points, not only on safety, but also, for example, in ergonomics. And it’s really making our factories safer, but also a better place to work because we get continuous data that we can also loop back into the teams and say, “Okay, you’re lifting in the wrong way; if you do that for 20 years, your back is broken” and “Hey, here, there’s a safety incident.”
You don’t have to log it yourself anymore. That’s also a good mechanism that you see everywhere in chemicals: we now have continuous logging of all the things that are happening. And to be honest, people love it. We have a lot of work council questions in the beginning, “What are you doing?” and we’re blurring the people. We use the Protex AI setup; it’s a startup from Europe. But we really see the benefits for our people and in the end, it’s a people business.
Ali: You said something at the top that I think is really important for our audience, which is that as you feed it with private, internal data, not just the data that’s available on the web, the models get a lot better. It’s not something that you can just take off the shelf and implement and be off to the races.
And for most chemical companies this internal data is spread across a lot of repositories and unstructured documents and all sorts of systems. Have you guys started the process of curating and organizing and structuring all that?
Jilles: When I joined allnex a little bit over two years ago we said okay, let’s really embark on a data leg journey or whatever we call it, that data platform journey, which comes with not only technology. It also comes with data compliancy, data literacy and everything that you really need to be able also to use the data that you’re streaming.
Of course, we also work on data pipelines and making sure that all the systems that have potentially data that is valuable for us will land in one place, but also make sure that we have data quality, automatic monitoring, that we are still, on the GDPR and all kinds of other legislation, still compliant.
So it comes with a whole set of – and that’s also some part that we explained in our spaghetti-to-lasagna journey – it’s not only just connecting systems, or making it available. It also comes with leadership, it comes with compliance because otherwise you’re not able to use it or you’re not even allowed to use it.
And the same now also kicks in with AI. You see also the news of this week: are we signing EU AI kind of legislation? Yes or no? It’ll be interesting what, how the world will develop in this area.
Ali: It will certainly be interesting. We’re in the first inning as people like to say.
Jilles: Yes.
Ali: You made it real by talking about your team. Let me ask a question about that. In order to pull off this journey that you’re discussing here, you’ve got to inspire a lot of entrepreneurial thinking within the organization and get folks to become part of the strategy-setting around digital. I can just tell by the things that you’ve said, I assume this is how you’re leading the team at allnex. But how do you develop this sort of culture internally?
Jilles: I think this is such a complex space and digital is really end-to-end. That means there’s no way on earth you can do that from an ivory tower; you need people for it. So my standard approach is really mapping out journeys, sitting together with the teams that are involved, that can be either in the factory or within back offices or within other teams, and really try to create what I call digital change agents.
And for me you need, in a transformation like this, and I did other transformations in the past, you always need the critical substance. You can do the square root of 4,000 people; that’s the amount of number that you minimum need to get changes in place, because it’s a tough journey. But if you have that amount of number, you get substance, and then if you make sure that energy starts flowing and you get first results in and that inspires the other change agents and it builds up confidence, then I think you’re in pretty good shape to transform.
And it’s not only top-down, it really needs to come bottom-up. And I have a standard approach, and I’m Dutch (you can hear it, of course, by my accent), but I always say, let’s first make a shit list. Which is maybe not a nice word, but you work every day in your department. You know exactly what is not working. Can we maybe just write that down? And then you do not need to have all the technology and ideas, but if we make a multidisciplinary team with the change agents, together we can improve.
And we just do the first three. And maybe for some of them we need a long time, but for others, we can even do low-hanging-fruit improvements that people are not even aware that they’re capable of. So it’s really a combination of putting energy, but also ownership where it should be. And some call that AI or agile, I call that really switching the brains on. We need all the brains. They also work at home. They buy houses, they get children, they have very responsible things. And then they come into the office… and then they run a task. I don’t think that’s what we should do with our children. My children are about to enter the company market to get jobs. We need to elevate them, and we need to empower them. And that’s what I try to put in place.
Ali: Yeah. Unfortunately, there’s lots of folks in every organization that are very comfortable doing things the same way they’ve always done it.
You mentioned the square root. So I’m not the best at math, but that’s 50 or 60 people. Are you out there trying to identify them, or are they the folks on your team? Like where do you find these agents?
Jilles: You find them in the core processes. So it shouldn’t be, to me it’s not a separate team. Of course, in my team, I also need change agents that really drive the change into the company. But you need to, in the core of what we do, so within the financial teams, within the customer service teams, when you start exploring how the company is running, you need to have some kind of sensor where you see, okay, that’s a potential talent. And then I just test it out.
So we did a complete automation with AI in the customer service teams and we identified R. Jones is one of the guys that was already exploring a bit in the direction of what can we do more on the digital side, and we have also other others than R. Jones, but I just take him as an example. I saw a massive growth of R. Jones in the last two years from being just Customer Service Digital Team into really a transformative agent in the company driving a lot of very responsible tasks.
So it’s about empowering; you have to have that center, I think. And you also need just to invest in people. It comes not by itself. And that’s also what I say to most others, it’s how you do a transformation. That’s hard work. It’s people work. You will get a lot of resistance, especially in companies that work already for a very long time with similar people. Sometimes the trust is also gone. Another Jilles that comes in, “Yeah, we’re going to change it.” “Yah-yah-yah. Let’s see, after two years, if it’s still the case.”
Ali: The tech is hard. The people’s harder.
Jilles: I’m fully with you. I always say it’s not the tool, it’s the adoption and the people. And in the end, it’s about, did we really make a good design for the process? That’s also often forgotten. And it’s not a tool for a fool. It’s people that need to do that work. And the technology is there; I think all the technology that you see around is good enough. How to get people switched on – that’s the challenge, I think, in digitalization.
Ali: People are a lot more complex than computers.
Jilles: Yes, indeed.
Ali: All right, one last question; I don’t know if this is something you can answer. But what’s a big, bold idea that you’re working on right now? Or maybe it’s not even working on, but it’s just like brewing in the back of your mind.
Jilles: So, maybe the big bold idea that I still have brewing in my mind. If you would zoom out and you would go with Elon Musk into Mars, you would see in the world, you would switch on what is happening in this planet, you would see all kinds of companies setting up ERP boxes and then in between it’s not a lot of digital. There’s a lot of documents flowing around. And every time we set it up, so we have supply chains full of data that is very relevant for all the supply chain partners. But if you really zoom out, it’s interesting how we do that. And not easy to automate.
So my big bold idea is – and I know it’s available and you guys are also working on it – but we need to be able to eat and because we cannot connect all the companies, that’s for other reasons, maybe not always but how can we really benefit from it? And if you have that in place, you can also start working more together in the ecosystem of a certain product because material data, processing data, end data is very relevant in developing end products for customers.
And you can only do that together, but you are crossing company boundaries. That’s the big bold idea where I hope that in the future we will get more and more capabilities available.
Ali: I hope so, too… I hope so, too. I don’t know that many industries that still operate like this where when you buy a product you get 15 documents, you sell a product you share 10 documents with customers. There’s so much valuable information that’s sitting there that needs to get passed in a completely different way.
Jilles: Yes. And I’m really inspired by what you guys are doing. I think you have a great model, you have great technology in place. But this needs to change.
I come from the financial services industry. Also there, I started in documentary credits in the bank, which is also documents to get your products in the harbor. And it’s a similar problem. We are shipping so many documents, so many papers with our trucks, with our ships. My goodness. It’s amazing.
Ali: It is certainly amazing.
Jilles, I appreciate this. Thank you for all the thoughts. Everyone loves listening to these short informal conversations with folks like you that are helping shape the industry. Thank you for everything you’re doing to continue to move this industry forward. It is such a critical industry, just like you mentioned at the top, and you’re doing a lot of hard work and I really appreciate it.
Jilles: Thanks, Ali. It was great being here.
Ali: Thank you.
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