“The challenge is not knowing what to do, it’s how quickly can you bring the organisation with you.”
Laura Sabatini’s career has been shaped by a consistent focus on data, customer behaviour and commercial impact. Trained in economics and driven by analytical thinking, she moved from supporting sales functions in retail into leading large scale digital businesses, building her approach at the intersection of insight and execution and contributing to real B2B digital transformation strategies.
Her early experience in retail environments such as Boots and Vision Express instilled a strong sense of discipline. Fast paced performance led and grounded in real customer behaviour, these roles taught her how to translate data into action, how to prioritise under pressure and how to support sales teams with insight they could actually use. It also exposed a recurring challenge, large volumes of data often led to conflicting interpretations and poor data quality in B2B, reinforcing the importance of clarity and alignment over volume.
At LKQ Euro Car Parts, Laura now leads a £500m+ ecommerce and marketing function, spanning B2C and B2B. Over time her role has expanded to include full ownership of the customer lifecycle, from acquisition through to service and retention. Operating within a highly complex, multi channel organisation defined by B2B customer journey complexity, legacy systems and scale, she focuses on turning strategy into execution that delivers measurable results and addresses common organisational change barriers.
A key part of her work has been applying retail thinking to B2B, recognising that what B2B customers expect today is increasingly shaped by B2C experiences. Her focus has been on simplifying propositions, reducing friction and what makes a good B2B ecommerce experience, particularly in environments where speed, accuracy and reliability are critical.
This has been supported through a close partnership with Biglight, including B2B transformation examples and customer experience transformation case studies that help teams better understand behaviour and improve digital journeys.
Laura’s perspective on transformation is pragmatic and grounded. She is clear that many programmes struggle not because of strategy but because of pace, alignment and resistance to digital transformation. Her experience reflects the realities behind why B2B transformation programmes fail, and what it takes to overcome them through strong B2B change management strategies.
Synopsis
This episode explores how retail discipline, analytical thinking and customer understanding can be applied within large, operationally complex B2B organisations, with a focus on real world B2B digital transformation strategies.
The conversation examines how B2C expectations are reshaping B2B and what B2B customers expect today, why simplicity remains a competitive advantage despite B2B customer journey complexity and how organisations can use data more effectively to drive decisions rather than debate. It also explores the reality of digital transformation ROI challenges and answers practical questions such as how do you prove ROI in digital transformation.
Laura shares a grounded perspective on the barriers organisations face, from resistance to digital transformation and sales resistance to ecommerce, to wider organisational change barriers that slow progress. She also highlights B2B customer experience insights gained through testing, experimentation and partnership.
Drawing on real world digital transformation stories and B2B transformation case studies, the episode looks at how teams can move forward without large scale programmes, including how do you start digital transformation without a big programme and how to scale progress over time.
The episode offers a practical view on scaling digital transformation in B2B, showing that success depends not just on strategy or technology but on clarity, alignment and the ability to bring organisations with you.
Topics covered
How retail discipline shapes decision making in B2B
Why B2C expectations are redefining B2B experiences
Using data to drive growth, not just reporting
Simplifying complex customer journeys in operational environments
Building trust in digital channels where speed and accuracy matter
The challenge of organisational alignment in transformation
Key moments
B2B expectations are shaped by B2C behaviours
Why data without alignment leads to different versions of the truth
The reality of one-hour SLAs and what that means for digital experience
Bridging trust from phone-based sales to digital channels
Why transformation success depends on bringing the organisation with you
The opportunity to simplify inherited complexity from legacy systems
John Kelly has spent over 25 years navigating the realities of FMCG and Food and Beverage, an environment defined by operational discipline, complex routes to market and a low tolerance for risk.
In this episode, John reflects on his 15‑year journey at Heineken, where he helped scale a B2B digital ecosystem from three pilot markets to more than 30 countries, generating over €2.5 billion in digital revenue and fundamentally reshaping how the business goes to market.
John shares honest stories from the frontline of transformation, from failed big‑bet initiatives to the power of incremental innovation, agile ways of working and building belief market by market. He explains why early pilots should focus on adoption, not ROI, how to balance annual planning with sprint‑based delivery, and why customer centricity must come before technology.
The conversation also explores practical AI use cases, including dynamic sales routing and next‑best‑action models, alongside John’s framework for scaling digital capability through distinct growth phases without moving too fast.
Grounded, pragmatic and deeply experienced, John’s perspective is a reminder that successful transformation in FMCG is rarely about disruption for its own sake, it’s about patience, proof and bringing people with you.
Chris Monery entered food wholesale from the fast, unforgiving world of online retail, where technology, data and constant optimisation are the norm. What he found was an industry shaped by relationships, routines and workarounds, where businesses could operate successfully without the systems and digital discipline he took for granted.
In this episode, Chris talks openly about what it means to bring a digital mindset into a traditionally low‑tech B2B environment. He reflects on the early realities of the sector, the gaps he saw immediately, and why fundamentals such as forecasting, stable platforms and clear processes became the foundation for change. He also discusses the practical work of scaling in a protected market, from building trust with suppliers to persuading independent van drivers to join him, to developing the tools he couldn’t find off the shelf.
For Chris, real transformation isn’t about disruption for its own sake. It’s about seeing where a system is fragile, strengthening the parts no one else wants to fix and proving that technology, relationships and execution can work together to build something better.
Özlem Özümer has spent her career navigating the world of global trade, first through banking and later through credit insurance, but she’s clear that her motivation has always been helping businesses grow with confidence.
In this episode, she reflects on launching a greenfield operation in Turkey, the realities of building trust in an emerging market, and why credit insurance sits quietly behind so much of the world’s commerce. She talks about the human side of risk, the importance of being close to buyers on the ground, and the role people play in guiding clients through uncertainty.
Özlem shares the story behind Allianz TradePay, from early experiments that didn’t land to the breakthrough moment when co‑creation with a major client shaped the product’s future. She explains the challenge of innovating inside a large, established organisation, the resistance faced by a small new team, and why sponsorship, alignment and constant communication matter more than any single idea.
Her perspective is thoughtful and practical, a reminder that real innovation in B2B comes from patience, proximity to customers and the determination to keep going when the easy answers run out.
