In this update episode, Karo talks to Philip Hitschler-Becker, CEO of Hitschies. Live at data:unplugged, the two will be highlighting the rapid transformation of the almost 100-year-old family business into a viral social media brand.
How does Hitschies stand up as the “smallest but loudest” player on the candy rack against industry giants such as Haribo or Katjes? What is the strategy behind new product innovations that trigger viral cravings in supermarkets? And how can you build a loyal community with over a million followers on Instagram, TikTok and LinkedIn and place them at the center of product development?
Philip also shares his perspective on the challenges in D2C e-commerce with low-priced items, international expansion in 46 countries and why Hitschies is currently investing heavily in building its own AI team to automate and increase efficiency.
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An overview of the conversation:
(1:54) E-Commerce Challenges
(5:11) New products and innovations
(7:19) The meaning of community
(9:45) TikTok and social media success
(12:09) The importance of AI in business
(21:25) The vision of the digital candy brand
From community hype to scalable AI strategy
Philip emphasizes that companies that do not implement artificial intelligence in a timely manner will have a significant competitive disadvantage in five years. Hitschies is currently collecting data intensively and relying on dedicated employees to advance the vision of the global, digital candy brand. It is precisely these technological and strategic challenges that we use as digital consultants. Promising ideas often fail due to established system landscapes or isolated data silos. As part of our AI consulting We support brands and retailers in turning technological potential into measurable business impact.
We support digital transformation end-to-end: from a clear roadmap and well-founded data readiness assessments to holistic AI implementation. Regardless of whether it's about to modernize the digital infrastructure, to carry out a CDP implementation to better use valuable community data or to create tailor-made solutions for process automation with AI — we ensure that tech stack optimization in e-commerce is precisely tailored to value creation. In this way, a technological trend becomes a scalable, economic lever for the business model.
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