As LafargeHolcim embraces the construction industry’s digital revolution, the company’s first chief digital officer, Philipp Leutiger, aims to build best-in-class digital capabilities for the group’s country organisations. Here he explains the potential of Industry 4.0 for cement production, the roll-out of the company’s ambitious Plants of Tomorrow initiative and its ‘open innovation’ approach to find new ways of working.
ICR: Chief Digital Officer (CDO) is a relatively new role for the cement industry and you were the first to be appointed at LafargeHolcim (LH) in 2018. As CDO, we understand that you report directly to the CEO and have global responsibilities. How do you define your role as CDO and what are your key objectives?
Philipp Leutiger (PL): Our ‘building for growth’ strategy empowers our profit & loss (P&L) leaders in the countries to capitalise on local market opportunities. Our corporate functions seek to enable and support these strategies. Therefore, as CDO, my role is to build best-in-class digital capabilities for our country organisations. While I liaise with our IT function and service centres to actually roll out and scale our technology stack, our digital team focusses on how to best make use of that very technology, through new ways of working including agile and human- centric project management, data driven management and open innovation. We strive to compare our digital capabilities with the best digital innovators in the world, and not just with our peers in the building materials space.
