If you are a global brand leader, you have likely sat in a meeting where someone pulled up a roadmap slide labeled “Omnichannel 202x,” or presented a marketing deck promising a “seamless omnichannel experience.”
According to Marco Brucato, Head of eCommerce DTC Transformation at Beko Europe, this moment is a major red flag.
“I hate the word omnichannel,’” Brucato declared on LinkedIn. “Because if you need to label it, it means that you don’t have it. Omnichannel shouldn’t be a buzzword that you can use one day and the other one not. It should be just part of your corporate strategy.”
In conversation with hosts Rachel Tipographand Sarah Hofstetter on the BRAVE COMMERCE podcast, Brucato delivered a masterclass on what it actually takes to scale digital commerce across complex global markets while maintaining local relevance. He didn’t offer a three-step hack for better retail media tags. Instead, he challenged the very semantics we use to discuss commerce maturity.
Here is why Brucato believes “omnichannel” can be a dangerous word, and what leaders should do to embed it as an operating principle.
Of course, moving from buzzwords to dogma is easier said than done, especially when your remit covers all of Europe.
Brucato currently oversees eCommerce transformation across dozens of markets, each with distinct cultural nuances, retail landscapes, and consumer behaviors. So how does one enforce omnichannel dogma without suffocating local relevance?
His answer: Freedom within a frame.
The “frame” consists of the non-negotiables: centralized strategy, technology architecture, governance models, and KPIs. These must be standardized. “You need to standardize the principle, not the outcome,” Brucato explained. You cannot have 15 different countries defining “conversion” or “ROAS” in 15 different ways, nor can you afford bespoke tech stacks in every region.
However, the “freedom” piece is equally critical, and it is here that global brands might stumble.
This approach flips the traditional HQ vs. local dynamic on its head. Too often, global centers of excellence attempt to standardize the outcome, demanding that every country launch the exact same website template with the exact same assets, translated literally.
Let’s compare Germany and Italy. The consumer in Florence does not shop like the consumer in Munich. German consumers expect technical precision, detailed specifications, and a no-nonsense UX. Italian consumers respond to lifestyle imagery and emotive storytelling. A “global template” that merely localizes the copy fails both audiences.
Brucato’s model requires trust. It requires a central team that is confident enough in the “frame”—the non-negotiables of tech architecture and performance measurement—to let local marketers adapt the UI, the messaging, and the media mix.
This step is where technology designed for global brands becomes a strategic enabler. Platforms like MikMak were built specifically to solve this tension: they provide a centralized, governed technology “frame” while giving local marketers the freedom to build shopping experiences that resonate with their unique consumers.
A brand’s central team can mandate consistent tracking, data integrity, and retailer connections, while a marketer in Milan selects lifestyle imagery and a marketer in Hamburg leads with efficiency specs, all within the same operating system.
A major hurdle in this transformation is the human element. Digital natives are often tasked with convincing legacy leaders—who built their careers in the analog era—to invest heavily in a future they don’t fully see.
Brucato’s advice is to stop pitching the solution.
“You need to create the context,” he said. “You need to show the gap in a tangible way. You need to make visible the cost of doing nothing.”
He calls this “selling the problem.” Rather than walking into a leadership meeting with a slide deck on “Why We Need a New System,” Brucato advocates for painting a clear picture of the revenue being left on the table, or the share being ceded to insurgent competitors. Once the problem is universally understood and felt, the solution becomes obvious.
To make the problem tangible, Brucato relies on small-scale testing. “Test small, scale fast,” he urged. “Ninety-nine percent of tests might fail, but you need data-proof. You can’t ask for a massive budget based on a theory.”
By proving ROI in a contained sandbox (one category, one country, one retailer), the cost of inaction shifts from an abstract concept to a concrete business risk.
Brucato’s frustration with the word “omnichannel” stems from the fact that it implies optionality. It suggests that a brand can choose to be omnichannel on Tuesdays and Thursdays, or that it is a distinct initiative separate from the “core business.”
In Brucato’s view, the organizations that succeed are those where the CEO treats digital commerce not as a channel to be managed, but as the operating system of the entire company.
He acknowledged that the gap between recognizing this need and executing it is wide. But he pushed back on the notion that different industries require fundamentally different playbooks. When asked about the obvious differences between his time at Kraft Heinz (fast-moving consumables) and his current role at Beko (high-consideration durables), Brucato dismissed the idea that the underlying principles shift.
“The product is super important, but it doesn’t change the work you do,” he said. “It changes how you do it—the nuances, the consumer journey length—but the fundamentals are the same. You still have to be where the consumer is.”
Whether you are selling boxed macaroni and cheese or refrigerators, the consumer does not care about your internal org chart. They do not care that your D2C team reports into one executive and your marketplace team into another. They only care that when they want to engage with your brand whenever, wherever, and however you show up.
When asked the signature BRAVE COMMERCEe question—”What is the bravest thing you’ve ever done?”—Brucato didn’t recount a specific merger or a billion-dollar launch.Instead, he pointed to a mindset.
“Being brave for me is not being afraid of saying yes to whatever new opportunity pops out,” he said. “It is forcing yourself into a discomfort area to get things done, and to learn from it.”
This mindset is the ultimate takeaway for commerce leaders. If you are comfortable, you are probably lagging. If you are still using the word “omnichannel” to describe your aspiration, you are likely already behind the consumer. And if you are clinging to a rigid global template because it is easier than empowering local teams, you are leaving money on the table in every single market.
The goal is not to have an omnichannel strategy. The goal is to operate in such a way that the word becomes redundant.
If Brucato’s philosophy resonated with you, if you are tired of debating omnichannel semantics while your consumers shop across channels without you, here is how to translate his principles into action, regardless of your role.
Do not walk into the boardroom asking for “digital transformation funding.” Walk in with the cost of inaction.
Brucato’s core tactic, selling the problem, not the solution, is your entry point. Identify one market where your local competitor is winning specifically because they have empowered local execution, while you are mandating global templates. Quantify the share loss. Present that as the true cost of “doing nothing.” Once leadership feels the pain of the problem, they will demand the solution and you will have the mandate to build your “frame.”
The hardest part of “freedom within a frame” is letting go of control and trusting local teams to execute. Start by auditing your current global mandates. Which are truly non-negotiable (data governance, security, core KPIs)? Which are simply habits (exact UI layouts, global asset mandates)?
Evaluate technology partners against this exact criterion. Does your current commerce stack enable local flexibility within centralized governance, or does it force a one-size-fits-none approach?
MikMak, for example, was designed specifically for this tension: brand teams control the “frame” of tracking, retailer connections, and analytics, while local marketers independently build and launch campaigns that reflect their market’s unique consumer behavior. The right technology should make freedom within a frame feasible at scale, not aspirational.
If you feel suffocated by global mandates, Brucato’s advice is clear: start testing.
You likely do not need global permission to run a small, contained experiment. Pick one SKU, one channel, and one audience segment. Adapt the UX or messaging to fit your local consumer (more technical for Germany, more lifestyle for Italy). Run the test, gather the data, and return to global HQ with proof. A/B tests showing a 15% lift in conversion are very difficult for a central team to ignore.
Brucato defined bravery as “forcing yourself into a discomfort area to get things done.” Where is your discomfort zone right now?
Perhaps it is volunteering to lead the pilot for a new market expansion. Perhaps it is requesting a rotation in a country you have never visited. Perhaps it is simply admitting that the “omnichannel strategy” slide you presented last quarter was heavy on buzzwords and light on operational reality.
Pick one area where you are currently an observer and become a participant. The dogma of consumer-centricity starts with personal discomfort.
To hear more from Marco Brucato on scaling DTC, marketplace integration, and the “cost of inaction,” listen to the full episode of BRAVE COMMERCE wherever you get your podcasts. Learn how MikMak enables global brands to operationalize “freedom within a frame” here.