Interview: Octavia Benham, Head of Ecommerce at Dreams
You may have seen Octavia as one of our new and key speakers at the TRB Omnichannel Futures Conference. If you did, you’ll understand why we were so keen to run an interview with her…
Can you tell us about your background?
All my life I wanted to be a doctor … I did all the work for my A levels to get there and then realised that Medicine wasn’t for me. But I still loved sciences, so I did a science degree at Kings College and then nearing towards the end of that, I realised I didn’t want to be in research, so I just started applying for any kind of job that was local to my area.
I knew that I liked working with people, I was good with numbers, and I wanted something quite fast-paced. I found a role as a Merchandising Assistant at Dreams and thought why not, they had a great reputation and I wanted to be open. At the interview I just fell in love with the culture; it was so open and friendly and luckily enough, I got the job. That was almost 7 years ago now.
What is your role at Dreams and how have you progressed?
From Merchandising, in mid-2019, I moved over to the Ecommerce team as Online Trading Manager. Less than 8 months into the role, COVID hit, and most of the e-commerce team were furloughed except for me and two other colleagues. So, just the three of us running the whole website over the COVID period. From that point, I was lucky enough to step into the Head of EComm role and have gone on to develop the team and take on responsibility for digital acquisition. Sometimes I have to pinch myself, I’m actually doing a job that I love, that must sound so cheesy!
That’s fast progression. Did you have much support?
In 2021 I had a baby (girl!) and took maternity leave and honestly, I had a lot of incredible support from Dreams around my choices and I felt really empowered and ready to come back after 12 weeks. We have very good representation across our board of kind, powerful and influential females, which I love. Traditionally the board was quite heavily male dominated, which is quite common in many industries, but at Dreams I’ve been lucky. My boss, who’s now the CEO, is very supportive of all his direct reports so as a woman in business, I feel empowered to succeed and make changes and be confident in myself. I think without that, I would never have been able to progress and develop at the rate that I have. I feel valued based on my skill set and the work that I’ve done, which is lovely.
Did you have a mentor?
When I joined Dreams, my line manager took me under his wing and just gave me the freedom to work on stuff and make mistakes, which was so valuable. I was promoted from my first role quite quickly, which was a little daunting because in that second role I suddenly had all this responsibility. My new line manager also took on a mentor role with me and helped me look at who I was as a person in business and how I communicated, which I had never given any thought to before – I just communicated as me. Recognising my communication ‘type’ could be different to someone else’s taught me so much.
He also put me on a leadership course which Dreams call “Rising Star” and at that point I developed connections with so many different people across streams that I would never have spoken to in my role ordinarily. That mentorship programme lasted close to two years and gave me a solid foundation to be where I am now.
How does the team look now?
The team has grown quite considerably. We are now a team of nine and we cover everything from essentially the first part of the customer’s journey (digital acquisition), right the way through to the customer’s experience on site and all the granular related details like clicks and interactions. We also work with lots of different agencies that help us, and they are like an extended team. It’s been a sharp learning curve without a doubt, but it’s amazing to get to the point where we feel like one.
Digital acquisition is not just a revenue driving platform, we’re a representative of the brand as well so we work really closely with our marketing counterparts that are responsible for the brand and the brand message. They are the experts so working with them to understand what messages we need to convey and at what time is important. The whole omnichannel experience is a huge focus for us this year because people are so much more familiar with browsing and shopping across channels, so your experience just has to be on point. There are always improvements to make, but it’s operating a lot slicker than it was so I’m proud of that.
What’s the focus for 2023?
Covid left consumers more demanding…in a good way because people expect a seamless digital experience, they expect to traverse across different channels with ease. This is why we (and other retailers) are putting such focus on our omnichannel experience.
I think what’s important is you don’t just drive a programme of innovation for the sake of innovation. People say change is hard, but I sometimes think change is easy because you just come in and change stuff. The challenge is about understanding the right type of change for your customer so that you can stay ahead. From a digital point of view, because things move so fast, you can’t invest time in fads, you need to understand what’s right for the customer.
Shoppers are savvier than ever and want versatility and that excellent experience. This is forcing us to up our game but in a really good way.
What advice would you give to someone starting out their career?
I would say two things. Firstly, be open. When I was at school I felt really pressured to achieve and go to uni and do all the things to have my career set out. And when I was thrown the curveball that, OK, medicine isn’t for me,I definitely had a mid-life crisis at the age of 17! Be open to learn new things… try new things. I’m a planner, I love a plan, but be open to new experiences to apply to jobs that you might not have thought about.
My second thing I think would say is you have to back yourself. I hope I don’t come across as arrogant, but I do think you have to believe in yourself, especially with the pressures of social media that face our young people these days. You will get to the right place for you, and you will find the right job for you, but you’ve got to back yourself because it’s easy to lose confidence, especially if you’re a female in a male dominated world.
About Dreams:
Established in 1985, Dreams is the UK’s leading specialist bed retailer with 2,300 colleagues across the UK. Dreams ‘bed quarters’ are Buckinghamshire with 11 delivery centres and fleet of 155 home delivery vehicles. As part of its mission, Dreams has rolled out its innovative Sleep Match technology to its stores and is proud to be the official sleep partner for Team GB, ParalympicsGB and Special Olympics.
In January 2022, Dreams made two new senior hires with the appointment of Emma Long as chief customer officer and Shelly Dickinson as its first head of people.
