My name is Alexander Torba. I am a veterinarian with a Candidate of Biological Sciences degree, the Russian equivalent of a PhD-level research qualification. I joined Hill’s on June 1, 2011, and I am still with the company. From June 1, 2011, through March 15, 2024, I headed the company’s Professional Veterinary Affairs department in the Russian Federation.

During that period, I was fully responsible for the company’s relationships with the professional veterinary community. Our portfolio consists of specialized nutrition for companion animals — cats and dogs. Professional recommendations from veterinarians are fundamental to the company: access to the market and communication with end consumers depend on recommendations from specialists who are trusted by pet owners.

At the time, Russia had approximately 20,000 practicing veterinarians working in around 4,500 veterinary clinics, as well as students studying at veterinary universities across the country. Throughout the 13 years I led Professional Veterinary Affairs, our efforts focused on establishing direct communication with veterinarians and building their loyalty through educational events in many formats.

These included in-person conferences, congresses, symposia, roundtables, and seminars, as well as webinars and other online learning. Since 2011, Hill’s has been a pioneer of online veterinary education in Russia. We also developed a professional communication channel on social media, consistently using the name Hill’s Vet Russia across our communications with veterinarians.

The next project, PlanetaHills, was designed to create a single platform for remote interaction with the professional veterinary community. Its development in Russia was driven by the need to adapt Hill’s global principles, including consistency and sustainability, to local conditions.

For multinational corporations, launching projects in markets far from headquarters can be challenging, often resulting in delays and inefficiencies. For example, when Hill’s launched a new initiative on its global website, the time needed to bring it to a local market such as Russia could be unpredictable. Localizing and adapting pages could take a long time and did not always meet local market needs. We therefore needed to create a local solution. The project, code-named PlanetaHills, was built around the planetahills.ru domain, which became a single information hub for communicating with veterinarians.

Our objective was to create an intuitive, user-friendly local interface that veterinarians could access regardless of where they lived or their time zone. PlanetaHills became a dynamic resource that enabled fast, direct communication with veterinarians throughout Russia.

The platform made it possible to upload all materials considered useful for veterinarians, including a unique anatomical atlas and a prescription guide — a form that helped veterinarians prescribe the appropriate therapeutic diet for an animal to improve its condition and support recovery.

We also created a library on PlanetaHills where veterinarians could download articles, publications, and Hill’s research reports supporting the clinical effectiveness of its products. An important part of the project was an educational events calendar, implemented with Automatica. Calendar integration was complex because there were many events across Russia, covering different topics and regions. Previously, event information was shared through hyperlinks, QR codes, and social media posts, which was inconvenient.

With Automatica’s help, we automated the process and provided a single event calendar on PlanetaHills. Veterinarians could view highlighted dates with upcoming events, click a date, and see the venue, time, and registration link. They could also review the agenda, program, and speakers. A significant achievement was combining regional information. Each supervisor had an individual account, and information from local accounts was automatically pulled into PlanetaHills, giving us access to one unified calendar of events.

PlanetaHills also offered a large collection of resources for self-directed veterinary education. Veterinarians could download anatomical atlases, posters, and scientific articles. The website was integrated with social media and the Hill’s Vet Russia YouTube channel, helping build a professional network comprising 17,000 accounts. The project therefore became a convenient and effective tool for engaging with the veterinary community.

The core purpose of PlanetaHills was to strengthen veterinarians’ loyalty to Hill’s products. To make this possible, we wanted veterinarians to have the opportunity to experience the products themselves. We developed a discount system enabling veterinarians to buy pet food at preferential prices. Staff Feeding was built into PlanetaHills from the outset, allowing veterinarians to register their own pets and order products at substantial discounts.

PlanetaHills helped us control product diversion through veterinary clinics. We knew that some clinics were reselling food acquired at discounted prices, which led to abuse. With the platform, we could track which pets belonged to veterinarians, their breeds and ages, how often orders were placed, and what feedback was submitted.

Ultimately, PlanetaHills did more than provide a pet food ordering platform. It also established a structured system of data collection and reporting, enabling us to engage with veterinarians more effectively and improve service quality.