Robert Polet, Gucci's CEO spoke at the FT Business of Luxury Summit, a speech that lacked the passion and drama of the Gucci of yesterday, but was in tune with today's stronger focus on the business side.
Gucci has, since Maurizio Gucci persuaded Investcorp to take over the 50% of the shares he didn't own in 1988, slowly but steadily become a fine tuned fashion machine. Maurizio hired Dawn Mello in 1989, and Mello hired Tom Ford. After some initial disappointment, the ship started to turn, though Maurizio didn't scale with the company. His brash management style and his inability to systematize the business, as well as think in terms of effective supply chain management, affected product quality and brand, so Investcorp engineered a takeover of Maurizio's shares in 1993. Shortly thereafter Mello left the company.
With Maurizio gone, Domenico de Sole, a former lawyer for Maurizio, took the helm at Gucci, and took a bet on a bold direction suggested by the then unproven designer Tom Ford. The rest is history. Gucci took over Sergio Rossi, Yves Saint Laurent and YSL Beaute in 1999, Boucheron and Bedat & Co in 2000, Bottega Veneta, Balenciaga as well as the Stella McCartney and Alexander McQueen brands in 2001. Gucci had in the meantime become a publicly traded company.
Today Gucci is a EURO 1.8B company with 5,600 employees. Robert Polet, who came to Gucci in 2004, formerly managed Unilever's Frozen Food and Ice Cream Division. In his speech at the Business of Luxury Summit he shared his take on the fundamental thinking that drives Gucci's business. He explained that increasingly, consumers are driven by:
- Desire & Emotion
- Consumer Segmentation
- Consumers Trading Up & Down
- Consumers performing Mix & Match
- Ultra Exclusivity
Polet explained that Gucci and its brands need to posess the "I Need It Factor" and that Gucci internally manages this is through:
- Managing brands tightly
- Leading and coaching people
- Providing an environment for creativity to flourish
Gucci's brands must, according to Polet, be perceived by consumers to be their friend. They must be inspirational and help keep the consumers' dreams alive. They way Gucci achieves this is a narrow focus on a virtuous circle that starts with Consumer Insight, feeding Creativity, in term connecting with the firm's Operational Capabilities, in turn again enabling Consumer Insight.
Gucci finished 2005 with EURO 485 million in operating income, so something tells me the model is working.
The use of Gucci Eye wear is good and In today's Market the People are More Fashionable to some sort of thing like looks, Protection of Eye wear
Posted by: Tom | April 02, 2009 at 02:52 AM