After a quietly cheerful first six months on the job, Christopher Bailey, the Burberry chief executive, revealed his first five-point plan for the brand on Wednesday during its presentation of its first-half results.
Here’s what he has cooking.
While most of the reports after the presentation on Thursday focused on the company’s mixed results — sales in the six months ended Sept. 30 were up 14 percent, but pretax profit fell 12 percent, largely because of foreign currency values — and a continued slowdown in China, Mr. Bailey has some bullet points that seem to me really worth noting.
They may be unfortunately couched in the ridiculous language of management-speak (Mr. Bailey can talk chief executive like the best of them), but translate the verbiage — see my efforts below — and the result is revealing. To wit:
“1) The strategy we’ve been calling Leverage the Franchise becomes Inspire With the Brand, to express more clearly our determination that Burberry speaks to the consumer with one equally inspiring and authentic brand voice, wherever they encounter us. To achieve this, we intend to focus amongst other things on more extensive utilization of data and insight, greater emphasis on brand consistency and continued innovation at the intersection of our physical and digital worlds.”
Translation: Burberry is going large on all that big data it has from its online initiatives, and unlike many luxury brands, it is able to share those numbers across platforms, from virtual to brick and mortar.
“2) The strategy we’ve called Intensify Accessories is being broadened out and renamed Realize Product Potential. Our focused attention on accessories in recent years has taken this category to 36 percent of retail/wholesale sales from 29 percent in 2006, and we now have great balance in our product mix and growth drivers across all categories. Accessories will remain an important future growth driver as we reinforce our dominant position in soft accessories such as scarves and further develop our bags and small leather goods. Other areas of focus will include underdeveloped product categories such as shoes, alongside continued opportunity in all areas of men’s and, of course, the development of beauty. “
Translation: Burberry is entering the shoe wars! And bags are not nearly as over as we all may think.
“3) Accelerate Retail-Led Growth becomes Optimize Channels. We have successfully shifted the shape of our operating model towards the retail channel, which represented 70 percent of sales last year from 43 percent in 2006. Now, with our retail/wholesale mix broadly where we would like it, it is time to broaden out this strategy to focus on improving and optimizing all routes to market, both physical and digital. This will include significant opportunities in elevated wholesale and third-party digital relationships, as well as exciting initiatives to enhance retail productivity, some of which Donald will touch on in his presentation.” (Donald is Donald Kohler, the chief merchandising operations officer.)
Translation: Mobile, mobile, mobile; Facebook; Twitter.
“4) Invest in Under-Penetrated Markets becomes Unlock Market Opportunity, to articulate more clearly the rich potential to further evolve Burberry’s footprint and positioning in both developed and younger markets. Future opportunities for the brand in China and Japan are, of course, an important part of this, and I was pleased to see firsthand the excellent preparations our teams are making for the Japan transition on a visit to the market a few weeks ago. Other areas of geographic focus will include the ambitious development of our travel strategy and the continued elevation of our business in the U.S. – where the recent openings of our Rodeo Drive and Post Street flagships in L.A. and San Francisco are great examples of our vision for the brand.”
Translation: The United States is the market of the moment for luxury, and we are not giving up on China just yet, especially not Chinese tourists shopping elsewhere.
“5) The final core strategy, Pursue Operational Excellence remains unchanged, but its scope is expanded to encompass our efforts to drive greater efficiency and productivity throughout the business, in addition to its historic emphasis on improving our back-of-house operations. What we call “the productivity agenda” – spanning opportunities in retail, product and processes – is an area in which we have further significant opportunities and will be the subject of intense focus for this next phase, as we leverage the investments we have made in recent years.”
Translation: It’s time to enter the wired production era.
Now, if only he could redesign the wordiness to have the same clarity as his clothes….