The Future Is on the Web. Even for Luxury Brands

IN EMANUELA PRANDELLI'S LVMH PROFESSORSHIP IN FASHION AND LUXURY MANAGEMENT, THE STUDENTS WERE CHALLENGED TO DEVELOP STRATEGIES FOR DIOR'S ECOMMERCE PLATFORM. TWO TEAMS CAME OUT ON TOP

They all agree on one thing. E-commerce is a phenomenon in continuous and progressive development - especially among the young - and the pandemic, with the closure of shops and distancing, has accelerated its course. This is proven by the numbers in the luxury sector that have risen from 8-10% of purchases through e-commerce to 20-25%. People will go back to buying in stores, because the "physical" experience remains important, but online shopping will increasingly be something other than a simple alternative. And companies are gearing up to establish a privileged relationship with customers, to meet their wishes and requests, sometimes addressing precisely that young target group who are the regular users of e-commerce.

Inspired by the challenges of the luxury industry, Bocconi Univesity, in partnership with its corporate partner LVMH, hosted the LVMH Grand Challenge within Emanuela Prandelli's LVMH Professorship in Fashion and Luxury Management, held from 13 October to 24 November, with awards on 4 December. For the Challenge, about 300 students of MSc, MAFED and MBA programs divided into 57 teams to face each other in a difficult and stimulating competition, as Prandelli herself explains: "How to develop, in a conversational mode, the Dior e-commerce platform, a task consistent with generation Z and therefore perfectly in the hearts of students ”.

With this Challenge, the LVMH Chair has been engaging Bocconi students for five years now, but this is the first time that all the work has been done remotely. However, this has not had negative consequences on the work presented to the jury. "On the contrary, the works submitted have been able to combine methodological rigor and creativity", continues Emanuela Prandelli, "two aspects that do not always agree". The quality of the works made the task of the jury difficult, which in the end decided two ex aequo, rewarding the Eloquence teams (Ambrine Salla, Emma Artigues, Julia Abbou, Soenke Von Schassen, Apolline Bernard) and Logination Consulting (Richard Bao, Arianna Anglano, Jiangli Ida Chen, Emanuela Nitti, Silvia Mittiga), who will be able to spend an entire day in the Dior store in Milan in contact with the store manager.

“First, we learned the importance of working together as a team and harnessing each member's strengths to optimize our performance as a team,” says Richard Bao, Canadian, MAFED student, and Logination Consulting team leader. “During the challenge we decided to take a consultative approach to the case, so we spent a lot of our time analyzing the challenges that Dior is facing, developing a framework to organize our solution process and then recommending solutions that were relevant to the company. As each member of our team has different work experience in different fields, we have been able to better understand the real challenges that companies are facing these days. We put implementation at the heart of our solution, which we believe was highly appreciated by the Dior team. "

“The challenge was an unparalleled opportunity for our team to share ideas in front of an exceptional jury,” says Emma Artigues, French, enrolled in the Bocconi-Essec double degree in Management, and leader of the Eloquence team. "It gave us the opportunity to hone our problem solving skills, enthusiastically experience uncharted waters and gave us the confidence to grow our ambitions. Surely, what made the difference was the complementarity of the strengths of each of our team members, creativity, strategic thinking, ability to follow the markets and motivational power! The LVMH challenge was a wonderful adventure ".

“Once again, Bocconi’s students have showed their motivation, resilience and agility to propose very relevant solutions to the business case. We hope this experience gave them the opportunity to discover some of the great challenges faced by our Maisons to craft the future of the luxury industry. Congratulations to the 2 winning teams and thank you to all for taking part in this challenge!”, the LVMH team shared.

by Davide Ripamonti
Translated by Richard Greenslade