In collaboration with Metyis, the iconic style house Hugo Boss has unveiled a new bruno manager Digital Campus. CEOs of Hugo Boss Daniel Grieder and Yogen Singh of Metyis discussed the evolution of Vogue Magazine and unveiled their upcoming plans for it.
Hugo Boss is a renowned style house with its headquarters in Germany’s Metzingen. Since its founding in 1924, the business has sold apparel, shoes, accessories, and perfume to customers all over the world. It reported worldwide profits of €3.6 billion in 2022 only, making it one of the biggest European clothes businesses.
Hugo Boss, however, is determined not to rely on the status it established throughout the 20th century as it gets ready to celebrate its centennial time in 2024. When CEO Daniel Grieder took over in 2021, he set out to turn the sluggish menswear company into a “tech-driven clothing platform” and compete for one of the top 100 brands in the world.
Image: Hugo Boss
As a result of some of these plans, the company was split in two, with Boss being targeted at Teenagers and Hugo for Generation Z. Grieder understood that the company would need to appeal to both of these younger populations more effectively in order to achieve an ambitious sales objective of €4 billion by 2025. This would require digitalization and overhauling how it collected and used information, which was a crucial part of work to do so.
Grieder said, entirely to Vogue,” Data and AI are the next steps and will play for a significant role in our next chapter in living.” It does n’t matter if it does; all that matters is how you put it into practice. We want to become a tech-driven fashion platform because we think the faster the better.
Grieder is well-versed in the significance of e-commerce and data analytics in transforming the prospects of ancient fashion brands as the former CEO of Tommy Hilfiger in Europe and later global CEO at its parent companyPVH. He spearheaded initiatives to utilize online shops as a way to connect clients with products, in particular, while working for PVH. Eventually, this was so effective that the entire design process for the business was also transformed into a digital medium.
Hugo Boss’s” Claim 5″ development strategy will then invest more than €150 million in digitizing its full value chain as a result of these experiences. Hugo Boss oversaw the opening of a new modern hub in Gondomar, Portugal, in order to fuel that change. The gateway, which now employs 150 data scientists, engineers, cleverness specialists, and experts, specializes in e-commerce and technology more broadly. In the upcoming year, that number will increase to over 250 as the facility aids Hugo Boss in becoming a technologically savvy brand, forward of its second century in business.
The global consulting firm Metyis collaborated to create the gateway. The expert brand also released a set of strategies for smaller retailers to be more effective on Amazon. It specializes in helping retailers identify, collect, and analyze data to make the most of e-commerce. Eight of the top 15 clothing companies, including several luxury European models, collaborate with Metyis to create the Hugo Boss Digital Campus in collaboration with the trend behemoth.
It’s also not the second day an activity led by Grieder has requested assistance from Metyis. When Grieder was a student at Tommy Hilfiger, Metyis CEO Yogen Singh started working with him and sought guidance from the firm. Singh claims that although hiring data scientists by clothing brands is also uncommon, this ongoing connection stems from the realization that data analytics can be one of the more useful technologies for boosting business income.
” If you look at amazing things happening, like the NFTs and the universe, that is all very good,” Singh told Vogue. However, the balance sheet and P&L are our main priorities.
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How to really understand and work on the information collected is still obscure, despite the fact that the importance of data research has been discussed in the fashion industry for some time. According to a recent Amazon record, up to one-third of business leaders are overburdened by data, and they attribute this lack of understanding to data’s complexity or inaccessibility. Tech companies like Google, Instagram, and Pinterest have been positioning themselves as next-gen financial sites, posing a serious threat to business president profits even though they struggle with the application of the systems.
Metyis and Hugo Boss will attempt to combat this through the online hub project, which focuses on the development of what they refer to as “data architecture infrastructure,” or the process of gathering, organizing, and evaluating insights. According to Singh, only about 5 % of the information gathered is typically unique or pertinent for decision-making, and even when that portion is approved for use, decision makers may choose not to act on it if the reality stated therein conflicts with their own viewpoint. In his practice, working with Grieder is unique in this situation.
Individuals frequently spend too much time disputing the information. Singh remarked,” You need one true source of facts, and do n’t discuss the data but the insight.” Daniel has a pretty distinctive way of thinking. For this, you need authority. You must have faith in this, no just discuss it in your yearly record.
The Hugo Boss Digital Campus’s professionals are experts in data as well as e-commerce and systems in general. In order to achieve this, it has already begun assisting decision-makers in interpreting existing information and enabling them to take appropriate action. For instance, over the past six months, the company has developed a screen that can assist decisions regarding specifics like products, buying habits, marketing spent, and prices, as well as in the layout process.
Grieder argued that a designer would n’t know what to do if you gave them just reprints of the data. However, they may style with the insights if you tell them that black, white, khaki, red, yellow, and green produce the best results.
Hugo Boss can take advantage of pre-existing business opportunities with the aid of the new electric and data features. Singh argued, for instance, that the most well-liked or “never out of stock” items are typically variations on themes. In relation to this, analytics can assist Hugo Boss in increasing the profitability and shelf life of its most popular products; alternatively, if a design is n’t selling.
Singh continued,” If you look at any fashion firm, 70 % of what sells is close to what really was selling [in prior seasons ] — with a little bit of alteration.
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A quicker way to onboard this know-how than by hiring and training persons internally was to form a cooperative venture with Metyis. In the future, Metyis will keep assisting Hugo Boss in accelerating these developments and taking advantage of Portugal’s technical prodigies. However, Hugo Boss intends to purchase its mate in the long run from the €15 million job. It currently controls about 30 % of the gateway, but by 2026, it wants to fully possess it.
Grieder sees possibilities for the company in the interim, as well as for improving its fundamental relationship with its clients. In order to do this, Grieder wants to convert customers into fans who are eager for personalized recommendations. He does this by utilizing both first-party data ( which customers passively collect from them during engagements ) and zero, which customers actively share with the brand. This was demonstrated by a new Boss pop-up shop that was set up in Stuttgart during the event. In nine days following the event, the brand attracted 2, 000 new clients who eagerly provided them with fresh information.
” If you are a manufacturer enthusiast, you have no trouble providing your information.” As long as they like and understand what it is used for, users are very open-minded, he observed.
Hugo Boss may be able to use the potential of relational AI, which can produce text or images that are more lifelike, with the aid of the hub. Instead of using a platform, an associate or designer may be able to type in questions to receive advice on making decisions with the newly developed interface.
He came to the conclusion that you could set changes much more quickly and even by country or region if AI were combined with data in the future. Additionally, it is better organized than when you only have the statistics and numbers. When you ask an AI issue, it responds with a typical, natural sentence. It makes it simpler, quicker, and ultimately more efficient and sustainable. It’s an illusion. Many people are afraid of that, but we believe it only improves the company.