VERTICAL GUIDE

Current Adoption

Digital Technology

Título 1

Strategic Direction

Innovation

Customer Engagement

General view

Products and services

General View of Balenciaga's techonology adpotion

The images explicitly demonstrate that as a luxury company, Balenciaga’s weak point in the case of digital transformation is on products and services, where the mark of digital evaluation is significantly lower than the other three categories (Customer Engagement, Strategic Direction and Innovation).

GENERAL VIEW

Strategic Direction

Innovation

CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT

PRODUCTS AND SERVICES

PRODUCTS AND SERVICES

For its products and services, Balenciaga did not offer a clearly differentiated experience for the customers by using digital technology. The only action that makes customers feel unique is the VIP treatment for the VIP customers, who are accounted for a small proportion out of all customers. VIP customers are able to pick up their preferred items before ordinary customers while having a discount for certain items. There are also items that are sold to VIPs exclusively to provide a differentiated experience. Moreover, Balenciaga tried to use digital technology to add value to the existing products, but such attempts only focuses on showing the product rather than implementing the technology on the products themselves. For instance, 3-D technology was used on Paris fashion week to present the new product line better, the recent fashion show in 2020 was an online virtual interactive fashion show that Balenciaga put together with Unitus, a cloud tech company. The products as the core of the company are not combined with digital technology, but the presenting ways as the surface are. Still, Balenciaga did make effective collaboration to bring new digital services and products to the market. Other than cooperating with Unitus, Balenciaga also cooperates with Dimension, Nikon, MRMC and Microsoft for producing a video game that releases its 2021 Spring collection. In 2021, Balenciaga announces the cooperation with a gaming company Fortnite to provide in-game skin and in-game stores.

Unitus

game

Innovation

Strategic Direction

GENERAL VIEW

CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT

PRODUCTS AND SERVICES

CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT

To further interpret the images, the highest mark owner--Customer Engagement, needs to be looked at. Balenciaga provides multiple platforms for customers to interact with the company, such as the Instagram account, the Weibo account and Wechat program in China, and the official site. The privacy policy about collecting and using customer data is clear and plain on the official site. The company also keeps eye on people’s reactions on social media to analyse market trends. Therefore the company is doing well on Customer engagement.

Official site

Online shopping

GENERAL VIEW

CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT

PRODUCTS AND SERVICES

Strategic direction

Innovation

STRATEGIC DIRECTION

Now look at the strategic direction, digital transformation takes an important part in Balenciaga’s development. The creative director Demna Gavsalia leads the cooperation with the digital company to produce the games and virtual fashion shows that are mentioned earlier, and he considers digital transformation as a crucial part of the company’s business model. Although digital cooperation is at the starting point, the direction is settled for the company.

Virtual show

Strategic direction

GENERAL VIEW

CUSTOMER ENGAGEMENT

PRODUCTS AND SERVICES

INNOVATION

INNOVATION

When it comes to innovation, Balenciaga’s most prominent movement was the cross-field cooperation with technology companies to produce its own video game “Afterworld”. Such collaboration makes Balenciaga a digital innovator in the luxury brands’ field, and it is not the only action that shows Balenciaga’s well-adoption of new digital technology. Balenciaga opened its e-commerce site in 2011 and signed with Chinese e-commerce platform T-mall in 2020. The creative director Demna Gavsalia is seeking opportunities for further potential collaboration Balenciaga can make with other digital companies. The statements above all indicate that Balenciaga can adopt new digital technology and make innovations, but the digital product and service portfolio is not broad enough, which will rely on the future innovations and strategies the company develops.

Game