博柏利变身高科技时尚偶像

    去年五月，博柏利（Burberry）首席执行官安吉拉•艾伦茨从伦敦总部飞赴美国加州，去会见一位她认为对公司前途至关重要的人——他就是Salesforce.com的首席执行官马克•贝尼奥夫。二人在半月湾的丽嘉酒店见了面，他们站在大厅里交换了整整15分钟的意见，然后才落座。艾伦茨向贝尼奥夫阐释了她的愿景：建立一个公司，让任何想接触博柏利品牌的人都能拥有获得它的渠道。要实现这个目标，她所需要的仅仅是一个数字平台而已。

    贝尼奥夫在纸上画了一幅草图，向艾伦茨解释如何通过运用Salesforce、SAP、Twitter和Facebook等软件和社交网络工具把博柏利变成一家“社交型企业”。（贝尼奥夫还在草图上写下了“安吉拉+马克=喜欢”的字样。艾伦茨把这张草图用像框保存起来，挂在自己的办公室里。）艾伦茨说：“我对他说，我终于遇到了一个说话比我还快、精力比我还旺盛的人。”

    这两个人看起来似乎不太搭调——一个是风风火火的科技企业家，一个是优雅的奢侈品公司CEO，而且她的企业具有156年的历史。不过自从6年前艾伦茨执掌博柏利以来，她就一直在大胆地革新博柏利的形象和业务。现在她的新政已经取得了非常漂亮的收效：博柏利的年销售额已经达到了30亿美元左右，比2007年的水平翻了一番还多。而且自从艾伦茨就任后，博柏利股票回升了近300%，而同期英国富时综合股指仅上长了24%。

    艾伦茨认为，要使博柏利继续保持增长势头，就必须吸引更多的年轻消费者和海外消费者，这部份消费者喜欢网络交流，而且经常在网络上分享信息和购物。因此她决定制订一个全面的科技战略，充分利用Facebook和Twitter等社交工具，同时整合Salesforce和SAP等公司的企业软件。

    由于担心伤害品牌的高端形象，奢侈品行业一向不愿和高科技走得太近，艾伦茨的网络战略使博柏利成了这个行业的异类。科技类咨询机构L2公司的莫琳•慕兰表示：“他们做的事是时尚行业其他公司都没有做过的，也就是坚决把重点放在数字化创新上。”

    在博柏利公司的伦敦总部，员工们个个衣着光鲜时尚，没人会把这儿跟一家科技创业公司混淆，但总部大楼里却的确弥漫着一股创业公司那种新锐进取的味道。公司总部70%的员工年龄都在30岁以下，而且公司鼓励他们在工作时间使用Facebook和Twitter。今年51岁的艾伦茨更是带头尝试硅谷的新技术。

    Last May, Burberry CEO Angela Ahrendts flew to California from her London headquarters to introduce herself to an executive she thought could be critical to the future of her business: Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff. When the two met at the Ritz-Carlton in Half Moon Bay, they stood in the hall batting around ideas for 15 minutes before even sitting down. Ahrendts explained her vision: to create a company where anyone who wanted to touch the brand could have access to it. She just needed a digital platform to make it happen.

    Benioff sketched a diagram of how Burberry could become a "social enterprise," overlaying technology like Salesforce (CRM), SAP (SAP), Twitter, and Facebook (FB) atop the entire company. (Benioff signed the drawing "Angela + Marc = LIKE," and Ahrendts keeps the framed original, pictured below right, in her office.) "I told him, 'I think I finally met someone who talks faster and has more energy than I do,' " she says. "We just connected."

    The two might seem an unlikely pair -- the brash tech entrepreneur and the polished CEO of a 156-year-old luxury retailer -- but Ahrendts has been boldly reinventing Burberry's image and operations since she arrived at the British company six years ago. Her moves have paid off handsomely: Annual sales of some $3 billion are more than double 2007 levels, and the stock has returned nearly 300% since Ahrendts' arrival, while Britain's FTSE All-Share Index is up 24%.

    To keep Burberry growing, Ahrendts recognized she needed to woo younger and more global consumers, who communicate and share information -- and shop -- in the digital world. She set out to develop a comprehensive technology strategy, one that utilizes obvious tools such as Facebook and Twitter, and also incorporates enterprise software from companies such as Salesforce and SAP.

    The approach makes Burberry a standout in the luxury business, which has historically shied away from technology for fear of eroding its aura of exclusivity. "What they've done, that no other organization in the fashion industry has done, is put a relentless focus on digital innovation," says Maureen Mullen of tech think tank L2.

    The employees scuttling around Burberry's Horseferry House in London are too well dressed to allow the company's headquarters to be mistaken for a tech startup, but the building does exude the same kind of feel. Seventy percent of the employees at Horseferry are under 30 and are encouraged to peruse Facebook and Twitter during work hours. Ahrendts, 51, spearheaded the office's free-lunch perk à la Silicon Valley.