The Future of LUXURY TALENT

Leadership style and strategy that luxury brands should keep an eye on in order for them to ensure that their business philosophies and brand proposition are effectively conveyed and their brand is well presented to their target market. In this article Prof. Ashok Som weighs up the changes and challenges ahead for the luxury industry as it moves into a global mode and sets out the skill sets luxury brands will require of its employees both onboard and onboarding.

Luxury has changed: bring on the Hydra

In order to thrive in the transformation of local sales and local business model to global perspective and initiatives, the industry needs talents with specific and versatile skill sets that are entirely new to luxury while enabling the existing talent pool to adapt and change with the times.

There was once a time when luxury had a single head. The head belonged to a creator-designer-craftsman all rolled into one, initially producing excellence that was commissioned by local monarchs and local aristocracy. In France and Italy names were made and shops opened, still local, sometimes regional. And then, with the industrial revolution, legends grew. With greater wealth among greater numbers of people, those seeking the unique and rare and willing to pay a high price for exceptional quality travelled to the outlets to buy on site. This all belonged to the pre-1950s: small, family run businesses with the founder-creator as head.

Today, if we stop to gaze at the luxury sector, the first observation is that the business of luxury is no longer a local business. It has become global, faceted by digitalisation, instant communication mobility, nomadism and a new breed of consumer from the emerging BRICS countries