Never Spoil a Good Crisis

As we enter 2021 wishing everyone a “better year than the annus horribilis we have been through”, it made me reflect on 2020. We lived a terrible crisis, difficult professionally but above all personally, with unfathomable repercussions for some.. a crisis that is not over. But in the midst of this gloomy mood, I tried to remember and see what positive came out of this peculiar year for Boucheron.

Last year has been rich in learnings. It has greatly (and positively) shifted our organization, improved our flexibility, adaptability, and speed. This past year has also filled me with pride, as I saw the teams adapt and learn to do things differently from the very first moment of the crisis. Teams have shown incredible resiliency and commitment and I want to warmly thank them for that.

Let’s go back to a year that wasn’t as “horribilis” as you would expect.

At the very first emergency meeting we set up virtually, while Paris entered lockdown and our teams ended up trapped in their apartments with their laptops, some completely isolated, some with a baby on their lap and toddlers in the next room, my first message to my management team was “never spoil a good crisis”. A borrowed motto dear to me that I wanted my team to remember while navigating the complexity of this unprecedented crisis: We had definitely to make the most of it ! And I believe that the company as a whole truly succeeded to live up to this, with 3 main learnings that I would like to share with you today.

The importance of Creativity

Despite agility being one of our strengths, as a relatively small company in our industry, this crisis forced us to review all our well-thought-out plans. I had just spent four years implementing processes, action plans, and retro plannings, and the company had made impressive progress. Suddenly we had to cancel everything, delay, modify, amend all the plans to adapt to this pandemic. It has been exhausting for the teams, but it put to test our ability to reorganize, prioritize, and above all to become creative again. Indeed, creativity is essential when you need to (or are forced to) do things differently. When you are abruptly taken out of your comfort zone, it can make miracles: we digitalized invoicing in a month, and launched remote sales in weeks.

Mastering the shift to Digital

Then the incredible shift to digital, which was already well under way for the industry, that immediately and massively impacted two domains. The first is our ways of working. As remote work became the norm, it greatly improved the punctuality and efficiency of meetings. Decisions were made quickly with no frivolous discussions. Even though we managed to keep some human touch, it is true to say too much efficiency harm our right brain, and human needs contact to innovate. But still, who would have thought we would be able to validate an entire new flagship in SKP Beijing remotely? An amazing jewel of a boutique that I still have not seen in real life...

The second domain that the digital transformed, and I believe is here to stay, is the event format. As our clients and the international press could not come to us this summer, we launched our High Jewelry collection through live streams. Journalists were live with the Studio and Claire Choisne, our creative director. An incredible success. An innovative format, that was very strong as it managed to keep intimacy while broadening the audience. I also did a live stream with all our employees worldwide, and I decided I will keep this format in the future as more than 90% of the employees connected simultaneously for an interactive chat. An efficient and human way to connect with all of them despite the distance.

Purpose and Heart

Finally, this crisis has instantaneously made us realign on ourselves, our values, our family, our friends. I experienced it positively as it made me focus on my priorities. I called the clients I know personally, to know where they were, with whom, if they were well. It renewed a human and sincere link. We have all known the importance of purpose, of the WHY?, for any business, especially since the famous Simon Sinek video, but the frenzy of our daily work often made us forget to keep it at the center of everything we do. I sincerely believe that Boucheron is an empathetic Maison, and has been so since its creation. This crisis has made us more than ever aware of this and it reinforced our wish to keep this empathy and generosity at the center of our concern. This has given life to projects that would not have been born otherwise: A stronger partnership with the High Jewelry school and BJOP, creation of free Boucheron Masks, the Boucheron Take Care campaign (Claire drew and offered a 3D file of a peony that could be 3D printed anywhere), patronage of the Paris Museum d’Histoire Naturelle to finance the reproduction of a historical jewelry piece, the legendary Toison d’Or…

When trying to see what good came out of 2020 for Boucheron, these are the positives I will remember. And I hope every one of you will be able to find some light in these difficult times, I wish it from all my heart.