leadership development at l'oreal case study

• SUGGESTED TOPICS
• The Magazine
• Newsletters
• Managing Yourself
• Managing Teams
• Work-life Balance
• The Big Idea
• Data & Visuals
• Reading Lists
• Case Selections
• HBR Learning
• Topic Feeds
• Account Settings
• Email Preferences

L’Oréal Masters Multiculturalism

• Hae-Jung Hong

The cosmetics giant manages to be very global—yet very French.

Reprint: R1306J

As the cosmetics company L’Oréal has transformed itself from a very French business into a global leader, it has grappled with the tension that’s at the heart of every global enterprise: Achieving economies of scale and scope requires some uniformity and integration of activities across markets. However, serving regional and national markets requires the adaptation of products, services, and business models to local conditions.

Since the late 1990s, the L’Oréal Paris brand—which accounts for half the sales of the consumer products division—has dealt with that tension by nurturing a pool of managers with mixed cultural backgrounds, placing them at the center of knowledge-based interactions in the company’s most critical activity: new-product development.

L’Oréal Paris builds product development teams around these managers, who, by virtue of their upbringing and experiences, have gained familiarity with the norms and behaviors of multiple cultures and can switch easily among them. They are uniquely qualified to play several crucial roles: spotting new-product opportunities, facilitating communication across cultural boundaries, assimilating newcomers, and serving as a cultural buffer between executives and their direct reports and between subsidiaries and headquarters.

At the heart of every global business lies a tension that is never fully resolved: Achieving economies of scale and scope demands some uniformity and integration of activities across markets. However, serving regional and national markets requires the adaptation of products, services, and business models to local conditions. As U.S. and European companies increasingly look for customers in emerging economies, both the advantages of global scale and the need for local differentiation will only increase.

• HH Hae-Jung Hong is an assistant professor at Rouen Business School, in France.
• Yves Doz is the Solvay Chaired Professor of Technological Innovation at INSEAD, a global business school with campuses in France and Singapore.  He is co-author, with Keeley Wilson, of Managing Global innovation (HBR Press 2012).

Partner Center

More From Forbes

Boldness in beauty - a lesson in leadership at l’oréal.

• Share to Facebook
• Share to Twitter
• Share to Linkedin

"Develop a vision, seize opportunities and take risks. It's better to have tried and failed than to ... [+] regret never having tried." Jean-Paul Agon - Chairman and former CEO, LOréal

Running a business is something Jean-Paul Agon understands. In his 15 years as CEO of L’Oréal, revenues doubled, and the share price quadrupled to become the undisputed leader in the beauty business.

But when not running a company with a market cap of $235 billion, Jean-Paul Agon loves to go sailing. “It’s my hobby – I do it as much as I can,” says L’Oréal’s Chairman and former CEO.

Jean-Paul is someone who takes inspiration from every aspect of his life, and sailing is no exception. If you were to draw a Venn diagram with sailing on one side, and leadership on the other, you may be surprised to find a lot of overlap between the two.

“To be an effective sailor, the most important thing is to set a course, you must decide where you want to go,whatever the weather conditions,” he reflects. “Then, you must adapt your boat, taking account of any changes that come your way. Last but not least, you must motivate your team, delegating responsibilities so that all crew members strive together, in perfect harmony. Running a business is not too dissimilar.”

Under his guidance, the 115-year-old cosmetics firm has embarked on a journey that includes digital transformation and becoming a reference in environmental, social, ethical, and societal terms. It is the only company worldwide to have been recognized by the Carbon Disclosure Project (CDP) as a world leader in corporate sustainability for an unprecedented eight years in a row. L'Oréal has also been named one of the world's most ethical companies by the Ethisphere Institute for 14 years running.

“My predecessor Lindsay Owen-Jones used to say that, despite its size, L’Oréal is not a big machine – it's a flotilla,” says Jean-Paul Agon. “And he's right. So that's the way we think. We think that we are not a big ocean liner, we are a flotilla of boats sailing together. And on each boat, there is a captain and a crew. We duplicate this way of thinking at every level of the company. In fact, we have hundreds of start-ups which move in the same direction, with a very strong sense of belonging.”

Best High-Yield Savings Accounts Of 2024

Best 5% interest savings accounts of 2024.

That is a lot of boats. With close to 90,000 employees present in 150 countries, the company encompasses 37 brands that include Lancôme, Giorgio Armani Beauty, Garnier, Maybelline NY and Ralph Lauren.

When it comes to leadership and management, however, Jean-Paul first learnt these navigation skills at a leading European business school, HEC Paris.

“When I entered HEC at 19 years old, I didn’t know anything about leadership. When you’re that age, leadership doesn’t really mean anything – it wasn’t even something I had in mind,” he admits. “But three years on, I left business school feeling much more confident, and eager to learn more.”

More than 40 years later, Jean-Paul Agon has returned to the school as the Chairman of the Board, and supports the school’s equal opportunities and social diversity program. He explains that HEC Paris is organised around three fields of action: Think, Teach, Act.

“This philosophy teaches you how to get ahead in your life. Think, is to push the boundaries of knowledge; teach, to learn and grow together; and act, to unleash the human potential in each student. Clearly, for me, it was great preparation for my life: my international life, professional life and social life.”

“HEC Paris holds a special place in my heart.”

You can find out more about Jean-Paul Agon’s career advice

A life of travel

Jean-Paul grew up in Paris, surrounded by maps of the world that covered the walls of his childhood bedroom. Although his parents rarely left France, Jean-Paul dreamed of travelling the world and uncovering the culture embedded in each of these countries.

"HEC Paris was a great preparation for my my life." Jean-Paul Agon - Chairman and former CEO, ... [+] L'Oréal

Traveling, like sailing, has played a significant role throughout Jean-Paul’s career. In fact, one of his first and most influential leadership experiences came in Athens, not long after graduating from HEC Paris.

At the time, Jean-Paul was a 24-year-old product manager at L’Oréal, and to his surprise had been asked to head the Greece office with a team of 80 employees. This experience forced him to step out of his comfort zone. “It was a good exercise for me because I learned leadership like a baby learns to swim in a pool. I just did it. I also learned Greek to be perfectly in tune with my teams.”

After his early international success, each successive role at L’Oréal continued his leadership path and opened up new horizons. After returning from Greece to France, he then headed to Germany as Managing Director, and in 1997 he was entrusted with the task of setting up and heading the L'Oréal Asia Zone in the midst of an economic crisis. He created subsidiaries in a number of countries, stepped up investment and recruited a new generation of local talent.

In 2001, Agon was named President of L’Oréal USA North America, and then appointed as CEO of L’Oréal in 2006.

“What I have loved most in my 40 years at L’Oréal is this privilege to be able to travel around the world, learn new languages, explore the culture and meet the people,” he says.

This international focus is embedded in L’Oréal’s foundation. However, there seemed to be a contradiction between the goals for expanding brands globally, and the company’s belief that beauty should be locally adapted. Jean-Paul didn’t want to settle for either.

“Beauty is very cultural,” he explains. “If you want to create beauty products that, for example will make Indonesian women happy, you have to understand where their beauty traditions come from, how they live, how their skin and hair is affected by the climate, etc.”

Because their customers are all so different, L’Oréal uses the concept of universalisation . “It’s a word I invented,” Jean-Paul Agon admits. “When you are making beauty products, skin and hair are not the same everywhere. The climate is not the same, traditions, cultures, aspirations and dreams are all distinct.”

Universalisation, then, is similar to globalisation, but with the respect of differences. L’Oréal’s brands are global, but within each of the brands, the products are tailor-made for each continent.

“Empathy is very important in the job of marketing, especially in the marketing of beauty,” insists the L’Oréal Chairman. “You have to understand what people want, what they dream of and desire. This is one of the most stimulating aspects of the job.”

Building a leader

With the concept of universalisation in mind at all stages of production, L’Oréal pursed an ambitious expansion plan under Agon’s leadership, developing manufacturing units across the world. The company now has a network of 38 factories and 20 research centres around the world, from Tokyo, to New York, to Rio, to Mumbai, to Johannesburg.

His ability to work with so many international and multicultural teams harks back to his time at HEC Paris, which he describes as a ‘melting pot’ of students. He is thankful for the chance so early in his life to have met so many smart, interesting people from around the world.

“When else in your life will you get to spend a year or two with individuals from 130 nationalities, to exchange ideas with them, to play sport together, share dinners, explore Paris?”

“It is an incredible opportunity, and very much part of your education. It is something that is not taught, but is definitely part of what is generously given to you as a member of this wonderful community.”

Near a third of L'Oréal's $44 billion revenues now come from Asia, and more than 25% from North ... [+] America (Photo by Astrid Stawiarz/Getty Images for NYX Professional Makeup )

I ask the L’Oréal Chairman what qualities he looks for in future business leaders. “First, I think that it is more important for someone to be smart than to be clever.”

Of greater importance though for Agon is a person’s judgement capacity. “Judgement is something very special. You need to understand and make the right choice, take the right decision. So the capacity for sound judgement is very important.”

He also asks everyone who works in the company to have the same entrepreneurial spirit and determination to grow. “I think anyone in a large company should also act like an entrepreneur,” he says. “Develop a vision, seize opportunities and take risks. It's better to have tried and failed than to regret never having tried. One of my favourite mantras in life is Fortune favours the brave .”

“When we started in Asia, we started from scratch. Our only subsidiary was in Japan, and it was small. And so I had this crucial opportunity in 1997 to create subsidiaries in every country - in China, in Korea, in Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, The Philippines, everywhere.” With a broad smile he recalls, “it was absolutely fantastic!”

“And of course, at that time we needed to recruit teams. Again, it's like a boat, you need to recruit a crew to come on board and share this adventure. So you need people with courage.”

Never be complacent, never repeat

Agon insists that for a business to grow you have to have an entrepreneurial attitude. “I said to my teams that at L'Oréal, even if we are a large company it is very important to keep a challenger spirit.“

“Never, never be complacent,” he concludes.

The results speak for themselves. Near a third of L’Oréal’s $44 billion revenues now come from Asia, and more than 25% from North America where he ran operations for five years.

Jean-Paul Agon’s drive for innovation absorbs inspiration from many different sources. He describes an exhibition he recently attended at the Louvre, which showcased 60 masterpieces from the Museo di Capodimonte.

"Art is a permanent quest for new creativity, new ideas, new visions, new techniques, new ... [+] everything." - Jean Paul Agon and his wife Sophie attend the 2018 L'Oreal - UNESCO for Women in Science Awards Ceremony at UNESCO (Photo by Bertrand Rindoff Petroff/Getty Images for L'Oreal Foundation )

“What I love about art is this capacity to always invent, surprise and disrupt,” he enthuses. “Every good artist knows the history of art, and so knows that he has to invent something new.”

Sophie Agon, Jean-Paul’s wife, introduced him to the world of art and culture, encouraging him to spend more time soaking up museums and art fairs. With her influence, Jean-Paul is becoming more familiar with the world of art, and discovering the parallels it has with his work at L’Oréal.

“Art is a permanent quest for new creativity, new ideas, new visions, new techniques, new everything. This tends to be the same for businesses. You never repeat what has been done before, you always have to move it forward,” he said.

Transforming challenges to opportunities

When it comes to facing challenges, Jean-Paul Agon also takes inspiration from the Classics. “My favourite hero in literature is Ulysses,” he reveals. The Greek hero also known as Odysseus is the mythological protagonist of Homer’s The Odyssey , responsible for the idea of the Trojan horse and for triumphing over the Cyclops.

“Ulysses had a journey and he always found a way, even though he wasn’t the strongest or the bravest. But he was smart. And as he was astute, he always found a way,” reflects Jean-Paul.

As he took on the role of CEO at L’Oréal, Jean-Paul knew it wasn’t going to be easy. “But my thinking was: ‘Why not? After all, someone has to do it!’.”

And he was right. As with any company, life at L’Oréal comes with myriad challenges – particularly when you’re the CEO. However, these challenges tend not to phase him too much.

“Opportunities seem to materialize much more often than threats,” he finds. But this may be down to Jean-Paul’s positive approach to business. “Maybe I’m just an optimist.”

Like Ulysses, Jean-Paul loves to transform a challenge into an opportunity. “A crisis is always a moment to rethink,” he insists, “and the possibility to make a change.”

One of the challenges in recent years has been the digital revolution. Goldman Sachs recently reported that AI could replace 300 million jobs to automation . But Jean-Paul does not believe the group’s employee’s careers are under threat from AI.

“From the day AI was first mentioned, L’Oréal approached it as an opportunity, rather than a threat.” Jean-Paul describes success as a self-fulfilling prophecy: if you view something as an opportunity, then you’ll view it in terms of how to make it into an opportunity.

He does, however, believe AI might change and transform jobs. “People will have to change and adapt to a new world,” he says.

“While daunting, this is where executive education at business schools like HEC Paris will become more and more essential,” he explains. “The jobs of tomorrow will be very different to today and executives need to prepare today to be ready.”

It’s a question of being open, of being ready to embrace change. “You must adapt to the evolution of the world, rather than doing exactly what you would do today.”

Because our planet is worth it

Another example of where L’Oréal has embraced change is the company’s approach to sustainability – something Jean-Paul Agon is extremely proud of.

L’Oréal has been ranked over consecutive years among the top 100 companies for its initiatives around CSR and sustainability. Jean-Paul describes the decision to be a leader in sustainability as “the biggest revolution at L’Oréal in the past 50 years”, particularly as the beauty industry has a relatively low environmental impact compared to other industries. However, as the CEO he wanted L’Oréal to be a pioneer in this area and set an example.

"Sustainability is the biggest revolution at L'Oréal in th e past 50 years." Jean Paul Agon, ... [+] Chairman of L'Oréal says his mindset towards sustainability was largely shaped by attending a business school that taught leadership with a positive societal impact. (Photo by Arnold Jerocki/Getty Images)

His mindset towards sustainability, he says, was largely shaped by attending a business school that taught leadership with a positive societal impact.

To become more sustainable, the company had to rethink everything about the way it did business, by engaging a radical transformation of the group’s activities to respect the planetary boundaries. This included reinventing the formulas, optimising the packaging to become more sustainable, changing the production, the delivery…

It also meant empowering its suppliers to help them transition to a lower impact business model, as well as consumers by raising awareness.

To go beyond the transformation of its own business model, L’Oréal committed with more than $210M to address social and environmental needs. Its Circular Innovation Fund aims to support entrepreneurs developing innovative circular economy solutions worldwide. Its Nature Regeneration fund aims to support the restoration of degraded land, the regeneration of mangroves as well the restoration of marine areas and forests.

To address urgent social challenges, the Group has created the L'Oréal Fund for Women to support on the ground organizations and local charities helping highly vulnerable women. Since its creation, the Fund has provided support to more than 240 organizations in more than 60 countries.

Agon explains that working towards becoming a sustainable company was fantastic motivation for L’Oréal’s employees, who were very proud of their achievements.

Staying true to yourself

In his 45 years at L’Oréal, Jean-Paul Agon has never once compromised on his moral values – something that often surprises those whom he tells, who wouldn’t expect someone who has worked at such a large company to have had this privilege.

“I've never been obliged to do or say something that I didn't think was right,” he said. “I'm very proud and happy that in all these years I was able to stay true to my moral code of conduct and ethics,” he says.

The pessimist complains about the wind. The optimist expects it to change. Leaders adjust the sails. ... [+] (Photo credit should read RICHARD BOUHET/AFP via Getty Images)

For those looking to follow in the footsteps of the HEC Paris graduate, this is the advice he would offer. “Choose a career that where you wake up every morning happy and excited for what you have to do. Then share this enthusiasm with the people around you.”

As the beauty industry’s expectations and challenges continue to evolve, Jean-Paul Agon will keep transforming challenges into opportunities. After all, when it comes to sailing the pessimist complains about the wind. The optimist expects it to change. Leaders adjust the sails.

• Editorial Standards
• Reprints & Permissions

Join The Conversation

One Community. Many Voices. Create a free account to share your thoughts. 

Forbes Community Guidelines

Our community is about connecting people through open and thoughtful conversations. We want our readers to share their views and exchange ideas and facts in a safe space.

In order to do so, please follow the posting rules in our site's  Terms of Service.   We've summarized some of those key rules below. Simply put, keep it civil.

Your post will be rejected if we notice that it seems to contain:

• False or intentionally out-of-context or misleading information
• Insults, profanity, incoherent, obscene or inflammatory language or threats of any kind
• Attacks on the identity of other commenters or the article's author
• Content that otherwise violates our site's  terms.

User accounts will be blocked if we notice or believe that users are engaged in:

• Continuous attempts to re-post comments that have been previously moderated/rejected
• Racist, sexist, homophobic or other discriminatory comments
• Attempts or tactics that put the site security at risk
• Actions that otherwise violate our site's  terms.

So, how can you be a power user?

• Stay on topic and share your insights
• Feel free to be clear and thoughtful to get your point across
• ‘Like’ or ‘Dislike’ to show your point of view.
• Protect your community.
• Use the report tool to alert us when someone breaks the rules.

Thanks for reading our community guidelines. Please read the full list of posting rules found in our site's  Terms of Service.

How L'Oreal Sculpted The Cosmetics Industry

Table of contents.

Beginning back in the early 1900’s, L'Oréal began to transform the cosmetic industry. As of 2021, the beauty group has acquired multiple brands, owns countless products, and is a household name throughout multiple countries. 

If you’re unsure of the market share that L'Oréal holds, take a look at these key company stats:

• L'Oréal owns 36 brands , including big names like Garnier, Lancome, & Ralph Lauren.
• Across all brands, L'Oréal had a  valuation of 29.47 billion dollars in 2020 .
• The company has 87,907 employees worldwide. 
• From 2009-2019, L'Oréal  increased its revenue by 10 billion dollars  with year-over-year growth. 
• They offer  hundreds of products across five areas in the beauty industry , including makeup, skincare, hair products, men’s cosmetics, and hair dye. 
• In 2020, L'Oréal  invested nearly 1.2 billion US dollars  into Research & Development. 
• Each year, L'Oréal  files upwards of 300 patents worldwide . 

Throughout this study, we’ll cover how L'Oréal went from a French chemist’s dream to the world’s leading manufacturer of cosmetic products over its 112 year run. 

{{cta('eed3a6a3-0c12-4c96-9964-ac5329a94a27')}}

A Young Man’s Dream to A Global Sensation

In 1881, two pastry shop owners in Paris, France welcomed a child into the world, as most parents do, with no idea of whom that child would grow up to be. Living a humble life, they taught their son the rewards of working hard and he, in turn, excelled in academia and helped them around their shop. 

Just 19 years later, a young man by the name of Eugene Schueller would join the Institute of Applied Chemistry in Paris, France. Likely inspired by his parents' entrepreneurship, Eugene was full of ambition and drive. After graduating with a degree in Chemistry in 1904, Eugene went on to work as an assistant in a lab. 

Standards for beauty at this time were significantly different than what we know today, with hair dyes containing strong and harmful contaminants like lead. So Eugene began to concoct beauty solutions that would promise risk-free hair dyes to women with his knowledge of chemistry.

By 1907, the path to the L'Oréal Group had officially begun. After multiple mistrials, Eugene found a hair dye solution that was up to his standards and began selling the products to local salon owners around Paris. 

First, he sold these products under the brand name of  Auréole , then two years later as  Société Française des Teintures Inoffensives pour Cheveux  (French Society of Harmless Hair Dyes). By 1912, just 5 years after he began his experiments, the brand would take on the name of L'Oréal and begin to sell hair dyes throughout France, Austria, Holland, and Italy. 

After going off to serve in World War I and returning to run the company, L'Oréal expanded again to offer their products in 17 countries worldwide.

Chapter summary— At 25 years old, with a little bit of know-how and a lot of ambition, Eugene Schueller embarked on a journey that formed the basis of the company that would dominate the beauty industry over the next 100 years. 

The Formative Years

Following the war, beauty trends were changing again and the market began to grow, offering L'Oréal an ever-growing client base to support their expansion. The growth in the market and L'Oréal’s position as a non-toxic hair dye supplier put the company in its first acquisition position. Eugene saw a need in the market for options in products and the company 

In 1928,  L'Oréal acquired Monsavon , a company that sold traditional bath soap. Monsavon soup can still be purchased today, along with shower gel.

Marketing in the 1930’s

While Eugene was a chemist and academic, he had a knack for marketing and business. As L'Oréal continued to expand, take on greater investments, and sell to more consumers, Eugene used the tools of the time to market L'Oréal with a method widely used in the beauty industry today. 

Eugene had custom poster ads created by popular artists of the time and invested in launching a magazine that was designed for women. Votre Beauté could be credited for the development of beauty standards through “pop-culture” as fashion and beauty magazines during this time began to  widely shape cosmetic trends in France , and Votre Beauté was one of the first. 

As an owner of a popular publication with a vested interest in women’s desire to maintain their beauty, Eugene was in a spectacular business position. As trends and influence were pushed through magazine articles, L'Oréal was ready with combative beauty products every step of the way. Trends like platinum blonde hair or a dedication to “keep the grey away” created a widespread desire and demand for hair dye and marketing to women specifically suddenly became very profitable. 

Identifying a Problem & Providing a Solution

With a foolproof marketing strategy and a huge consumer base, L'Oréal began investing into and growing their product offerings. The company began to further niche down in their marketing and developing products for certain instances or for certain ages. 

In 1935, L'Oréal brought the very first sun-protecting lotion to the market—sunscreen. Designed to apply when vacationing or spending extra time in the sun, sunscreen began to take off and would find itself an essential beauty regimen in the decades to come.

Around the same time, they introduced a hair product specifically for children. They began to focus on groups and areas of the population that had not been actively marketed to in the mid-1900s. This method of marketing would contribute greatly to the coming years of product development—and not just for L'Oréal and the beauty industry. Businesses today still use problem/solution and niche marketing when selling a product or starting a business, L'Oréal was just one of the first. 

Chapter summary— L'Oréal began to rethink marketing, business, and product development in a way that had not been done before and that had implications on the way we’re advised to do business today. By controlling a portion of the media, the beauty-giant-in-the-making told their audience what their problems were and offered a direct solution, creating a century-long domino effect. 

Expanding L'Oréal at All Costs

World war ii couldn’t stop the beauty industry.

While much of the world—and L'Oréal’s customer base—was experiencing economic depressions and the effects of World War II, the interest and demand for products in the beauty industry did not falter. It’s likely that in a time of deep depression and warfare, the products brought to market by L'Oréal continued to be successful because of the self-esteem boost that the beauty industry provides to women. 

Amongst the unrest, Eugene Schueller was also thought to be linked to Nazi Germany and, at the very least, thought to be a Fascist-sympathizer. This associate did not contribute a loss in company revenues either and it’s been speculated that these connections actually contributed to L'Oréal’s continued success  during the war. 

Although skepticism remained, Schueller was awarded an  “Advertising Oscar” in 1953 , just four years before his death. It cannot be denied that Schueller’s marketing strategy for L'Oréal was creative and ahead of its time, as Schueller was the first to use catchy jingles or influential resources to promote a beauty product. 

The Way to the Top

In the wake of a world war, L'Oréal stood strong. The ambitions of leadership led the company to continue to expand its offerings and attempt to leave no niche un-targeted. Research and development had expanded to house a team of more than 20 chemists, dedicated to creating breakthrough products that the market didn’t even know it needed yet. 

Since this first widespread expansion of research and product development, L'Oréal has kept the same tune throughout the company's entire life. After 100 years and more than a few brand acquisitions, L'Oréal consistently spends a considerable portion of its revenue on developing transformational products for the beauty industry. 

Within just 5 years of the war, L'Oréal’s research and development department had grown to more than 100 chemists. Soon, hair products began to emerge that was the first of their kind. Over the next 10 years and beyond, L'Oréal would continue a pattern developing revolutionary beauty products, ultimately shaping the method of the company.

As of 2021,  Innovative Research and ever-expanding knowledge are a part of the company's core mission and they are dedicated to maintaining their position as an industry leader and innovator. Their commitment to research is heavily marketed as a pillar of their brand and bodes well for them in the cosmetics industry, as a desire for trust in products has steadily grown in the market over the years. 

Alongside their commitment to research, L'Oréal takes a strong position in the development of knowledge. They’re dedicated to learning more about the body and how it reacts to certain treatments so they can keep up with the trends of the clean beauty industry while maintaining and growing their customer base. 

Building a Top-Notch Team

Alongside the expansion of research, came the expansion of the team. Two additions that are credited greatly for the growth and long-term expansion of L'Oréal would join the company at this time. Francois Dalle and Charles Zviak came on board right as Hollywood and Mass Media were beginning to take hold—a crucial time for the beauty industry. 

Francois Dalle would join L'Oréal working as a chemist for Monsavon in 1942, where he would go on to be named director of L'Oréal just 6 short years later. When he joined, what he claims as a small business would begin to become the global beauty giant we all know today in as little as 10 years. 

Francois’s position in the French company would showcase his ability to lead with intuitive and strategic decision-making, just as Eugene Schueller. After Schueller’s death in 1957, Dalle would become the head of L'Oréal, where he remained for nearly thirty years. Within his first 10 years of running the company, L'Oréal would begin making masterful acquisitions and start a prominent name for itself across the globe. 

Throughout his time as the company’s leader, L'Oréal released the first of many industry standard products today. In the same year Dalle began to lead L'Oréal, the company launched the first-ever hairspray, L'Oréal Net. 

Charles Zviak began with Monsavon in 1945 and worked closely alongside Dalle in research and development. Their dedication to innovation and revolutionary product development ultimately gave L'Oréal the positioning they had in the market.

Zviak continued to work alongside Dalle throughout their rise in the company. Over the next 30 years, the team would bring about the products that would position L'Oréal as the industry leader that it would come to be. 

After Dalle left office in 1984, Zviak led as CEO for the following four years. During this time, the company would begin to market cosmetic products to men, further their product development and expansion, and officially become a world leader in the beauty industry. 

Increasing Distribution

Shortly after the war, L'Oréal continued expanding into new countries and increasing their distribution. The goal of L'Oréal became clear: dominate the market. L'Oréal would continue to expand throughout the 1950’s and largely used the world’s booming marketing capabilities to their advantage. 

By this time, L'Oréal was a global contributor to the cosmetics industry on at least three continents: Europe, North America, and South America.

Chapter summary— Armed with effective leaders with intuitive business ability, L'Oréal was in the perfect position to step up and lead the beauty industry through history. The unique expertise and standard that L'Oréal was able to bring to the cosmetics industry led the company to success, despite scandal and global events. 

Inheritance and Company Politics  

After Schueller’s death in 1957, Liliane Bettencourt inherited her father’s company. At 35, she became the heiress to a fortune in the making. While she owned the majority share of the company, Francois Dalle made executive and operational decisions for the company that ultimately led to its overall success. 

Before her father’s death, Liliane married a man named André Bettencourt, from whom she got her name. Like Schueller, André Bellencourt had strong ties to the Nazi government, a fact that holds space with theories and accusations about L'Oréal’s early contributions. Despite these accusations,  Bettencourt had a spot on L'Oréal’s board of directors  throughout their term of highest growth. 

Going Public

In 1963, under the leadership of Francois Dalle,  L'Oréal went public on the French stock exchange. The Bettencourts maintained their majority share in L'Oréal but going public positioned L'Oréal to make strategic and successful acquisitions in the years to come. Over the next 10 years, Dalle would lead L'Oréal to acquire several brands and further the company to its billion-dollar valuation. 

Today, the industry leader has a market cap of  225.7 billion US dollars  and continues to grow its share prices. From March 2020 to June 2021, shares of L'Oréal ADR increased by nearly $50 to a total of $91 per share. This current share price is the highest and most consistent increase the company has experienced since June 2000, where the stock was valued at $160 per share and fell to just $16 per share in a matter of days. Over the last 20 years, L'Oréal has experienced steady growth in stock returns, with their largest increase in decades taking place amidst the COVID-19 pandemic. 

In Ties with Nestlé

In 1974, a portion of the Bettencourts’ ownership in  L'Oréal was sold to Nestlé , the world’s largest food company, as a means to protect the company with Nestlé’s resources. Nestlé would not become a majority shareholder, the Bettencourts kept majority ownership and still have it today. 

Since the 1970’s, the market and consumerism has greatly changed. While Nestlé stepped in to help protect L'Oréal in the 70’s, the company had not yet seen the massive expansive growth they would experience in the coming decades. L'Oréal’s success in expansion was largely due to Nestlé and the Swiss company’s connections to overseas markets. Although they were a major contributor to L'Oréal’s growth, L'Oréal would grow to surpass Nestlé in market returns. 

By 2018, the beauty giant was producing a 15% return for shareholders, while  Nestlé shares produced an 11% return . In 2014, the Bettencourts initiated their first buyback of Nesté’s stake in the company. L'Oréal purchased back  8% of the stock  that had been sold to Nestlé 30 years prior, increasing the Bettencourts’ stake in the company by 3%.

Chapter summary— To fulfill the dream of market domination, L'Oréal began to build professional alliances and make decisions that put the soon-to-be conglomerate in the position to rise to their current state. The decision-making by leadership allowed L'Oréal the opportunity to advance into foreign markets and produce the funds necessary to make their future acquisitions. 

Diversification & Acquisitions

In his time as leading chairman, Francois Dalle would see L'Oréal through a number of powerful company acquisitions that helped to diversify L'Oréal’s market reach and product offerings. Research and development expanded again and again until the department housed 1000 employees by the start of Zviak’s reign in 1984. L'Oréal was growing and it was not stopping. 

After L'Oréal went public, Dalle acquired  18 companies from 1964-1984 , ranging from self-care products providers to over-the-counter drug manufacturers. In an effort to expand L'Oréal’s network and access to industry tools, the diversification of L'Oréal began the growth of many household brands that are still popular today. 

Most notably, L'Oréal purchased its first key cosmetic brand in 1964. This luxury cosmetic line went by the name of Lancôme and remains an industry leader in today’s 21st century beauty market. In the same year, L'Oréal would expand from hair and cosmetics to perfumes when they purchased Jacques Fath perfumes Laboratoires d’Anglas. In 1965, Garnier was purchased by L'Oréal, followed by a fashion and perfume brand, André Courrège, and French skin care company, Biotherm, in 1970. 

In 1973, L'Oréal would go on to break into the pharmaceutical space with their purchase of a controlling stake in Synthélabo, which would later merge with Sanof, to form  Europe’s sixth-largest pharma company , Sanofi- Synthélabo. Brands Gemey, Ricils, and Jeanne Piaubert were also picked up the same year. 

The following year would be when L'Oréal began its alliance with Nestlé. In relation to Nestlé’s influence on L'Oréal’s growth, it’s important to note that at the time of Liliane Bettencourt’s share sale to Nestlé, current L'Oréal CEO, Francois Dalle was on the Nestlé board of directors . 

Over the next four years, Dalle would leverage two mergers and 5 company acquisitions before leaving L'Oréal in the midst of acquiring household name Ralph Lauren in 1984. In the four years following that Charles Zviak led the company, no company acquisitions had been made, but strides were being taken in research and the company was further positioning itself as the key player in research and innovation. 

Lindsey Owen-Jones

From 1988 to 2005, Owen-Jones led The L'Oréal Group into the 21st century, acquiring more companies along the way, and even breaking into the film industry for one year when L'Oréal controlled Paravision. Keeping a majority stake in Paravision International, L'Oréal refocused and began to acquire more companies in the beauty space. 

L'Oréal would go on to acquire 13 more companies and 2 major licensing agreements throughout the length of Owen-Jones term. Relationships with brands like Georgio Armani and Viktor & Rolf led to the diversification of L'Oréal’s high-end portfolio, while acquisitions like EpiSkin  and  Maybelline  worked to directly grow the company in either research capabilities or considerable profit margins. 

From 2006-2018, L'Oréal would make at least 16 more acquisitions and release several of their old holdings. Brands acquired during this time include: Urban Decay, NYX Cosmetics, CereVe, Essie Nail Polish, and PureOlogy. Amongst these common holdings, L'Oréal continued to expand into foreign markets with strategic purchases like the $840 million dollar buy of the Chinese cosmetic company, Magic Holdings. 

Chapter summary— Everyone can be your customer, you cannot be everyone’s brand. This may as well be L'Oréal’s take on business as a whole. Over the life of the company, the strong commitment to acquisition and diversification proves that L'Oréal is no longer the hair dye company of the early 1900’s, but an industry solution for a variety of businesses. 

The Rise to Conglomerate

While many historical factors have contributed to L'Oréal’s century-long success, there are a few takeaways that any business can learn from. Without a solid foundation and successful business practices, a company does not continuously grow over the course of a century. The following key components should be in place to achieve the level of success that L'Oréal has. 

Strong Brand Image

Over the years, L'Oréal has developed and maintained a strong brand image that contributes to their customer loyalty and increases their brand recognition. L'Oréal began as a company for women, with a mission to bring them the best cosmetic products possible—and that’s just what they’ve done. By instilling the importance of providing beauty solutions to every woman, (in any market, at any price point) and never wavering in their initial purpose, L'Oréal has maintained their place as a go-to cosmetic provider for women around the world. 

Launch Strategies

Throughout the “early years” of the French beauty industry, L'Oréal made history by launching the first of several products that are widely manufactured and in demand today. From releasing the first sunscreen to introducing the first-ever hairspray, L'Oréal was leaving impressions, no matter their strategy. However, this particular circumstance could not always be the case. 

Over the decades, L'Oréal maximized its position in the industry by strategically launching new products. As far back as the 1930’s, Schueller was using clever means to launch L'Oréal products and his successors followed suit. 

Universalization is a prime strategy L'Oréal uses to successfully market and launch its products. While this strategy greatly benefits L'Oréal, universalization benefits the consumer just as well. This strategy represents the respect and acknowledgment of the differences in experiences that individuals across cultures face and aims to offer proper solutions to the proper demographic. 

Their commitment to research, combined with their dedication to inclusion, is what has allowed L'Oréal to expand into 150 countries around the globe. 

Effective Positioning

In keeping with their brand image, L'Oréal’s commitment to research and development is what has carried them over the last 100 years. If not for their relentless pursuit to discover beauty solutions for multiple demographics, L'Oréal would never have expanded to the point that they have now. The high standards that have been in place since 1909 have remained as high as when Schueller was selling  Société Française des Teintures Inoffensives pour Cheveux  to local French salons. 

The positioning of the brand has resonated with every leader after Schueller and continues to strengthen well into the 21st century. 

Maximizing Circumstance

As history played out and the rise of mass media began, L'Oréal used every trend and every influence as an opportunity for growth. From the Jazz Age through the 1950’s, the leadership at L'Oréal understood the importance of keeping with—and sometimes leading—the trends of the time. Similar to the way Votre Beauté influenced the early patrons of L'Oréal, Hollywood began to grow in popularity, greatly influencing the spread of fashion trends. L'Oréal maximized this, and continues to do so, by developing products that fit the beauty trends of the time.

Creative Marketing

Dating back to Votre Beauté and L'Oréal’s artist commissioned posters, Schueller’s knack for marketing and maximization of the mass media industry as a growth tool is an incredible success story for businesses everywhere. In a time where women were hardly viewed as a customer pool, Schueller did something that had never been done before and it paid off in droves. This early expectation of how L'Oréal would interact with their clients would eventually become the template for modern-day advertising. 

The theme of intuitive marketing combined with cutting-edge and never-before-seen products gave L'Oréal the brand direction that would lead them into the 21st century. 

Powerful Management

Since its formation, L'Oréal has been headed by powerful and decisive leadership that has steered them to become the conglomerate that they are today. Eugene Schueller coined early examples of the L'Oréal approach, but every leader after him has reigned in the legacy of their successor and strove to build L'Oréal by massive amounts. 

After Lindsey Owen-Jones' turn of the century term, L'Oréal’s most recent CEO took over the company from 2006 to May of 2021. Jean-Paul Agon is credited with  leading L'Oréal into the digital age , where the team again used the tools at their disposal to maximize their market reach and became the leading cosmetic brand in China. 

While each successor after Schueller played an integral part in the company’s journey to conglomerate, Agon took the company from a  46 billion dollar market cap in 2006  and increased that number by more than quadruple. At the end of his term, L'Oréal’s market cap was around 230 billion dollars and has increased by more than 60 billion dollars in the three months since his resignation in May of 2021.

Chapter summary— L'Oréal’s success was not a “luck of the draw'' anomaly, but a strategic build of a company across generations of powerful leaders with strong ambition and a clear brand vision. Throughout each term of leadership, L'Oréal embraced the world around them and maximized their brand by staying relevant, making intuitive decisions, and widely diversifying their market reach. L'Oréal’s ability to grow with its consumer base and intuit the needs of a niche effectively created space for decades of beauty entrepreneurs to come. 

The L'Oréal Group

Client & competition.

After 100 years and just as many strategic decisions, L'Oréal has expanded to house 36 brands and thousands of products under their conglomerate wing. Their commitment to diversification in demographics, product opportunity, and varying industries has given the beauty giant the tools they need to be successful in every market. 

By controlling a range of brands, from low end to high quality, and offering cosmetic products to men, women, and children around the world, L'Oréal has effectively positioned itself as a company that has a product for everyone. 

Throughout the lifetime of L'Oréal, only a handful of other beauty conglomerates have managed to race them to the top. Almost any product that can be found on mainstream shelves today is controlled by L'Oréal, Estée Lauder Companies, Coty, Unilever, Procter & Gamble, Revlon Inc, or Johnson & Johnson. 

Divisions of a Conglomerate

To adequately maintain the success of 36 brands,  The L'Oréal Group is divided into four divisions : L'Oréal Luxe, Consumer Products, Active Cosmetics, and Professional Products. 

L'Oréal Luxe consists of 26 of The Group’s most exclusive brands, including industry pillars like Lancôme, Keihl’s, Giorgio Armani, Prada, Valentino, Mugler, and YSL, and Ralph Lauren. This division is dedicated to bringing the best and most high-quality brands to their consumers while implementing recycling initiatives and sustainable formulas within the L'Oréal Luxe brands. 

The Consumer Products Division aims to bring quality beauty products to all consumers, regardless of financial state. With common drugstore brands like Maybelline New York, Garnier, and NYX, L'Oréal strives to create affordable and accessible cosmetic options for the larger beauty market. 

The L'Oréal Group’s  Active Cosmetics Division  houses treatment brands that can have been proven to achieve results in acne or problem skin with science. This division is singularly focused on innovation and understanding the skin so the R&D teams can create the most effective and healthy beauty products on the market. Well known brands in this division include CeraVe, Vichy, and La Roche Posay. 

The  Professional Products Division  in The L'Oréal Group could arguably be noted as the company’s first division. The Professional Products teams actively seek to bring the best hair care products to the industry and to industry professionals. Brands like Kérastase, Redken, and Pureology are all controlled by this division. 

Each division also deploys its own sustainability initiatives, with varying accomplishments across all of the brands. From recycling programs to job creation with sustainable sourcing, The L'Oréal Group continues to invest in research in all areas, including product solutions that will reduce plastic consumption in the beauty market. 

The Future of the Group

As of this writing, L'Oréal holds space as the 33rd most valuable company globally and is not likely to stop now. With a change of leadership in May of 2021, Nicolas Hieronimus became the next CEO of L'Oréal, following a  four year stint as deputy CEO to Agon . Hieronimus has made his intentions for the company very clear and shares views much like those of his mentor. 

Under the leadership of Hieronimus, The L'Oréal Group will continue to be committed to universalization and focus on achieving industry leaders in each country that represent the demographic of the country. 

In an ode to good faith, The L'Oréal Group will also expand on eco-conscious initiatives like its  L'Oréal for the Future commitment that will work to further reduce the conglomerate’s ecological footprint over the next decade. L'Oréal was already a favorable and eco-conscious company, as they have consistently worked to increase sustainability over the last 15 years, significantly increasing this focus and producing favorable results year over year. 

Heironimus has vowed to upkeep this trend and continue to defer to science as the leading driver in the company’s position. 

Growth by the numbers

Key takeaways

L'Oréal has had a profound impact on the beauty industry, from creation to advertising to inclusion, the now multi-billion dollar conglomerate should be recognized for its contributions. From their start as with historical product innovation and a commitment to research, L'Oréal contributed greatly to the development of the beauty standards that are still present today. 

Eugene Schueller’s initial targeted marketing in the 1930’s spawned an advertising trend that would be continued across industries and imitated over and over again in the beauty market. Had L'Oréal not played a significant part in the development of the beauty industry and inspired products around the globe, it could be argued that the market may not have grown to what it has today. 

Over the course of 80 years and 5 visionary CEOs, The L'Oréal Group was not only able to stay afloat as the years went on, but consistently gain, grow, and evolve to be the industry leader the market was looking for. Their pristine ability to intuit the needs of consumers, listen to feedback, and transform with the times has been a crucial element in their rise to global success. 

Product details

• Cranfield School of Management
• MBA Programmes
• Full-time Master's Courses
• Part-time Master's Courses
• Master’s-level Apprenticeships
• Research Degrees
• Custom Programmes
• Open Executive Programmes
• Online Executive Programmes
• Online Stackable Programmes
• All Online Courses
• Application guide
• Funding opportunities
• All Online courses
• Executive Development
• Course Portfolio
• Consultancy
• Contextualised Courses
• Apprenticeships
• Business Simulations
• Capabilities and Thought Leadership
• Global reach
• Faculty Profiles
• Research Centres
• Research Clubs
• Research Projects
• Case Studies
• School of Management Library
• Careers and Employability Service
• Prospective students
• Links with industry
• The service
• Employer partners
• Alumni zone
• Welcome from the Dean
• Accreditations & Awards
• Life at Cranfield
• Thought Leadership
• Student and Faculty Blogs
• Tomorrow. Brighter.
• Transforming the way the world works
• Work at Cranfield
• Cranfield University
• Our clients

Developing Country MDs to maximise the opportunities in a changing global landscape - a Networked Learning Approach

Facts and Figures

• The networked programme has run twice with more programmes planned
• To date, L’Oréal Country Managing Directors from across Western Europe, Taiwan, Croatia, Venezuela, Kenya, Panama, Lebanon, and Singapore have attended.

The organisation

L’Oréal is a leader in the global beauty business. Founded over 100 years ago by a chemist/entrepreneur in Paris, the organisation is now present in 130 countries, employing 65,000 people and developing and marketing 25 global brands. 

The business issues

L’Oréal has very clear ambitions: to continue to lead in a highly competitive sector, to continue to globalise and, over the next ten years, to double the number of consumers the organisation serves. As the world moves towards emerging markets they recognise a need to change and adapt.

The organisation’s Country Managing Directors are critical to the success of this strategy. They are responsible for managing the L’Oréal business in their country, providing strong leadership for the organisation’s employees and ensuring that L’Oréal fulfils its social responsibilities to the communities in which it operates.

It is a complex and challenging role and L’Oréal is seeking to develop a new generation of senior executives to succeed in an environment of increasing complexity, globalisation, hyper-competition and continuous change.

A Networked Learning Approach

The Country Managing Director’s Programme takes a Networked Learning approach to developing the skills required in this challenging context. Initially a successful, fully residential programme, was designed to meet the specific needs of this important group. Over time it was felt that a blended, technology-enabled, approach could increase the efficiency of the learning, and the degree of long term application.

In the current programme, Country Managing Directors from around the world meet initially for a face-to-face module in Paris and begin the process of coming together as a supportive learning community. In this first session the group focus on their leadership challenges. After returning to their regions, they join a series of scheduled, web-based tutorials with Cranfield faculty over a 12 month period – combining pre- and post- work assignments and coaching support.

Issues tackled with Cranfield faculty during these sessions include Change, Innovation, Visioning, Stakeholder Management and Leadership/Management Style. As an online, networked, community they are supported with additional, guided resources made available at intervals from the Cranfield Knowledge Interchange. These relate to specific topic areas identified as most useful during the face-to-face module.

A concluding face-to-face, Paris based, event draws the learners together to consolidate the learning.  It is also an opportunity to strengthen personal relationships for the continuance of their career networks going forward. 

Why Networked Learning?

“Learning is effected in time and in situ. Cranfield brings new frameworks, new insights, tools, benchmarking.  And it’s done in such a way that it is integrated with our own development cycle.

Our Country MDs prepare for each session with their own challenges in mind; work in a focussed way with faculty on new models and ways of thinking; share ideas amongst themselves -  online and at a distance - and then apply the new knowledge very quickly in their own environment, with support from the Cranfield team.

Learning is embedded in their work responsibilities. We are successfully bridging the ‘learning-knowing-doing’ gap.  It’s a very powerful recipe.”

Tony Russell, Director Senior Executive Development, L’Oréal

As a result of the programme, L’Oréal has already observed a number of changes.  Firstly in terms of leadership style, Country Managers themselves are more self-aware, more sensitive to their own leadership style, to their relationships with others and to intercultural issues.

Programme participants are employing a range of tools from the programme to tackle their day-to-day challenges. Examples include the use of new change management models in Southern Europe; new lenses on sustainable development deployed in Asia; and stakeholder management models applied in L’Oréal’s start-up operation in Kenya.

The changes in leadership style are having an impact both upwards and downwards in the organisation.  The programme is demonstrating that the tools, models, new ideas and new insights introduced during the programme are an important way of complementing the development that L’Oréal is able to do internally.

Why Cranfield?

"Firstly Cranfield brings a very strong faculty, a faculty which has breadth and depth, international, diversity, and which is rooted in business practice, 'Knowledge into Action' is something which is very important for us too.

Then there is partnership - Cranfield has significant expertise in business partnership and learning delivery. Through the breadth and depth of their online resources, Cranfield is very capable of reaching out to an international senior executive population, which is extremely important to us.

And finally the notion of innovation and continuous improvement. All of those ingredients are very important. It’s a very complete package.”

Get in touch

• Business Development Team
• T: +44 (0)1234 754500

LOreal Snapshot

L’Oréal leads the global beauty industry by decoding digital transformation

As one of the world’s leading cosmetics companies, French-based L’Oréal sought to rewrite the future of the beauty industry by modernising its digital infrastructure. To achieve this aim, the renowned global beauty retailer endeavoured to bridge the physical, digital and virtual worlds to produce augmented and high-touch retail beauty experiences. In a hyper-creative and dynamic industry, bringing data science and technology into the CX equation was high on the company’s strategic agenda.

Tealium CDP provided the mainstay of L’Oréal’s marketing intelligence to power their ambition. By unifying data into a single source of truth, L’Oréal could capture and analyse all real-time customer interactions to extract meaningful insights for intelligent CX.

The CDP provided L’Oréal with certainty in their data quality and data integrity, which gave them a newfound confidence to create more accurate and relevant two-way customer communications.

With Tealium CDP, L’Oréal’s media campaign achieved a remarkable 22.22% conversion rate , which is markedly higher than the average conversion rate. Additionally, the click-through rate increased to 55.08% , which was an astounding 26.25% improvement from the pre-CDP adoption state. For larger brands within the L’Oréal Group, such as Lancôme, a substantial 100,000+ customers are now activated monthly via Tealium CDP.

Setting the Scene for Digital Potency in a Web 3.0 Era

L’Oréal’s vision was a simple, yet ambitious one – to understand their customers’ needs and behaviours in a drastically different digital market to be able to respond in a timely, relevant and authentic way. Put differently, their goal was to create the richest and most valuable CX that would enable their customers to discover the best in beauty.

At the start of their digital transformation journey, L’Oréal identified that a CDP-enabled data foundation would be key to turning their ambition into a reality. L’Oréal was experiencing disparate data from both online and in-store channels. The brand also needed to accelerate their first-party data strategy for omnichannel excellence.

Increased digital hyperconnectivity led L’Oréal to recognise that customer behaviours were evolving at a rapid rate, with increased consumer reliance on digital engagement touchpoints. With innovation at the forefront, L’Oreal sought to advance their CX proposition, build business resilience and optimise revenue streams in a Web 3.0 era.

Importantly, L’Oréal not only wanted to remedy the CX problems of the present, but to adopt a versatile and scalable solution that would carry them far into the future as the global beauty market leader.

Tealium CDP Is the Mainstay of L’Oréal’s Marketing Intelligence

Tealium CDP provided the mainstay of L’Oréal’s marketing intelligence to power their ambition. By unifying disparate data into a single source of truth, L’Oréal could capture and analyse all real-time customer interactions to extract meaningful insights for intelligent CX.

Tealium has accelerated L’Oréal’s first-mover advantage by decoding data-driven digital transformation to reinvent the future of beauty. Central to our digital transformation agenda is delivering trusted digital experiences that consistently exceed customer expectations. As the mainstay of our marketing intelligence, Tealium has empowered L’Oréal to transform into a digital-first company that prioritises trust and transparency throughout the retail beauty experience. In turn, L’Oréal can look to the future with confidence as we reap the rewards of data-driven innovation in a Web 3.0 era. Souparna Bose IT CRM Product Manager, CRM Technologies – L’Oréal

Organisational Data Democratisation

Tealium CDP established a trusted 360-degree view of each customer to simultaneously enable multiple strategic objectives and accelerate commercial performance.

Democratising access to quality data facilitated clearer and more sustainable CX decisions, which led to increasingly more relevant and authentic experiences for the individual customer. The value went further by allowing real-time analysis, with the ability to respond to customers at the time that mattered most in the decision making and purchasing processes.

Improved Time to Market

Media efficiency and conversion rates experienced significant uplifts through the creation of lookalike audiences and more efficient dynamic segmentation to enhance remarketing. In turn, L’Oréal was empowered to deliver the right message to the right audience at the right time.

Real-Time Hyper-Personalisation at Scale

Responding in real time is key, and Tealium’s solution enabled L’Oréal to establish an array of reactions to possible behavioural scenarios for trigger-based activation. With preemptive customer insight, L’Oréal removed friction in the omnichannel shopping experience – from the initial awareness stage through to purchase and beyond.

Remarkable Results Redefine the Beauty CX

Retargeting of cart abandoners is merely one of L’Oréal’s Tealium-enabled success stories. With Tealium CDP, L’Oréal’s media campaign achieved an impressive 22.22% conversion rate , which is markedly higher than the average conversion rate.

An email campaign targeted to cart abandoners yielded significantly higher click-through and conversion rates. With Tealium CDP, the click-through rate increased to 55.08% , which was a 26.25% improvement from the pre-CDP adoption state. Additionally, the conversion rate increased to 4.38% from 3.98% in the same period pre-Tealium CDP adoption.

For larger brands within the L’Oréal Group, such as Lancôme, a substantial 100,000+ customers are now activated monthly via Tealium CDP.

The multifaceted business benefits of Tealium CDP adoption extended to enhanced media efficiency via Google Ads, with up to a 25% higher conversion rate . Moreover, return on advertising spend (RoAS) for the media retargeting audience is almost double that of the same period pre-Tealium CDP adoption.

Future-Ready Compliance, Safety and Security

With Tealium CDP, L’Oréal endeavours to lift their customer loyalty to the next level. With a CDP-enabled trusted customer view, L’Oréal can decode data-driven digital transformation to cater to all customers’ needs on an individualised basis in real time.

Enhancing loyalty, however, commences with the customer consenting to the brand relationship. Amid third-party cookie deprecation, the reliance on first-party data is now essential. Today, L’Oréal has the perfect means to collect, analyse, act and react to the conversations their customers are willing to have with them.

Additionally, privacy laws in the Asia-Pacific and Japan (APJ) region have continued to evolve at a relatively rapid pace to maintain the efficacy of privacy safeguards. Governance over privacy and security is, therefore, paramount and subject to ever-increasing regulatory scrutiny. Tealium CDP-enabled data integrity and data security have empowered L’Oréal to create and implement a future-ready multimarket privacy strategy.

Reinventing the Future of the Global Beauty Industry

In a Web 3.0 era, Tealium is the mainstay of L’Oréal’s marketing intelligence, enabling an accurate anticipation of customer needs to deliver authentic, augmented and high-touch CX that exceeds customer expectations. With Tealium, L’Oréal is poised to sustain market leadership by decoding data-driven digital transformation to reinvent the future of the global beauty industry.

Download PDF

Featured Resources

• Growth & Acquisition
• Loyalty & Retention
• Customer Experience & Personalization
• Predictive Insights & Customer Analytics
• Data Collection & Privacy
• Single View of the Customer
• Real-Time Data Collection & Quality
• Real-Time CDP & Predictive Insights
• Data Management and Storage
• Integrations Overview
• Tealium Integrations Marketplace
• Tealium’s Suite of Conversions API (CAPI) Integrations
• Resource Library
• CDP RFP Template
• Events & Webinars
• Customer Case Studies
• See All Industries
• Financial Services
• Sports & Entertainment
• Travel & Hospitality
• Find a Partner
• Tealium Partner Network
• Developer Overview
• Product Guides
• Tealium Support Desk
• Tealium Education
• Privacy at Tealium
• Privacy Settings
• Service Terms
• Terms of Use
• Security & Compliance

• Harvard Business School →
• Faculty & Research →
• November 2012
• HBS Case Collection

The Universalization of L'Oréal

• Format: Print
• | Language: English
• | Pages: 24

About The Author

More from the Authors

• August 2024
• Faculty Research

Scaling Seven Starling

Allspice: github for hardware engineers.

• January 2024

Sprouts Farmers Market

• Scaling Seven Starling  By: Ryan W. Buell and Carin-Isabel Knoop
• AllSpice: GitHub for Hardware Engineers  By: Jeffrey J. Bussgang and Carin-Isabel Knoop
• Sprouts Farmers Market  By: Rajiv Lal, Forest L. Reinhardt and Natalie Kindred

L'Oréal: The beauty of supply chain digitalization

L’Oréal, the world leader in beauty products, began to rethink its vision for the industry. The world was on the cusp of a digital future full of possibilities. For a company known for its consumer-pleasing beauty products and owner of some the world’s most iconic brands, this meant thinking about innovation in a different way. It would no longer mean only providing the best products but also continuously adapting the industry to market needs. Through a combination of goal setting, training and communication, the digital transformation began, first with efforts in marketing, sales and consumer outreach, but supply chain quickly moved to a prominent role in helping address questions about how digitalization would affect the company’s products and consumer expectations. Starting with a vision of the CEO, Jean-Paul Agon, the company found itself on a journey to challenge its culture, its approach and even what its value proposition was. Along the way, the supply chain became a force for bringing together the different functions of a large, complex organization to identify and implement new business models in the digital age that cut to the heart of the company’s operations.

• Illustrate an effective, successful digital transformation and link this to Industry 4.0/supply chain digitalization capabilities by focusing on L’Oréal’s success
• Examine the challenges of supply chain digitalization, the role of senior leadership in agenda setting, global digital governance, linking the supply chain digital strategy to the company-wide digital strategy, planning for scale from pilot to deployment, and the external/internal development choice

The Case Centre

Cranfield University

Wharley End Beds MK43 0JR, UK Tel +44 (0)1234 750903 Email  [email protected]

Harvard Business School Publishing

60 Harvard Way, Boston MA 02163, USA Tel (800) 545-7685 Tel (617)-783-7600 Fax (617) 783-7666 Email  [email protected]

Asia Pacific Case Center

NUCB Business School

1-3-1 Nishiki Naka Nagoya Aichi, Japan 460-0003 Tel +81 52 20 38 111 Email  [email protected]

IMD retains all proprietary interests in its case studies and notes. Without prior written permission, IMD cases and notes may not be reproduced, used, translated, included in books or other publications, distributed in any form or by any means, stored in a database or in other retrieval systems. For additional copyright information related to case studies, please contact Case Services .

Research Information & Knowledge Hub  for additional information on IMD publications

Europe has enlisted Mario Draghi to boost economic dynamism. His upcoming report will address lagging growth, digital transformation, and AI invest...

Female-owned businesses secure only a fraction of procurement contracts globally. It’s time to challenge the status quo by addressing systemic barr...

Turbulent times can leave businesses scrambling for measures to help them bounce back after disruption. But these actions may in fact increase over...

Companies that excel in both digital and sustainable transformation attract a stock market premium, according to research. So, how do you tap into ...

The increasing datafication of the workplace is often cast as a means of imposing organisational and managerial control on workers. This reflection...

The sheer complexity of trade regulation and the risk of non-compliance mean companies are missing out on billions in tariff savings from Free Trad...

Too many organizations assume late-career workers can't keep up with new technology. In doing so, they are ignoring a hugely important labor pool.

Since the dawn of video games, there have been gaming competitions. But for decades, such contests were regarded as beneath the hallowed realm of '...

In an era of unpredictability, businesses must take many more strategic decisions about supply chain management, say IMD’s Carlos Cordon and supply...

Companies that excel in both digital and sustainable transformation attract a stock market premium, according to research by Michael Wade, Lazaros ...

Pardon Our Interruption

As you were browsing something about your browser made us think you were a bot. There are a few reasons this might happen:

• You've disabled JavaScript in your web browser.
• You're a power user moving through this website with super-human speed.
• You've disabled cookies in your web browser.
• A third-party browser plugin, such as Ghostery or NoScript, is preventing JavaScript from running. Additional information is available in this support article .

To regain access, please make sure that cookies and JavaScript are enabled before reloading the page.

Pardon Our Interruption

As you were browsing something about your browser made us think you were a bot. There are a few reasons this might happen:

• You've disabled JavaScript in your web browser.
• You're a power user moving through this website with super-human speed.
• You've disabled cookies in your web browser.
• A third-party browser plugin, such as Ghostery or NoScript, is preventing JavaScript from running. Additional information is available in this support article .

To regain access, please make sure that cookies and JavaScript are enabled before reloading the page.