Why Because distributors dictate their law

Tenth World Player of the perfumes and cosmetics of luxury, YSL beauty sector must face giants such as Estée Lauder, l ' Oréal and LVMH (Dior). Impose himself on the top of the ultra-concurrentiel market is a colossal financial strike force. Why Because distributors dictate their law. In view of the linear, it must constantly innovate and invest heavily in advertising campaigns. Mass effect required, the majority of cosmetics companies engaged in the way of concentration for pooling their budgets. To be in line with the competition and restore its profit margin, YSL beauty chose another option: the reorganization. "The goal of our approach is to flat all our working methods, and thus our Organization." "With a key word: responsiveness, we have lost a little time", says a spokesman for the company.

Specifically, one of the goals of the stimulus package of YSL beauty, made public on April 5, aims to consolidate the industrial activities of the Group on the site of Lassigny in Oise, which ensures the production of all ranges of perfumes, care products and makeup.

"Performance and glamour".

The reorganization plan would partially affect headquarters of Neuilly-sur-Seine and the other production site, in Bernay, in Eure, which would be in the process of recovery by an industrial sector. You should know that this production tool, YSL has inherited from its passage into the fold of the Sanofi group between 1993 and 1999, until its takeover by Gucci, the luxury of PPR pole, has always suffered from overcapacity to its actual needs. A market of perfumery-cosmetics grew by 2.5 in 2005 (France and export), attempts to run at full speed have failed. "This difficult decision is indispensable to ensure the sustainability of our business, we provide the means to strengthen our reactivity and compete with the largest groups of our market," said the President, Chantal Roos, this announcement.

In this challenge, YSL beauty can draw on the innovation strategy and the Organization of its teams dedicated to care products. However, their problem is no shortage of complexity: he must find the right balance between the image and basic research. "Insofar as we are from the haute couture, our challenge is to be constantly balance between performance and glamour," said a head of marketing of care products." If the image switches too in performance, our consumers no longer recognize in a brand they buy for the requirement of quality and the dream. Conversely, if the glamour takes precedence over efficiency, the product may lose credibility.

Other side of the coin: the budget allocated to R & D is not bloated. "Behind the image and prestige of the brand, our institutional research partners imagine always unlimited resources...". ", insists Joëlle Guesnet, Scientific Director of YSL beauty. Exemple, without being able to give precise figure, this budget is much lower than the average amount invested by the actors of the sector, which is approximately 2.5 of their turnover.

Links with the CNRS

At Yves Saint Laurent, the problem of basic research is is still tough when the mark is out of the fold of the "Beauty" of Sanofi pole, in 1999, when the approximation with Synthélabo. For six years, its investigators had been able to feed on the scientific expertise of a large group of drug culture. "It took reconstruct all the upstream part of the research", remembers Joëlle Guesnet. How to take advantage of the explosion of new biological technologies, when it is satisfied of their crucial role in beautifying and skin health without being able to have the necessary resources internally "At our level, could not afford to integrate basic research pure and hard", it provides.

After a year of strategic thinking, YSL beauty begins to weave a network to present the experiences of partners from the academic and industrial research. Its hard core code name: the Gisca. Established early in 2001, advanced cosmetic science interest group, piloted by Joëlle Guesnet, brings together six experts from the academic research five French and Japanese, due to the particularities of the Asian market whose works are injected under contractual conditions, in developments of YSL.

"Without false modesty, I want to say that our approach has led us to very original technologies," said Joëlle Guesnet. It is a major discovery on the development of human adipose tissue, out of a laboratory of the CNRS at the University of Nice-Sophia-Antipolis, which is at the origin of its new line of slimming products. "Our Exchange is constructive in two directions: YSL team opens at the basic approach and it gives us ideas for applications that we have not imagined", said Professor Gérard Ailhaud. Result: after Total Fitness, "cosmetic coaching" launched on the market in 2004, profile lean is the second result of their collaboration in two years (see next page).

"Virtual sticker."

Remains that cosmetic innovation, it is not enough to put his finger on the rare Pearl of the active principles. "The formulation of each new product is an adventure full of surprises." "He must anticipate very beginning of the chain all gaps and all potential pitfalls, to succeed in preserving the effectiveness of the active ingredient in a harmonious mixture of sometimes conflicting ingredients between them," said a manager of the unit for the manufacture of Lassigny formulation.

It is certain that YSL beauty innovation strategy needs strike force with a budget of R & D more in line with the level of creation. The evidence is his latest find, in a lighter registry on this first day of summer, the make-up for the body. Taking the opposite of cosmetic tights hydrate, refine and chantor women legs, YSL invented the "virtual sticker." From the technology of patches of the pharmaceutical industry, its researchers have developed a combination of two polymers which form a film invisible, elastic, resistant to water without detergent and clothing or... the sand friction. As soon as the application, this creamy foam frees a cocktail of assets that refresh and drain the skin, disguising its imperfections under Golden texture.