The global luxury industry is still way too slow in adopting new technology. On average, companies recently surveyed have adopted only 2.3 new technologies among the 16 technologies selected for the analysis.
- The findings are from a new analysis released Thursday by Bain & Company for the Comité Colbert.
- The study is based on data from 75 member companies of the Comité Colbert and interviews with senior company executives, consortia and technological partners, as well as additional research and analysis from Bain & Company’s expertise in the luxury sector.
Optimism prevails: The study was considerably optimistic about the state of affairs, remarking: "The global luxury goods industry is accelerating its adoption of new technologies, with benefits being seen in increased fluidity of customer relations, operational excellence and reduction of the industry’s carbon footprint."
- The study found that luxury sector houses and companies backed by a larger group are ahead of their independent counterparts.
- Companies across the industry are testing additional technologies, or plan to do so in the next three years.
Slow on tech: Even though the report says that a wave of acceleration is under way to adopt new technologies, the numbers indicate that the level of adoption is still low.
- On average, the member companies of the Comité Colbert surveyed have adopted only 2.3 new technologies among the 16 technologies selected for the analysis. (These include: biotechnologies, molecular recycling, 3D printing, artificial intelligence and machine learning for process optimization, artificial intelligence and machine learning for customer engagement, augmented reality and virtual reality, automated optical inspection, scanning, 3D imaging, holography, neural analysis, haptic gloves and screens, radio frequency identification, blockchain, metaverse, NFT).
- None of these technologies have been adopted by the majority of the sector. And only RFID, 3D printing and imaging have an adoption rate of over 30%.
- The main reason cited for non-adoption by most is the perceived limited relevance of certain technologies to specific needs of luxury companies. This is followed by a lack of in-house skills to leverage the technology involved.
- Luxury houses are currently testing (or plan to deploy in the next three years) only 3.2 additional technologies. These are the most emerging ones: NFT, metaverse, blockchain, holography, haptic gloves and screens, neural analysis, and scanner technology.
- NFTs and metaverse are the technologies that are generating the most interest in the future; NFTs are proposing a new CRM model and metaverse a new immersive universe.
- NFTs have been adopted by only 5% of pioneers to date, but 51% of the luxury industry is already in the testing phase or planning launches before 2025.
- Radio frequency identification (RFID) technology is the most adopted. Blockchain, which allows end-to-end product traceability, is the primary focus of experimentations (39% of the companies in the test phase). This is followed by artificial intelligence (29% in the test phase), aimed at optimising stock allocation, supply chain fluidity and collection structures.
