Snap Decisions

What does it take to steer your company through a global crisis? Five leaders tell us how they’ve had to make crucial business decisions overnight, boost company morale and contribute to a greater good.

- Celine Yap, Charmaine Tai And Hannah Choo

Jean-Christophe

Babin Group CEO, Bvlgari

YOU NAME IT and he has probably done it. Jean-Christophe Babin has dipped his fingers in nearly every luxury lifestyle sector there is – watches, jewellery, leather goods, hotels and fragrances. And so, when the group CEO of Bvlgari made the decision to donate funds to the Lazzaro Spallanzani Hospital in Rome and deploy his production lines to make hand sanitisers instead of the customary high-end wares, everyone sat up and paid attention. Babin was sending a message to the rest of the world that the luxury industry was still very much relevant, even during the pandemic, and it had the resources to do more than produce objets d’art.

When did you realise that Bvlgari needed to be proactive in the face of COVID-19?

Jean-Christophe Babin (JCB): In the early days, the team of researchers from the Spallanzani Hospital in Rome had announced the isolation of the virus and our desire was to be able to give immediate support.

In less than 20 days, we managed to buy and donate a very high-definition 3D microscope to help them speed up the search for the vaccine. The open dialogue with this team allowed us to know that disinfectant gel was one of the missing and necessary products in Italian hospitals.

What happened next?

JCB: We asked our fragrances partner ICR for help on this ambitious project. We stabilised the formula and converted production in less than a month. Today we can produce 12,000 bottles a day of hand cleansing gel with sanitiser, which is then distributed by local authorities both in Italy and in Switzerland.

Can e-commerce help the luxury industry recover?