The Amazing Ways Burberry Is Using Artificial Intelligence And Big Data To Drive Success

British fashion brand Burberry is one of the most recognized luxury clothes labels in the world. Starting in 2006, the company aimed to reinvent itself as an “end to end” digital enterprise. Its strategy was to use Big Data and Artificial Intelligence (AI) to boost sales and customer satisfaction. It does this by asking customers to voluntarily share data through a number of loyalty and reward programs. This information is used to offer personalized recommendations, online and in store. When an identified customer enters a store, sales assistants use tablets to offer buying suggestions based on their customers’ purchase history as well as their social media activity.If Burberry knows that a customer has recently bought a particular coat, for example, then assistants may be encouraged by the app to show them a handbag which is popular with other buyers of the coat. Products in their 500 stores spread across 50 countries are also fitted with RFID tags which can communicate with shoppers’ mobiles, giving information about how items were produced or recommendations on how they can be worn or used. This usage of technology and tactics usually confined to online retail in a “bricks and mortar” setting prompted then CEO Angela Ahrendts (now SVP of retail at Apple) to state that “walking through our doors is just like walking into our website”, in 2014. In 2015, the company announced that their investment in personalized customer management programs had resulted in a 50% increase in repeat custom. Read more for Forbes.