Gucci will partner up with Milan’s Bocconi University, a prestigious Italian business institution, to create the Gucci Research Lab in the beginning of next year.
The research lab, which will be based in Italy’s business capital Milan, is a three-year project that will focus on how luxury organisations can most effectively evolve in the 21st century. The project will look at how factors such as a start-up mentality, employee empowerment and risk-taking can lead growth and performance for luxury companies.
A team of four professors will do dedicated research by analysing the core trends in organisational design and digital transformation, and their findings will be published in a publicly-available paper.
“I’m delighted that Gucci and Bocconi University are collaborating on this important initiative, which is designed to reveal important insights that large and small companies can learn from, said Marco Bizzarri, President and CEO of Gucci. “More than ever before, a company’s culture can be the differentiating factor in terms of competitive advantage,” he added.
Gucci’s own third-quarter revenue grew by 28.3 percent, while the fashion powerhouse’s sales increased by 49.4 percent.
“It’s a pleasure to establish the Gucci Research Lab, which aims to identify and study the trends that define the way in which organizations are evolving, with a special focus on the luxury industry”, said Gianmario Verona, rector at Bocconi University. Founded in 1902, Bocconi is known for its research facilities and MBE programmes.
Following the launch of the new research lab, Gucci has been named a strategic partner of Bocconi University. The collaboration is part of an ongoing relationship between the two Italian institutions, as Gucci sources new talent (and interns) via Bocconi’s Luxury Talent and Corporate Associate programmes.
Earlier this year, Gucci partnered with Polimoda, a private fashion school in Florence, to provide a masters course in retail management.
