Venicia Case

Case Study - Venicia
Business strategy for sustainable business

Venicia has been a defining force in ladies high end fashion for 100 years. This world-famous
Italian brand was originally launched by Carlo and Bianca Venicia in 1908. Their father was a
tailor whose business was renowned for fine quality, craftsmanship and discreet design.
Today Venicia is still run as a family-owned business with no external shareholders. Currently
there are over 200 owned boutiques worldwide in upscale retail locations, shopping malls with
flagship stores in Milan, Tokyo, Paris and London where the brand is known for elegant style,
exquisite taste and timeless appeal.
Venicia is a trend-setter in the world of high fashion with a wide product range that includes
ready-to-wear clothing, fine jewellery and watches, cosmetics and fragrances, shoes, and iconic
handbags.
Venicia is acknowledged as a leader in the luxury goods apparel market where high-profile
celebrities have brought the brand to fame in product-centric advertising campaigns that have
had legendary appeal for decades.
Venicia house of fragrance has world renown, with world-class perfumes producing a
sophisticated classic range of perfumes for the discerning, again presented with celebrity
endorsement.
Venicia has signature perfumes, signature clothes and signature handbags and purses, and in
the past few years, have produced a new range of signature wallets in association with one of
the leading luxury Swiss watchmakers.
Recent additions to these collections have also included eyewear, small luggage items and new
range of ladies accessories. Innovation and creative design continue as world-famous Italian
fashion designs are employed to drive sales and support eight manufacturing plants in Italy
where quality combines with high levels of disposable income and where the brand has become
‘collectable’ over seasons. Typically, there are two main seasons per year, where colour tones
play an important role to harmonise with trends in fashion. The colours of black and white
remain classic and are always featured in all product ranges aiming at universal appeal.
Even though the fashion industry has characteristic ‘sales’ in January and July to clear stock,
stimulate cash flow and to make room for the new season’s collections, Venicia has not
followed this practice. Carefully calculated levels of production have enabled sales to become
sustainable, and in some world markets, are viewed as having scarcity value, especially in
markets in Europe when shopping fever occurs during the winter and summer sales periods.
Venicia simply moves off the shelves, irrespective of the relatively high price. The brand and
total in-store customer experience remains vibrant, yet exclusive, and most locations limit the
number of customers at any one time, especially at peak shopping hours and seasons.
The brand has had strategic investment in the 1950s, 1970s, the 80s and 90s at intervals of
approximately seven years; however, the formula remains consistent so as not to disturb the
fundamental core essence of the Venicia core brand values. Fashion shows, celebrity
endorsements, media and film visibility and close fashion–media relations have been a winning
formula. The challenge for Venicia is how to evolve and yet remain the same; it is a paradox
which has to be managed. This has been achieved by holding stocks of classic (signature)
goods. This is across all product ranges and is viewed as core business. In addition, there are
seasonal colours, new designs, and new products added and deleted to keep the brand fresh in
appeal and contextually relevant to trends and seasons.
At times of periodic heavy investment in the brand, Venicia is known for the most expensive
advertising campaigns in the fashion industry. It is well known that to remain competitive in
this high-end retail clothing and apparel sector that there is a need to break with convention
from time to time and achieve market visibility, and in so doing reinforce brand identity and
emotional appeal.
With a 100-year success story, the concern of the board is: how can we ensure that we will be
there for the next fifty years to join the ranks of some of the most famous brands in the world,
especially as we may have to move towards a new form of ownership as time goes on?
Venicia think that their success as being driven by:

1. The family culture of passion, sensitivity, creativity and care for employees, together with a
strong sense of value and quality and taking good care of customers.
2. Contractual growth remaining stable and growth achieved in profitable sales by production
and marketing probably linked to market expansion. In so doing Venicia keeps its place in the
top ten of the fashion, apparel and accessories, and fragrances industry.
3. Systems that enable the board to have business information at their fingertips with strong
information and communications technologies.
4. A business cycle of six months keeps the company highly energized, with pressure for
innovation where business domain execution cannot be deferred because new product
development is an ongoing process.
5. A focus upon being efficient within the company and at the same time being effective at the
interface with customers and suppliers.
6. Rewarding productivity to ensure that all employees share in the sustained success of the
business.
7. The brand is a way of life, it is loved and lived, 365 days a year.
However, the board considers that they do not have a formularized business strategy, they
simply move from season to season; and so they are seeking advice on what it is that they could
be doing better in order to preserve the future.
They have asked you as a group of consultants with experience in family-oriented business to
prepare a report for the board to advise on business strategy for sustainable sales, having spent
some time inside the company on some initial groundwork.

Venicia Case

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Case Study - Venicia

Business strategy for sustainable business

Venicia think that their success as being driven by:

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