Entering Hermes And Revealing Hermes'S Way To Success

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< p style= "text-align: center > > from a href= http://sjfzxm.com/news/index_c.asp > Hermes /a > Paris headquarters overlooking Fu Fu Avenue < /p >

< p > > rue du Faubourg Saint-Honore in Paris. The Hermes group (Hermes) has a 131 year history headquarters. The 44 year old creative director, Pierre Alexis Dumas, sits in the office and talks about managing the world's most admired luxury brand.

The sixth generation of the Hermes founder was thin and stiff.

He said: "my job is to keep Hermes strong creativity and cultivate meticulous spirit and imagination.

Let these values play an important role.

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< p > "this is the spirit of Hermes," he said.

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< p > concentration on meticulous spirit, imagination and creativity, these values are what makes Hermes different from competitors. That is what executives refer to when they discuss "Hermes culture".

In a world full of pipelined production and handbags made in China, Hermes insisted on employing artisans in France to manually sew each Kylie bag (Kelly) and Birkin.

Although most of its competitors bought a roll of pre woven silk from China, Hermes still used silk produced in its Brazil mountain silkworm farm, and then woven it into silk in Lyon. Although most of its competitors subcontracted the perfume to a large laboratory, which also developed food aroma and scent, Glass had a full-time perfumer. He deployed every new perfume in his laboratory in the home near the world perfume capital Grasse in southern France.

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< p > attention to detail and dedication to integrity led Hermes to succeed. Its sales in 2010 increased by 25.4% to 2 billion 400 million euros compared with 2009 (at current exchange rate of about 3 billion 410 million US dollars).

Even in the most serious financial crisis, most major luxury brands were hit by the decline in the sales of luxury goods, and several well-known businesses went bankrupt. Hermes's sales rose against the market, and the increase was not small. Its sales in 2008 and 2009 increased by 8.6% and 8.5% respectively, while operating income in 2009 also increased by 3.1%.

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< p > now, < a href= "http://sjfzxm.com/news/index_s.asp" > luxury goods industry < /a > is an industry with an annual output value of US $200 billion, and the main market participants are listed companies.

The leader is MOET & CHANDON LVMH-Moet Hennessey Louis Vuitton, which includes more than 60 major brands, including Givenchy, Fendi, Guerlain (Guerlain) and Moet and Chandon (Moet & Chandon), which gained 20 billion 300 million euros (US $28 billion 900 million) in 2010, with astonishing sales in 2010.

The Louis Weedon group is owned and managed by a 62 year old French businessman, Bernard Arnault, whose net assets are estimated to reach US $41 billion, ranking fourth in the world's richest list of Forbes (Forbes).

In the past twenty years, he has taken these "star brands" in his mouth, some of them are friendly takeovers, but many of them are not.

Arno's previous acquisition, which was purchased from the Bvlgari family (Bulgari) in March 2010, is the Italy jewelry brand Bvlgari, which is looking for buyers for a long time. It is a purely commercial paction, and each side is satisfied with the result.

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< p > however, another big investment has not progresses.

In October 2010, Louis Weedon announced that the group had quietly purchased 17.1% of Hermes (eventually acquiring a little more than 20%).

Later, Louis Weedon was exposed to these shares through cash settled stock swap pactions, which could sometimes be used by hedge funds to launch hostile takeovers to listed companies secretly.

Hermes considered the move to be a naked attack, and his senior officers did everything they could to protect the company.

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In June 2010, Patrick Thomas, chief executive of Hermes, shared lunch with her restaurant in the restaurant at Fu Bao Avenue headquarters of the company. "Emas and Louis Weedon belong to the two extremes of culture and luxury goods industry," P Patrick said.

We are hand-made and creative, and strive to produce the most exquisite products in this industry.

Craftsmen poured their hearts into the handbags they made. When customers bought such a handbag, they also bought some values of Hermes.

Hermes has been managed by the same family since the six generation, which gives the company something that other businesses do not have.

Our struggle against Louis Weedon has nothing to do with economy. It is a cultural war.

We try to do wonderful things, and we also get very good economic benefits. We have to protect this. "

Thomas is chief executive of Hermes's first family member in his 174 year history.

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< p > if you want to understand what Pierre Alexis and Patrick Thomas say and why Arnott covet Hermes, you have to visit the main leather workshop of Hermes in Pantin, Paris suburb (Pantin).

About 340 craftsmen made hand-made leather products over the same craft more than a century ago.

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< p > Hermes was founded in 1837 by Thierry Hermes, a French harness maker, to supply the royal family in Europe.

His grandson Amir Maurice (Emile-Maurice) has modernized the company, invited his friend Louis Reno (Louis Renault) and Ettore Bugadi (Ettore Bugatti) to make the trunk suitcase, and commissioned decoration a target= _blank _blank href= http:// www.91se91.com/. Designer, < Michel > Jean Michel frank, designed furniture, launched belts and fashion, and expanded the retail network to most fashionable resorts such as Vail and Cannes.

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< p > Amir Maurice has three daughters who have married well (fourth of their daughters died early), bringing three new branches to the family -- Grande (Guerrand), Piaish (Puech) and Dumas.

In the late 30s of last century, Robert Dumas, his son-in-law, advised the company to produce silk scarves and ties besides horse racing silk products, and he personally designed several designs in.

In 50s, he took over Hermes from Amir Maurice, and managed to manage Hermes for 30 years.

However, the man who built Hermes as the most expensive luxury business today is Jean-Louis, the four energetic son of Dumas.

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Jean Louis Dumas, 40 years old, was appointed chief executive and creative director when he was about P years old. Under the help of his cousin Patrick Guerrand (Patrick Guerrand) and Bertrand Puech (Bertrand skins), he made reforms to Hermes Patrick.

He launched the Kylie bag again in fancy colors, designed a handbag for the British sexy actress Jane Birkin and named her handbag under his surname.

He also launched a trendy advertising campaign to create brilliant new stores, many of which were designed by his wife, Lina, a Greek architect, and Rena, his architectural firm, RDAI.

In addition, Hermes has launched a number of acquisition pactions, including silver merchant Puiforcat, crystal brand Saint Louis and a target= "_blank" href= "http://www.91se91.com/" > shoes < /a > shoe brand John Rob (John Lobb).

In 2004, Dumas hired Jean Paul Gaultier, a French bad boy designer, to take on the designer of Hermes dress, which acquired 35% of the brand name of Paul in 1999.

On the surface, avant-garde and conservative Dumas seem to be a strange combination. In fact, the two of them are friends who cooperate tacit together.

After he died of Parkinson's disease at the age of 72, he left Hermes and replaced Christophe Lemaire, a French designer.

Not long ago, Hermes sold its high stakes shares to Spanish fashion and fashion company Puig.

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< p > the most important thing is that after witnessing the struggle between Arnott and the Vuitton family for the control of the board of directors of the Louis Weedon group in the late 80s of last century (Arnott finally won), Dumas took two measures to protect Hermes in the future from the similar takeover actions initiated by non family members.

First, he set up a partner company called Emile Hermes SARL in 1989 to represent the family shareholders. He will take charge of the management appointment and decide the company's development strategy. Secondly, he listed 20% of Hermes's shares in 1993 and then increased about 8%.

These publicly traded shares have no management rights, and Louis Weedon acquired these shares.

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Since then, P has been flourishing because of its demand for leather goods, which is regarded as the first class by fashion experts.

Its most sought after product is the Kylie bag with a starting price of $8450 and a $8850 package.

Although the price of hermes handbags is not bad, they are not only what they dream of, but also objects of collection. It is rumoured that Vitoria Beckham (Victoria Beckham) has more than 100 Birkin bags with a total value of more than 2 million dollars.

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< p > the first process of building an Hermes handbag begins with a cobbler. He will inspect and manually cut each < a target= "_blank" href= "http://www.91se91.com/" > leather < /a >.

Pierre, Alexis's cousin and Axel Dumas, chief executive of Hermes, said on the way of a workshop visit in June 2010: "how can quality escape the eyes and hands of artisans? That's fine. It's operated by an individual."

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< p > Axel Dumas is 40 years old, and his father Olivier (Olivier) is the oldest among the five brothers of Dumas.

Their cousins, Bertrand Piaish, the son of Bertrand Piaish, the Etienne Puech, the regional manager of the watch department, the daughter of Bertrand Piaish, the Amelie Puech, who is assistant to the saddle department, their cousin, Guillaume de Seynes, executive vice president, their sister cousins, Julie Guerrand, director of enterprise development, their cousins, patsie ("Guerrand") and their sisters, the "Petit H" department head of the making of the unique trinkets of waste products, as well as the art director of the special order business. The Hermes family has nine people working in the group: Pierre Alexis, Axel.

In addition, there are several others serving in the board of supervisors.

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< p > Axel said with a smile that he started working at Hermes as an intern at the age of 14, "learning how to sew", but he is not good at this job.

When he was 18 years old, he went to the information office to practice.

After graduating from Institut D'Etudes Politiques De Paris (Sciences Po), he worked for two years and six years in Paris, Beijing and New York respectively (Paribas).

He said, "let Louis Dumas ask me if I want to join Hermes." I said, "then he asked me what I wanted to do. I said anything except finance, and he let me do my financial work."

A year later, he was promoted to the business director of all the stores in Paris, and served as director of the jewelry department for two years and executive director of leather goods department for two years.

In May 2010, he was appointed chief operating officer in charge of all handicraft matters (artisan branch) and retail network.

On the way to the workshop, he called each person's name and greeted them and shook hands with them.

When he visited the workshop, he said, "all of these, these handcraftsmen - this is our pillar."

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P > in the course of the tour, he stopped at a workbench and looked at the leather that the handcraftsman was dealing with - a mustard yellow crocodile skin from Australia.

He explained, "this is something we have waited for two years. We need to find a leather that is light enough to dye it so lightly."

It will be used to make "Kylie 35" - a Kylie bag with a length of 35 centimeters.

"Sometimes customers will book a handbag made of such rare leather," he added. "They have to wait until we find such a leather."

But he quickly pointed out that handbags were not priced according to their rarity, he admits, "you can make arbitrary pricing for unique items.

(in Hermes) the price decision is not a requirement, and the production cost is the deciding factor.

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< p > each craftsman has all the accessories necessary for making a bag from beginning to end, including zippers, locks, hardware, linings and leather ropes for rolling.

These craftsmen make three or four equally colored packages at the same time, both inside and outside, all hand made, and only zippers and inner bags are sewn by machines.

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< p > manual craftsmen use classical saddle stitches, and Hermes has been using this kind of needles since nineteenth Century.

They will use two needles - each needle placed on two ends of a wax line that is long enough to sew complete stitches - one needle from one direction and the other from the other, and then tighten the thread.

The craftsman will hammer the seam head flat, scrape the edges, polish them, then wax and polish them until they look like a piece of leather.

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< p > handbag hardware is installed in a technology called "pearling".

The craftsmen ran a small nail through a small hole, leather and front fastener in the rear part of the fastener, cutting off the excess parts, leaving only about a millimeter, and taking a concave cone with a concave head, then hammers the nail with a hammer, until it becomes round like a little pearl.

If properly operated, these pearl round heads will permanently connect the two metal fasteners.

After that, open the bag and press it.

Workshop director Lionel Prudhomme (Lionel Prudhomme) said: "it is a real traditional skill.

Whenever people ask me what has changed during my 30 years at Hermes, I will reply, "nothing has changed."

People will change, but technology will not change. "

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Since P began producing silk products 74 years ago, some things have changed, but little has changed.

At first, Robert Dumas was now at the office upstairs of the glove Department of the boutique boutique Boulevard, presiding the Carres Hermes, the design meeting of its famous 90 cm long 90 cm wide scarf.

Nowadays, the silk workshop has moved to the hall, but the design meeting is held by Pierre Alexis in the way of grandfather and father.

He explained in a recent silk design meeting in the morning: "we used the same force to draw the paper out. We still kept them on the floor, because grandpa said that we should appreciate the Hermes scarves at a height from one person.

Looking down will give you a sense of structure, and the sense of structure is a great feature of Hermes scarves.

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< p > manual craftsmen use classical saddle stitches, and Hermes has been using this kind of needles since nineteenth Century.

They will use two needles - each needle placed on two ends of a wax line that is long enough to sew complete stitches - one needle from one direction and the other from the other, and then tighten the thread.

The craftsman will hammer the seam head flat, scrape the edges, polish them, then wax and polish them until they look like a piece of leather.

< /p >

< p > handbag hardware is installed in a technology called "pearling".

The craftsmen ran a small nail through a small hole, leather and front fastener in the rear part of the fastener, cutting off the excess parts, leaving only about a millimeter, and taking a concave cone with a concave head, then hammers the nail with a hammer, until it becomes round like a little pearl.

If properly operated, these pearl round heads will permanently connect the two metal fasteners.

After that, open the bag and press it.

Workshop director Lionel Prudhomme (Lionel Prudhomme) said: "it is a real traditional skill.

Whenever people ask me what has changed during my 30 years at Hermes, I will reply, "nothing has changed."

People will change, but technology will not change. "

< /p >

Since P began producing silk products 74 years ago, some things have changed, but little has changed.

At first, Robert Dumas was now at the office upstairs of the glove Department of the boutique boutique Boulevard, presiding the Carres Hermes, the design meeting of its famous 90 cm long 90 cm wide scarf.

Nowadays, the silk workshop has moved to the hall, but the design meeting is held by Pierre Alexis in the way of grandfather and father.

He explained in a recent silk design meeting in the morning: "we used the same force to draw the paper out. We still kept them on the floor, because grandpa said that we should appreciate the Hermes scarves at a height from one person.

Looking down will give you a sense of structure, and the sense of structure is a great feature of Hermes scarves.

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< p > 1992, Pierre Alexis joined the Hermes group after obtaining a degree in visual arts from Brown University (Brown University).

He first worked in the creative Committee of Saint Louis crystal and Puiforcat silverware, and then became head of Hermes Greater China.

Five years later, he was pferred to London to manage the British branch.

In 2002, he became director of the silk Department. In 2005, he was appointed creative director of all business departments of Hermes when his father retired.

He said, "my father never told me that he wanted me to be a creative director. I had to work hard to prove that I could do it through my work."

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< p > when dealing with Pierre Alexis, you will soon find that although he loves his work, he still feels the burden of managing this 174 year old enterprise.

He was not as cheerful and active as his father, but a quiet, considerate and extremely courteous man.

He said thoughtfully: "at work, we are communicating with those who left -- those who died.

I worked with my father, though he passed away a year ago.

When I work, I will find him and talk to him, even if he is not here anymore.

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< p > although Pierre Alexis supervises and approves all creative affairs of Hermes, silk business is obviously his favorite job.

He communicated with the silk design team wholeheartedly and indulged in the work at hand, such as analyzing the design drawings on the floor, judging their colors and the balance, depth and intensity of the pictures.

Design drawings often require several modifications to pass.

He said, "I know these artists, their hands and what they can do. We are trying to help them get things done.

Design is very rare in the first place. "

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< p > most of the silk scarves of Hermes are designed by the illustrator. Recently, however, Pierre Alexis found a painter named Antoine Tzapoff, who appreciated the paintings of North American Indians by Antoine.

Although Hermes rarely works with painters (they usually use too many colors to reappear on scarves), he invited Chapov to design a silk scarf for him, and he handed in an amazing portrait of the Apache warrior.

Pierre Alexis became fascinated by the painting called "Cosmogonie Apache" and sent it to Lyon to pform it into a scarf.

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< p > when the painting was delivered to Marcel Gandit, a 70 year old silk printing and plate making company under the control of Hermes, since 2004, Nadine Rabilloud, who worked for 33 years in the company for 33 years, spent two days studying it to figure out how to deal with it.

Finally, she identified 80 colors, then reduced them to 60, and later reduced them to 45 kinds. This is the highest number of colors suitable for Hermes silk dyeing and finishing.

This painting uses only 15 colors in its face.

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< p > Rabbi uses a fountain pen and ink to paint the face of a portrait manually on a 90 cm long 90 cm wide plastic sheet, while the other two colleagues are responsible for the background and edge.

The three people spent 2000 hours to reorganize the picture into a silk scarf pattern.

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< p > after the design is completed, each plate will be printed on a polyester fabric stretched in a steel frame of 90 cm long and 90 cm wide.

In the past, silk was tightly tied to wooden frames, and later evolved into nylon and metal frames similar to those of "a target=" _blank "href=" http://www.91se91.com/ "cloth" /a "during the Second World War.

These gauze nets will be put on an automatic dyeing machine and go through a program along the 150 meter long silk printing and dyeing station.

A layer of color from deep to shallow is printed and printed on silk, each color process takes 15 to 20 minutes, the more ink, the longer the time.

Therefore, it takes about 15 hours to go through the dyeing process of "Cosmogonie Apache" with 45 coloring procedures.

The silk dyeing machine runs 24 hours every Friday day.

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< p > when the ink is dry, the craftsman will also steam the silk scarves to fix the color.

Next, the scarves will be washed several times until the cloth softens, then dry, and the fixative will increase their luster and color.

The scarves that complete these processes will be sent to the workshop to roll and hand stitch.

Hermes designed 20 new scarves a year, of which 10 were autumn and winter, and the other 10 were spring and summer, each with eight to 10 color changes.

The Hermes scarf is now retailing at $385.

The scarves are stored in a small glass box after being served in the store. The salesmen will put the scarves on the counter counter tops for the sake of discerning, touching and trying on every discerning customer.

This tradition is also part of the "Hermes culture".

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< p > Louis Weedon insisted that the group "did not propose the offer to buy, control Hermes or seek the intention of the board of directors", and Arnott also called him friendly.

Pierre Gode, the vice-chairman of the group, confirmed this. In July 2010, he told the Wall Street Journal: "Louis Weedon's attitude is good, and Arnott has no intention of launching an acquisition of Gode."

However, the senior officials of Hermes were skeptical about it and rated Arnott as an unwelcome intruder.

Pierre Alexis told the Wall Street journal that he did not agree with Arnott's takeover.

"If such a person is a friend, then who has an enemy?" said Patrick Thomas, chief executive of the 63 year old Herman, who told the French Le Figaro: "if you want to seduce a beautiful woman, you will not rape her at the very beginning." at the news conference in March.

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< p > the Autorite des marches financiers, the French stock market regulator, has been investigating how Louis Weedon secretly accumulated such a large amount of Hermes shares.

In France, a statement must be issued if the shareholding ratio exceeds 5%.

Louis Weedon claims that he has complied with all regulatory requirements.

Gold said: "Louis Weedon has full confidence in the results of the survey."

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< p > as a precaution, the Hermes family withdrew 51% of its 72% stake in a holding company that could not be sold to non family members.

Patrick Albaladejo, executive vice president of executive development and brand image and Thomas Albaladejo, said: "it has sent messages to Bernard Arnott, trying to initiate a takeover is useless, because the family has given up the right to sell."

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< p > however, not all members of the Hermes family fully support this move.

Jean Louis Dumas's cousin, Bertrand pey's brother Nicholas Piaish (Nicolas Puech) is the largest shareholder in the family and owns 6% of Hermes.

In March 2010, he told the Journal Du Dimanche: "the main inconvenience of locking our shares in a holding company is to deprive family shareholders of their respective control over company management. The freedom of each shareholder is the best way to guarantee our unity in the long run."

He added, "if we are in favor of our company and the company will maintain its free will", Louis Weedon and Hermes have no reason not to work together.

He has opted out of the holding company.

Thomas said: "Nicholas does not intend to sell any shares, even if he wants to sell, he will sell them to his family."

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< p > questioning the lawsuits of Hermes's new holding company has been brought to the court, and the French court of appeal is expected to pronouncement the case in September 15th.

Thomas is not worried about the case.

He said: "the Ministry of public affairs has said there is no reason to prohibit Hermes from forming this holding company, and AMF has also approved that we have every confidence in winning the lawsuit."

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< p > Thomas said that in addition to legal action, Louis Weedon still "lobbying the family to try to persuade them to sell".

No matter who is right or wrong, Thomas is not worried.

He said: "what Louis Weedon has forgotten is that the Hermes family is Puritan, and the Puritan attitude towards money is quite different from that of Catholics. Secondly, the Hermes family is concerned about the continuation of business. Recently, there are rumors that Arnott will start buying at the price that the family can not resist.

In his view, the problem is that even if he can initiate a takeover at the price of 400 euro per share, which is about two times the current paction price, he will not get a share from the family.

This is not a question of money. It concerns family glory and glory as the sixth generation of the family's descendants. Now the seventh generation has also appeared.

Gold also said that the rumor was "purely imaginary and groundless."

Thomas said confidently: "the risk of being bought by Arnott is zero. I don't know what happened after 30 years, but I can see from my eyes that the risk is zero."

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< p > he continued: "Hermes is an unparalleled business model. It is totally different from Louis Weedon, which is why the two can not be integrated.

The acquisition will kill Hermes, whose brand and name may remain, but Hermes will die. "

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< p > in his view, the reason is very simple: "Hermes is a kind of humanized experience".

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