Richest man

Chapter 21 Europe: Liliane Petain (2)
Today, L'Oreal has become a model of French globalization, which is unmatched in France.For a while, people generally believed that high-tech and information companies such as France Telecom, Alcatel and Vivendi Global could become the benchmark companies of the French economy, but in the long-term development, L'Oreal has exerted stronger vitality and development power .Judging from the figures of the past three years, the French blue chip index has fallen by 24%, while L'Oreal's stock has outperformed the index by 65%.Others such as France Telecom, Alcatel and Vivendi Global all fell by more than 70%.During this period, the Dow Jones European non-cyclical commodity stock index fell by 10%, while L'Oreal increased by 44%.In the eyes of many investors, L'Oreal's stock is the most reassuring. It has never made a big mistake. It is the French brand with the highest international reputation and a safe island for investment.

L'Oreal's outstanding performance is closely related to the corporate culture and business philosophy that Liliane Betancourt and her three managers have worked hard to create.

The corporate culture of L'Oreal is permeated with a relaxed, harmonious and international atmosphere, which you can experience from the flow of people going to work at its headquarters and from the clothes and conversations of its employees.In the coffee shop on the first floor, you can not only hear French and English, but even German and Asian languages ​​will float into your ears from time to time.It is said that L'Oreal's employees come from 45 nationalities, and among the 4.8 employees, 3.6 are outside France.Among the 400 top managers, there are 40 Spaniards, 70 Italians, 40 Germans and 35 British.Among L'Oreal's 8000 managers, 2000 have stock options.It is not difficult to understand why L'Oreal's turnover rate is quite low: the average service time of employees is 14 years.

Although global companies always give people the impression of black and mechanical integrated production lines, you can hardly smell this feeling from L'Oreal. L'Oreal is a different multinational company. This reason may only be explained as : L'Oreal is a company born in a romantic country.

L'Oreal's factories generally pay attention to humanization: in a L'Oreal factory in Germany, the ceiling and surrounding walls are made of glass panels, so that workers can enjoy the beautiful sunshine.There is no busy assembly line here, but separate workshops, so that the workshop manager can communicate with each employee cordially. The first thing he does every day is to shake hands with the employees.When the shop needs to add new equipment, frontline workers have the final say, he said.

Successful Brand Management Strategy

At the same time, L'Oreal is also one of the most successful and thorough transnational corporations in reforming professional managers.

Since 1957, Liliana officially inherited her father's business. She was only 35 years old at the time, and she did not want to take over her father's business, but obeyed her father's decision calmly and reasonably.Therefore, Liliana personally appointed three presidents of L'Oreal Group, and maintained close working relationship and deep friendship with them.And these three presidents also repaid Liliana's trust in them with excellent results.

After the death of the old Eugene Schuleer, his loyal assistant Francois Dalle (Francois Dalle) was the first to take over L'Oreal. Dalle's biggest contribution during his tenure was a major transformation of L'Oreal's shareholding structure. After L'Oréal went public in 1963, because French left-wing politicians liked to interfere or even control the management of large French companies, Dale began to consider how to transform the company's ownership structure internationally. In 1973, Dale persuaded Liliane Bettencourt to dilute her shareholding.In a rather complicated deal, Swiss food giant Nestlé has a 51% stake in a holding company called Gesparal, while Bettencourt owns the remaining 49%.Through Gesparal, Nestlé in turn purchased more than 50% of L'Oreal's shares, and the rest was listed and circulated. This shareholding structure has been retained to this day.The separation of ownership and management rights allowed L'Oreal's management to operate freely and ensured the continuity of corporate development. This made Liliane Bettencourt, who holds 27.3% of L'Oreal's shares, the richest man in France in the end, but her wealth is mainly Again from current president Owen Jones.

Different from Dalle’s appointment, Owen Jones went through a lot of ups and downs as the president, because Owen Jones is an Englishman, and letting a foreigner take charge of a large French company is unique in the history of French companies. But L'Oreal did it.When Jones was appointed chairman in 1988, public opinion generally believed that it was an adventure, but this outstanding young British man made all predictions fail. During his more than ten years of leadership, he led L'Oreal to create The most perfect period of development since its birth.

Owen's successful experience is the acquisition.

He often likes to do things that people don't think of.In 2000 he bought Kiehl, a small, popular cosmetics company in New York City that was a far cry from L'Oréal's usual branding.“That’s why we bought it because we saw how interesting it was for a brand to do the exact opposite of what we did and still be successful,” Jones explained.

Of course, most of the time, L'Oreal's acquisitions are quite cautious, and only when it is determined that a certain meal can be digested, L'Oreal will wait for an opportunity to act.It is precisely because of this that the two successful cases of Maybelline and Soft Sheen/Carson have been created.

In 1996, L'Oreal acquired Maybelline for $7.58 million and set out to revamp the brand.Owen believes that if Maybelline wants to enter the international market, it must first go out of its own box.So in 1996, L'Oreal moved the headquarters of Maybelline from Memphis to New York. Since then, in overseas markets, the word "New York" has been added to the back of the Maybelline trademark. "L'Oreal Paris".Because in the eyes of consumers in many parts of the world, New York is a symbol of the Western flamboyant world, and its products should represent the latest fashion.After L'Oreal changed the face of Maybelline, its sales also jumped from 1996 million US dollars in 3.5 to 2004 billion US dollars in 11, becoming the largest cosmetics company in the United States, with a global market share of 19%, and it is likely to become the world's largest sales volume. Cosmetics brand.Subsequently, Maybelline became L'Oreal's sharp weapon to knock on the door of the Japanese market. In July 1999, L'Oreal took back the controlling stake in Maybelline (Japan), and quickly transformed the formula of ondercurl mascara to make it more suitable for the needs of Asians.

In 1998 and 2000, L'Oreal acquired Soft Sheen and Carson successively, and then merged. Soft Sheen/Carson, a maker of shampoo for African-Americans, has no international presence at all, while Soft Sheen/Carson, which has established itself in South Africa, is mired in debt.L'Oreal first set its sights on the African market, and behind it, the African immigrants who spread to all parts of the world with the population flow contain a huge potential gold mine.In response to this market, L'Oreal first set up a research laboratory in Chicago, specializing in the study of black hair, and directly set up camp in South Africa to train local hairdressers. In 9000, Soft Sheen/Carson already accounted for 41% of Africa's $11 million annual sales of hairdressing supplies, an increase of [-]% compared to before the acquisition.L'Oreal took advantage of the victory and pushed northward, not only coveting Senegal and Côte d'Ivoire, which were former French colonies, but also setting its sights on some communities in Europe where black descendants live, such as Paris and London.

L'Oreal's success today largely reflects the effectiveness of L'Oreal's unique strategy of brand acquisition and repackaging, which has transformed L'Oreal from a French company into a global beauty industry empire.

Take the road of globalization firmly
The 20s and 90s are considered to be the beginning of the era of human globalization. A large number of multinational companies, especially American companies, started the development of their global layout at that time; companies replaced countries and completed another kind of expansion that is not limited by borders. , Among them, American companies are the representatives of globalization - in all walks of life, you can almost find the shadow of American companies, including the cosmetics industry.

At that time, Estee Lauder and Revlon in the United States were the two most well-known brands in the international cosmetics market, especially in the United States, their old home. These two brands completely controlled the high-end cosmetics market. It was considered impossible to enter the United States. task.

Liliane Bettencourt and her company L'Oréal decided to push the envelope.With the efforts of the company, L'Oreal persuaded Macy's, one of the largest department stores in the United States at that time, to obtain the same sales area as Estee Lauder in its main cosmetics counter area. With its extraordinary momentum and excellent quality With the brand, in the first year, Lancôme achieved a 25% sales increase, thus opening up the US market in one fell swoop.

But an American market is not all that L'Oreal wants. L'Oreal's eyes are on the whole world, and this goal is even more evident in the 21st century.Now, L'Oreal has been able to skillfully grasp the global development trend. For example, L'Oreal has shown strong interest in emerging markets like China.In China, Lancôme and L'Oreal are well-known brands, and their sales revenue has increased by more than 60% every year.In order to maintain its leading position, L'Oreal has invested heavily in China.The first phase of the company's US$5000 million Suzhou Shangmei factory has been completed.At the same time, it is ready to invest another 1 million US dollars to carry out the construction of the second and third phases of the project.

On the streets of Moscow, Russia, you can also see large advertisements of Maybelline's crystal lipstick everywhere. The L'Oreal brand has penetrated into the hearts of many Russians.In addition, Jones also aimed at the African women's market, and established a research and development center in Chicago specializing in African hairstyles.

Today, L'Oreal has agencies in 150 countries around the world, 85% of its products are sold abroad, and 44% are sold outside Europe.Its turnover in 2001 reached 137 billion euros, and its net profit reached 2.29 million euros.L'Oreal now has 4.8 employees, including 2500 researchers, distributed in 283 branches and 46 factories around the world-all data show that today's L'Oreal has become one of the largest companies in the world .

And if you still can't imagine the degree of globalization of L'Oreal, some of the following data may help you:

Today, L'Oréal sells 85 beauty products every second.In addition to L'Oreal, its main trademarks include Lancome, Maybelline, Garnier, Vichy, Ralph Lauren or Giorgio Armani fragrances, Biotherm, Redken, Helena... In the world, no matter which family you are in, as long as you go to the bathroom or A glance at the medicine cabinet reveals a bunch of products from this family: hairspray, lotion, dye, balm, deodorant, face powder, perfume, shampoo, skin cream...

This is L'Oreal!

She will be the second richest woman in the world next year

Now [-]-year-old Liliana Betancourt has become the second richest woman in the world, ahead of her is Alice Walton, the eldest daughter of the famous American Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton, The latter occupies the position of the richest woman in this year's "Forbes" list of the world's richest people with assets of [-] billion US dollars.

But the ranking, or whether it can become the richest man, has no meaning for Liliana Betancourt. It was the same yesterday, and it is still the same today.For her, perhaps the most important thing now is the Betancourt Schuler Foundation, which she is the chairman of. Especially when her husband left before her, the foundation has become an important spiritual pillar for her. .

Liliane Betancourt has only one daughter, Françoise, who is now on the board of L'Oreal, and she will be the best successor to her mother's career.Perhaps because of the same origin, Françoise still maintains the low-key tradition of the Betancourt family. Even her relatives described Françoise as a "lonely person", but this is also worth looking forward to One of the places, after all someone who has a lot of money and acts like a showman is not respected anywhere.L'Oreal is by no means that kind of business.

It is precisely because of this that the development of L'Oreal has been closely watched by many people, and people have predicted that its performance will have a steady increase, especially in the environment where L'Oreal implements a global strategy and pays more attention to emerging markets like China. The stock has been strong, which is evident.

And if this is the case, the position of the second richest woman in the world in [-] will undoubtedly belong to Liliane Betancourt, although she has long turned a blind eye to all this!Spiro Latshis: The real head of the family of ship lords

No one knows how much they have done for this country.

(End of this chapter)