Vogue Business and Worldpay Master Class - Episode 1 with Prada

hello and welcome to the vogue business and world play master class on how to create seamless omni-channel experiences i'm megan mcdowell and i'm the senior innovation editor at vogue business throughout the five episodes in this masterclass series i am joined by brands from fashion and luxury to explore omnichannel which is loosely defined as meeting customers in multiple channels while we traditionally think of omnichannel as just being offline or online it has increasingly expanded to include new channels like social media and gaming and for this week's episode i am joined by massimo vyan the industrial director of prada sba welcome massimo good afternoon megan so to get started i'd love to briefly ask what do you do what does your role include at prada as industrial director in prada my the activities i manage they go from when the sketch is ready and is done by our directors i manage all the activities from prototyping to you know some post production manufacturing and logistic distribution so it's a it's fun job it's for ready to wear for shoes and of course for leather goods accessories

thanks that sounds really interesting well i'd love to get started on our first question about omnichannel which has been around for a long time but the definition has really changed a lot in the past year what projects or experiments are you working on recently at prada in the last period we've been working in order to enable all our products to be digitally connected uh through definitely the nfc and the rfid processors inside so happy to say that now 100 of all our products that are actually produced they have a microchip in it and of course these allows let me say very smooth operations to from the industrial side to our stores and in the future they will enable of course connectivity with consumers not only in our stores but throughout the whole uh life of the product that's really interesting so what was it

about like the past year that changed sort of the customer journey um i know many of us we couldn't travel the stores were closed maybe we were shopping from different places how did the customer journey and the checkout process change for prada in the past year we've been as i said before preparing the ground so a lot has been has changed from the industrial point of view because we create the base for future experiences the customer experience inside the store has not changed yet with the enabling of the new feature of the rfid yeah you have also to take into account we have still to purge the whole system with the let me say all the products i still haven't got the rf rfid chip in it but let's say that we are ready now to to talk to consumers through this new technology so your role i mean is that sort of a

big part of your role as sort of overseeing this implementation or i guess what do you work on in your role my role is up absolutely to oversee the implementation not only from the technical point of view of the microchip inside all our process but also to keep tracking of all our process in the distribution and to this respect this has changed a lot dramatically so now scanning any of our products in our store we can basically get hold of the whole life cycle of that product from the moment it exited our factory until the moment we are actually handed over to a consumer this is an information we still keep private but it give us infinite confidence of the trustability the level of quality and the ownership of our products

yeah so let's dive into that so for anyone who's not familiar rfid is radio frequency identification and nfc is near field communication and as i understand it it's a chip that you can scan with different devices and basically initiate sort of a digital experience is that correct it is correct uh maybe one extra information is it's a microchip that identifies specifically that very product so it's not of about that category but is that very simple item that you are you have in your hand at the moment so in the near future we are thinking to upload related to that specific code images of that product during the production moments even mini video clip with the italian maestros in tuscany talking to a consumer hey i am a mrs maria and i'm building your product and i'm so proud and it's not any pro any purse is that very person and in to this respect the potential information we can pass to do to the consumer are infinite and more moreover unique this is the key aspect unique about that very single piece

that's so interesting so it's almost like um like a driver's license or a birth certificate or a passport and each item i mean is that correct like each item because of this technology it has its own identity exactly so interesting and so are you mentioned um the customer facing portion so if i buy this bag i can see someone creating it i can see some information about this bag are you also using this technology in the production in the logistics fulfillment are you using that before too yes definitely of course this is a secondary effect if we talk about consumers but it's of course one of our primary goal in managing the overall supply chain this allows us to keep tracking of the raw material we're using for every single bag of course the processes all the different gates logistic case so we're not scanning anymore back by bag but we are scanning the whole batch of products that are moving from warehouse to warehouse lorry flies you know carrier etc so all the supply chain is more secure and definitely faster and technology is really changing everything basically we do at the industrial level logistic distribution level even you know has a let me say a lot of a positive effect crossing customs when we deal with legal entities around the world that's interesting i mean that was one

of my questions is what problem does this solve or what new benefit does this technology offer i would say that the single biggest advantage is let me say testify you know in a sort of unique way the original product that you have in your hands those codes cannot be cracked uh those codes are in the rfid but are linked through the cloud to specific database and source number that uniquely identify not only the source but all the life cycle of that product and so at custom level at consumer level he will be immediately has you know clicking on your smartphone to have the proof that your product is original and has of course you know we still have an issue with it with fake products around the world and that's really interesting you need selfies and then huge miles come ahead compared to the past

um and so in the future could someone if they scan this could they buy a product that through this experience could they buy something that complements the item that they're looking at like is there an opportunity to add new sales to this absolutely scanning your first tag pair of shoes you could have immediately you know suggested that bag was part of one look at the catwalk of you know spring summer 21 and you could buy together other items to to complete the look you could have you know any sort of uh communication when you are in the proximity of one of our product stores you know but potential is infinite really and those potential is really for us important to link the consumer to our our product and the heritage of our product of course my point of view is always you know an industrial point of view from a marketing communication infinite other possibilities but for me what is so important to establish the connection with the product and with the trust that product was made you know in a specific place where the value is made with specific product of course traceability in terms of sustainable materials would be is important and will be more and more important through those microchip in the future i think consumer will be allowed to understand also where the ladder will come from which type of leather uh how many grams of co2 has been emitted to treat that leather and those information i think will be crucial for the consumer of the near future and that chip and that technology will allow that

that well and it's interesting because i feel like rfids have existed for a while but i think fashion is now they're starting to look at it again a little bit closer to think about all the different use cases and i understand you recently worked with a university to kind of explore different uses of rfids and this type of technology can you share a little bit of information about that of course i think that now the potential before coming to that of the rfid has been has been accelerated also with the link of blocked blockchain technologies encoding because the rfid itself is you know is a microchip but the strength of the microchip is the fact that you create a digital link of that microchip through the cloud and through the code into that specific model i'd love to go back to this uh blockchain that you mentioned uh recently the aura blockchain consortium was introduced and prada was one of the founding members and i know that a part of that is prada using rfids with blockchain so can you help us understand what that technology will do or why it's important to this conversation blockchain program he is directly managed by lorenzo bertelli head of marketing and communication of course i am 100 involved with what is uh the creating the foundation for that but basically everything we talked about so far is you know what is behind the aura program guarantee the traceability of the materials the origin of the products and i would say at the end also the whole sustainable supply chain that that is on the back of those companies that are producing those excellent products and then again it's something that as a you know elite club sometimes we take for granted also for sure our brands behind they do have consumers that trust our brands but you never have to take for granted that trust and i think to witness the fact with you know real data and direct communication is an element of transparency especially for younger generation would be more and more important with more brands coming to the market but not as many brands as the one in aura program will be able to to communicate the level of you know supply chain ownership that we as a brand in the aura program can communicate and we do have because our supply chains are real and owning the source of the material and the transformation is the only element has a foundation that can help you to communicate with transparency to the consumer so they know the real value behind what they buy

well i know we're coming close on time but quickly i want to ask you kind of what's next or what challenges are you still working on i imagine this is going to take a long time to really implement this why no not really not necessarily long term so it doesn't mean that manufacturing becomes like a you know a media company production but i do imagine that we will have somehow to have more let me say facility throughout you know distribution and manufacturing process they will be able to witness what i just talked about in terms of you know taking pictures making interviews probably the very first step will be even in the near future i cannot say much more but when you will be able to select and customize a product let me say a pair of shoes it will be easier in a one-to-one type of consumer order with a specific product to keep track of you know some of the step of the manufacturing of the item and upload those elements of communication images videos pictures whatever you know do the link with the rfid so in any moment through let me say via email or whatsapp during the building but even after when the consumer will buy that product customized it will always the reference of that product being made and so it can happen i cannot say tomorrow but not far too long in the future very cool i'm sure that will be very exciting um and i can't wait to hear more about it but that's all the time we have for this week's episode so thank you so much for joining us and taking the time to share all this you're very welcome megan it was my pleasure thanks to you and we hope to see you all at next week's episode with mark morris the senior vice president of digital commerce at burberry thanks for joining and goodbye