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L'Oréal Engineering

To create beauty-tech innovations that move the world by delivering sustainable, inclusive and personalized beauty experiences for all

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To create beauty-tech innovations that move the world by delivering sustainable, inclusive and personalized beauty experiences for all

Strengths

  • TALENT: World-class engineers & researchers across 20 markets
  • PLATFORM: Robust beauty tech ecosystem developed over 8 years
  • INNOVATION: 497 patents filed in beauty tech in last 3 years
  • DATA: Proprietary customer data from 1B+ consumer touchpoints
  • SCALE: Engineering presence in all major global markets

Weaknesses

  • INTEGRATION: Product team silos causing redundant tech solutions
  • LEGACY: 30% of systems require modernization and cloud migration
  • SPEED: 9-month average time-to-market for new tech features
  • ANALYTICS: Insufficient advanced analytics adoption across teams
  • TALENT: Shortage of AI/ML specialists causing project delays

Opportunities

  • AI: Personalization engines could increase conversion by 35%
  • MOBILE: AR/VR try-on tech adoption rising 70% YoY among Gen Z
  • PLATFORM: Open API strategy could triple developer ecosystem
  • AUTOMATION: 40% of quality testing processes can be automated
  • IOT: Smart beauty devices market growing at 25% CAGR

Threats

  • COMPETITION: Beauty startups raised $4.5B in tech funding in 2024
  • PRIVACY: Changing global regulations impact data collection
  • TALENT: 30% increase in competition for AI/ML specialists
  • SECURITY: Rising sophistication of beauty tech-targeted breaches
  • SPEED: Competitors releasing new tech features 2x faster

Key Priorities

  • DIGITAL: Accelerate cloud migration and modernize legacy systems
  • TALENT: Build AI/ML capabilities through hiring and upskilling
  • PLATFORM: Develop open API strategy to expand developer ecosystem
  • AGILITY: Reduce time-to-market for new tech features by 50%
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To create beauty-tech innovations that move the world by delivering sustainable, inclusive and personalized beauty experiences for all

MODERNIZE

Accelerate technical transformation for future readiness

  • MIGRATION: Complete cloud migration for 70% of legacy systems by Q3, reducing hosting costs by 35%
  • ARCHITECTURE: Implement microservices architecture in 5 core products, boosting deployment speed by 60%
  • DEVOPS: Achieve 95% CI/CD automation across all product teams, reducing release cycles to 4 weeks
  • DEBT: Reduce technical debt by 40% through dedicated engineering sprints and architecture reviews
AI ACCELERATION

Lead beauty industry through AI-powered innovation

  • TALENT: Hire 25 AI specialists and upskill 120 engineers through AI certification program
  • PLATFORM: Launch unified AI platform used by 80% of brands, supporting 15+ use cases
  • ETHICS: Implement comprehensive AI ethics framework with 100% model coverage and bias testing
  • INNOVATION: Deploy 8 new Gen AI features driving €12M in incremental revenue across brands
OPEN ECOSYSTEM

Build the beauty industry's premier developer platform

  • APIS: Launch public API gateway with 30+ endpoints and developer portal serving 500+ partners
  • DEVELOPERS: Grow external developer community to 2,000 active members across 25 countries
  • INTEGRATION: Reduce partner integration time from 12 weeks to 4 weeks through SDK improvements
  • MARKETPLACE: Launch beauty-tech app marketplace with 50+ third-party applications
SPEED TO MARKET

Deliver beauty tech innovations at unprecedented pace

  • PROCESS: Redesign delivery methodology reducing time-to-market from 9 to 4 months across teams
  • TESTING: Implement automation testing framework covering 85% of critical user journeys
  • FEATURES: Launch 12 high-impact digital beauty features generating €25M in incremental revenue
  • EXPERIMENTATION: Establish A/B testing infrastructure allowing 50+ concurrent experiments
METRICS
  • DIGITAL SALES: 50% of total revenue by EOY 2025 (from current 32%)
  • DEPLOYMENT FREQUENCY: 3x weekly production deployments (from current 1x)
  • ENGINEERING PRODUCTIVITY: 35% improvement in feature development velocity
VALUES
  • Innovation Excellence
  • Digital Transformation
  • Sustainability Leadership
  • Diversity & Inclusion
  • Customer-Centricity
L'Oréal logo
Align the learnings

L'Oréal Engineering Retrospective

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To create beauty-tech innovations that move the world by delivering sustainable, inclusive and personalized beauty experiences for all

What Went Well

  • DIGITAL: E-commerce sales grew 32% YoY, exceeding 29% target goal
  • MOBILE: App-based virtual try-on technology drove 24% conversion lift
  • PLATFORM: API-first approach reduced integration costs by €4.2M annually
  • PERFORMANCE: Tech platform handled 3.8M transactions on Singles' Day

Not So Well

  • LEGACY: Tech debt paydown initiatives fell short of 25% reduction goal
  • SECURITY: Three minor data incidents increased remediation costs by €1.4M
  • DEPLOYMENT: New feature release cycles averaged 9 weeks versus 6-week goal
  • ANALYTICS: Only 40% of brands fully adopted the analytics dashboard suite

Learnings

  • ARCHITECTURE: Microservices adoption accelerated innovation in pilot teams
  • LEADERSHIP: Engineering embedded in business units improved collaboration
  • METHODOLOGIES: Teams using design thinking showed 28% higher NPS scores
  • PRIORITIES: Feature bloat slowed critical path deliveries in key markets

Action Items

  • MODERNIZE: Accelerate cloud migration with 40% increase in dedicated team
  • AUTOMATE: Implement CI/CD pipelines across all product engineering teams
  • OPTIMIZE: Reduce technical debt by 35% through dedicated sprint cycles
  • STREAMLINE: Consolidate engineering platforms from 8 to 3 core systems
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To create beauty-tech innovations that move the world by delivering sustainable, inclusive and personalized beauty experiences for all

Strengths

  • RESEARCH: 120+ AI specialists across global tech innovation hubs
  • DATA: Massive proprietary beauty data sets from 100+ markets
  • EXPERIENCE: 5+ years of successful AI deployment in production
  • FOUNDATION: Strong AI ethics framework implemented globally
  • INVESTMENT: €300M dedicated AI innovation fund created in 2023

Weaknesses

  • FRAGMENTATION: AI initiatives scattered across 12+ business units
  • SCALE: Only 30% of brands fully leveraging AI capabilities
  • TALENT: High competition for specialized AI engineering talent
  • INFRASTRUCTURE: Cloud computing resources bottlenecks for ML
  • ADOPTION: Slow integration of AI tools into existing workflows

Opportunities

  • PERSONALIZATION: Gen AI could power hyper-personalized products
  • EFFICIENCY: AI could automate 40% of current manual processes
  • INSIGHTS: Advanced AI analytics could reveal new market segments
  • INCLUSIVITY: AI vision systems improving shade matching by 80%
  • INNOVATION: Gen AI could accelerate formula development by 65%

Threats

  • COMPETITION: Tech giants entering beauty with superior AI tools
  • REGULATION: Tightening AI regulations in EU and key markets
  • ETHICS: Increasing scrutiny on AI ethics in beauty algorithms
  • EXPERTISE: Competitors poaching top AI talent with 40% premiums
  • BIAS: Risks of algorithmic bias affecting inclusive offerings

Key Priorities

  • UNIFICATION: Create centralized AI Center of Excellence
  • TALENT: Establish AI engineering academy and certification path
  • SCALE: Deploy standardized AI platform across all business units
  • ETHICS: Strengthen AI governance and bias detection frameworks