360 Approach
From its inception, the Belt Bag stood as a high-priority shape across the organisation, with senior leadership actively fueling its development and launch. In keeping with this strong commitment, teams working on the Belt Bag adopted a "360 approach" with an aim to tighten integration across functions.
Katrina Beechey commented: "The Belt Bag was an example where we tried to take a 360 approach so we had a very clear understanding of what it takes to design, test, build, launch, and sell the bag. Oftentimes we are very siloed — the way I describe it is a bit like a relay race: so we pass the baton from one team to another and don't then watch to see what happens at the end of the race." She continued:
I think the Belt Bag was less an example of that [siloed approach]. The central product team did a really good job of keeping people on task around it. There were fully orchestrated discussions that included PD, PE, supply chain, raw materials and design, coordinated merchandizing. And we did a very good job connecting that into marketing and merchandising.
"Belief in the Belt Bag"
Director of Merchandising Rebecca Solari recalled the early days of the Belt Bag. "Obviously, the first thing is the belief in the bag. It came with conversations across all of the teams, and it comes back to this whole 360 launch of the Belt Bag. From the Design team to the Central team, everyone was really proud of this product and felt that this could be the future of Burberry leather goods."
From there, Belt Bag commitment spread to the Retail teams including regional VPs, store managers, and sales associates. To spur sales, the Merchandising team developed comprehensive training materials to educate sales associates on all aspects of the Belt Bag, from design inspiration and distinguishing features, to craftsmanship and materials, to guidelines for selling.
"At the end of the day, these are the people that are selling this product to our customers," said Rebecca, "and this is how the customer is going to receive that product. So, for us, it was really making sure that they had the confidence in this product that we in the head office teams all had as well."