Brunello Cucinelli elevates humanity and economic dignity with fashion.

Brunello Cucinelli creates high-end clothing for men and women. The brand is known for its classic silhouettes and luxurious materials. For the company, fashion is about the person wearing the clothes, not the brand. “It is very simple. We have no logos. I think this is something quite important,” said Carolina Cucinelli, Communications & Digital Director.

For this brand, the challenge is maintaining its personal touch in the age of the digital shopper. Cucinelli needed to find a way to deliver the personalized experience it was known for in stores to the digital world.

“There is a beautiful expression by Voltaire, where he says: ‘If you do not accept the changes of your time, perhaps you will miss the greatest part,’” said Brunello Cucinelli. “So, I have always wanted to use the latest technology, but to use it in a gracious way that doesn't steal our souls. This is why I believe we are living in a new, fascinating time.”

Brunello Cucinelli’s solution to the changing times lies in what company leaders call “graceful technology.” This is technology that is “there, but does not come between us and the customer,” said Francesca Picchiò, Digital & CRM Program Manager.

Graceful technology enables the company to create stronger, more personal relationships with their customers. Service Cloud helps Brunello Cucinelli employees deliver faster service. With customer order history and automated workflows, store managers are able to expedite customer service needs, enabling employees to spend more time building relationships with shoppers.

“It was important for us to be able to give our customers the same experience that we give them in the physical world — a feeling of being looked after, without being pressured,” said Carolina. “We try to understand when our customers want to be contacted, when they don’t want to be contacted, when they would rather receive a phone call instead of an email.”

Company leaders turned to Salesforce for that simple, luxury experience that their clients had come to expect. “We weren’t just looking for innovative and complete pioneering technologies. We were looking for a partner who shared our values,” said Francesca.

With Salesforce, Brunello Cucinelli found a way to marry the traditions of Italian craftsmanship and service with graceful technology the helps employees elevate the luxury experience. Salesforce empowers Brunello Cucinelli to put human values at the center of its business.

“Online, just by nature, it is a little bit cold, a bit impersonal,” said Francesca. “Thanks to Salesforce, we were able to build customer journeys — to provide our individual customers with an experience that was as close as possible to their expectations and desires.”

A large part of human values is trust. Said Brunello: “We have always believed in human privacy, so we asked Salesforce, ‘Help us to ensure that we maintain this idea of kindness toward human beings in our work,’ and I was happy that we figured this out. Salesforce has given us real confidence that the data of our valued customers is respected.”

Brunello Cucinelli is also succeeding as an exemplary leader by demonstrating that businesses can achieve the perfect balance of profit and purpose. It’s digital business is growing, and the brand is opening new stores in key markets around the globe, all while contributing 20% of profits to charitable causes. Brunello Cucinelli has elevated the luxury experience to such an extent that customers send in handwritten thank-you notes to employees for their service.

It’s not easy to bring the familial, authentic feeling of a small town in Italy on a global scale. With Salesforce, Brunello Cucinelli has successfully done just that. The digital storefront is available in 50 countries. With Marketing Cloud, every communication has a personal feel, where recipients often respond to the email addressing Brunello directly.

Brunello Cucinelli has successfully translated the luxury experience to the digital realm. Since migrating the company’s ecommerce to Commerce Cloud in 2016, the business has quadrupled ecommerce revenues.

“There is something unique about the relationship we have with Salesforce,” said Francesca. “Because Salesforce immediately grasped the specificity of our project, of what we wanted to do. They also understood our need to break away from the mainstream, to think outside the box.”

"Try to humanize the internet and you will be remembered in the next millennium as those, the innovators, who changed humanity," added Brunello.

Brunello Cucinelli plans to continue building out the brand experience in the digital realm, bringing the beauty of its small headquarters town of Solomeo to the world.