Yves Saint Laurent
Overview
The basic entrepreneurial abilities offer a lead on how to manage a business enterprise especially those operating in the international business environment i.e. Yves Saint Laurent (brand). In this paper, it highlights the role of an entrepreneur, Yves Saint Laurent in business success in accordance to its relationship between the tools or resources of Yves Saint Laurent (brand) with the people working in the company and the systems that that the company employ in business processes. Moreover, the concept of culture, communication and commitment is given importance in overall and continuous improvement of a business firm (Roney, C.W. 2004). With respect to the excellent entrepreneurial capabilities of Yves Saint Laurent, the company, Yves Saint Laurent (brand), and its business administrators are now using effective corporate governance approach as their competitive advantage.
The Entrepreneur
The founder of Yves Saint Laurent (brand) was a French fashion designer who was considered as one of the best in French fashion in the 20th century.[1] Basically, Caroline Rennolds Milbank argued that Yves Henri Donat Mathieu Saint Laurent was the most consistently celebrated and influential designer of the past twenty-five years. Yves Henri Donat Mathieu Saint Laurent inherited his fashion sense from his mother and was inspired equally by his friends. YSL is really a good fashion designer and a good entrepreneur. Actually, he was the first living fashion designer to be honored by the Metropolitan Museum of Art with a solo exhibition. Aside from this, his expressive entrepreneurial skill created a foundation with Pierre Bergé in Paris to trace the history of the house of YSL, complete with 15,000 objects and 5,000 pieces of clothing. With regards to the good qualities of YSL, a study done by Smith-Hunter, Kapp and Yonkers (2003) identifies two groups of several factors that influence entrepreneurial behaviour. These factors include locus of control, risk taking, achievement motivation, problem solving style and innovativeness, perception and work values, which are in turn affected by external factors, such as culture, role models, work experience, education, and environment.
Locus of control is important as it helps demonstrate the self-determination of an organisation, which helps determine a higher rate of entrepreneur activity. With an increased self-determination, the company is ready to take risks, which makes the entrepreneur pursue a business idea when the probability of succeeding is low (Bhattacharya, C. B. 2000; Eisenstat, R. A. 2001; and Smith-Hunter, Kapp and Yonkers 2003). This means that the entrepreneur has the courage and the persistence to engage in his venture, even without the assurance of succeeding. The third personal factor is the entrepreneur’s value system, which entails examination, understanding of one’s place in the society, and the individual’s idea about persons and things (Smith-Hunter, Kapp and Yonkers 2003). This includes the perception and the achievement motivations of the entrepreneur, for their values determine their attitude towards their dedication with their work. The fourth factor is the entrepreneur’s problem solving style and innovativeness, which is the central value of the entrepreneurial behaviour, since it is successfully taking an idea or invention to market. Innovation and problem solving capabilities are expected to be the core of the entrepreneurial capability of an entrepreneur, for they are faced with a number of challenges as they try to implement new ideas and solve problems, so their innovativeness counts (Smith-Hunter, Kapp and Yonkers 2003).
Similarly, these factors are affected by external factors for these external factors interact largely with the mentioned attributes. The education of an entrepreneur is one major concern for his or her knowledge and experience, especially concerning high technology and heavy competition, can affect his or her decisions in the organisation. Related to education is the entrepreneur’s perception or interpretations, which play an important role in the total motivational process, for he or she needs to believe that certain strategic actions done will produce positive results, profits, sales, or market share (Smith-Hunter, Kapp and Yonkers 2003). Culture, role models and support also affect these factors, for these three external factors can influence the decision-making process and the personality of the entrepreneur. Culture affects the propensity to act, thus, the actual number of entrepreneurs that will attempt to start a business is also affected. Some cultures have more role models available than others do, which makes entrepreneurial success based on family and community support (Smith-Hunter, Kapp and Yonkers 2003). It has been reported that social norms had a significant influence on predicting entrepreneurship, as might be due to the high level of locus of control, which would decrease the influence of social pressure (cited in Smith-Hunter, Kapp and Yonkers 2003).
Basically, the factors driving entrepreneurial behaviour of YSL include the complexity of issue, resource scarcity, urgency of issue, strong local leadership, and good enough partnerships (Bradshaw, Smith and Shacklady-Smith 2006). These determine the success in business ventures by its interaction and interrelation, which brings good effects to the company if used wisely. Entrepreneurship is an important aspect in the society, for without it consumers will not have many choices in the market. The emergence of new entrepreneurs in the industry leads us to conclude that many would like to take risk, many have the proper values, many are well educated regarding business, and many have the courage to innovate and improve. This is beneficial to the society, for many citizens can be open to alternatives and suit their preferences.
Business Development Practices
Yves Saint Laurent (brand) is a luxury fashion house founded by Yves Saint Laurent and his partner, Pierre Bergé. Currently, its chief designer is Stefano Pilati. Basically, Yves Saint Laurent clothing has for decades been known for its modern and refined elegance. Decades before Giorgio Armani, Yves Saint Laurent clothing glamourised for women some items taken from the male wardrobe, such as the blazer, the tuxedo, the pant suit, the leather jacket. The Yves Saint Laurent (brand) aims for sustainable growth as a broad market leader in fashion as well as for segment leadership. In both cases, the brands of Yves Saint Laurent (brand) will play a crucial part. Yves Saint Laurent (brand) is able to establish its broad leadership usually by merging to other known companies such as the Gucci Groups and by continuously innovating their products and services. Currently, YSL are now offering a limited-edition flacon for L’Homme, an Yves Saint Laurent fragrance. Moreover, YSL redesigned their brand website and now lets US patrons buy men’s and women’s leather goods, ready-to-wear, shoes, and accessories online. Items like their trendy “Tribute” bag and shoe are examples. The collections vary but there are only a limited number of items available for purchase. There are also online exclusives. In addition, to this development, YSL are offering training to its staff, improving the company operations, and the introduction of trendy fashion products and technologies then reinforces the positions of the various products of YSL. This practically results in economies of scale that is able to create a distribution network for both its local and international products. If a market is already in the control of other companies, YSL devotes its attention towards the development of a premium segment with its various fashion products (Yves Saint Laurent 2008).
As part of the efficient qualities of the founder YSL in entrepreneurship, Yves Saint Laurent (brand) is actually considering the concept of effective corporate governance as their competitive advantage. Yves Saint Laurent, as previously the head of the decision-making body of the company, creates a good system not only in selling their products but also in maintaining expressive relationship to their overall stakeholders. Maintaining good relationship to stakeholders reflects to their effective corporate governance (Yves Saint Laurent 2008).
It can be said that the company has a very good framework that has been established in order to deal with different corporate matters. In fact, there is usually a properly structured program that is further reinforced by company policies and other procedures for the proper guidance of the directors in their daily duties (Yves Saint Laurent 2008). Consequently, the company has a clear reference guide to its business operations and corporate governance. The Yves Saint Laurent (brand) administrators leaded by Stefano Pilati guided by the entrepreneur virtues of Yves Saint Laurent which oversee the businesses and the decision-making routines as well as the financial aspect of things, keeps watch. In addition, this includes the maintenance of the standards with regards to corporate governance in the corporation’s different sectors (Yves Saint Laurent 2008).
Apparently, Yves Saint Laurent (brand) has a clear code of ethics and all staff must affirm their acceptance of this code. The code of ethics includes a conflict of interest policy to ensure that key corporate decisions are made by individuals who do not have a financial interest in the outcome separate from their interest as company officials. The company also actively monitors compliance with the law and the global financial policies and practices over critical areas. These areas include internal controls, financial accounting and reporting, fiduciary accountability and safeguarding of our corporate assets.
A major factor involved in the improvement of Yves Saint Laurent (brand) involves the establishment and utilisation of company performance measures or indicators that in turn measure their customer’s satisfaction. These measures or indicators are measurable characteristics of products and services that the company typically utilises in order to study and improve company performance. The indicators that will be chosen should be able to represent the essential factors that are crucial to the improvement of operational and financial performance. Through the analysis of accurate information brought about by the tracking processes, the measures or indicators themselves can possibly be analysed and improved to support such goals.
Effects of Governance to Yves Saint Laurent (brand)’s Business Ethics and Purpose
With regards to the entrepreneurship practices of Yves Saint Laurent, the current management has been able to attain complete control of all matters regarding the company. Their self-perseverance and obligation to their duties and finally, their obedience to the company laws all contribute to the development of the corporation. As such, company administrators constantly believes that all the data pertaining to financial information and other facts regarding to their operations that are currently being used is reliable. The company administrators’ authority leaded by Stefano Pilati is clearly recognised within the company. And because of this, it is able to have a solid grip on the corporation’s actual operations, stakeholders and its financial concerns. Needless to say, because of the corporation’s proper structure and its commitment to the stakeholders and to the community as well, the administrators has proven that it can efficiently handle both its ethical and legal responsibilities.
Furthermore, the company is currently maintaining good relations and open communications with its investors. As a matter of fact, shareholders are regularly invited by the corporation whenever there are gatherings to discuss trade updates. Moreover, whenever there is an annual general meeting, investors get the chance to meet the administrators and board members themselves. And of course, for private investors, they can also access the company’s website for various shareholder services. Undoubtedly, the company has good consideration for all of its stakeholders; past, present and future. There definitely seems to be a very well planned framework in the firm’s corporate division. It has good policies and procedures with regards to financial matters and operational concerns. Its procedure of assessing the different kinds of situations that come up is certainly a good move on their part. Not to mention, they have maintained good relations with their stakeholders. And finally, Yves Saint Laurent (brand) administrators’s authority is unsurpassed. Clearly, these facts prove the strength of the company’s corporate governance structure.
The weakness on this case however, is the fact that it cannot always be assured that there are no losses or other errors which may result from mistakes and inconsistencies by one of the committees or employees involved. In addition, having diverse populations, there can be a possibility of having internal problems between members who have different culture and beliefs. In addition, some problems occur in terms of giving value to the companies’ shareholders. There are times that the shareholder is not given the enough information about the status of the company, specifically that shareholder which have a small part in the business. This happens when the board of directors does not give value to their shareholders. Other negative aspects include the imperfection of financial reporting procedures which may definitely result in ineffective corporate governance.
Innovation
At the business organisation level of Yves Saint Laurent (brand), innovation simply means managing the elements of the innovation process and maintaining an innovative culture within the company. Yves Saint Laurent have been added the responsibility of managing innovation as the premise for doing business in the 21st century. With the proper handling of such a delicate task, the organisation is given the edge that it needs to retain or improve its competitive position in the increasingly complex and globalised market (Shelton, R & Davila, T 2005). The challenge of Yves Saint Laurent (brand), therefore, lies in the need to innovate on technology and business models, deal with uncertain environments, cutbacks and massive worldwide economic, political and social shifts. This wide array of new concerns for the organisation’s management may increase the complexity of doing business in this day and age, but it certainly improves the company’s ability to survive in the cutthroat field of enterprise.
The creative destruction process has captured the central paradox of market capitalism that in order for the system to become successful in creating wealth, it should be most efficient in destroying unproductive industries and enterprises through innovation (John 2001). This replacement of weak industries with fresh and vibrant ones have driven companies the world over to innovate the way they do business in order not to be regarded and eliminated as a ‘weak’ part of the business game.
Conclusion
The discussion of the capabilities and resources of the Yves Saint Laurent (brand) with respect to the entrepreneur capabilities of YSL revealed very consistencies regarding its strategies. This is coherent with their traditional inside-out approach. However, the need to reconcile both the inside-out and outside-in approaches becomes imperative now for Yves Saint Laurent (brand). The analysis among the fashion industry environment as well as the corporate governance of Yves Saint Laurent (brand) and their capabilities revealed certain gaps, most of which are biased towards the industry environment. However, these gaps paved the way towards determining a number of recommended strategic options to secure the competitiveness of Yves Saint Laurent (brand). Also, Yves Saint Laurent (brand) has to find a balance between adherence to internal forces within the management and to the changing forces of the environment in order to implement such strategic options.
References:
Bhattacharya, C. B. 2000, Relationship Marketing in Mass Markets, Handbook of Relationship Marketing, Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Bradshaw, D, Smith, L, and Shacklady-Smith, A 2006, ‘Entrepreneurial Behaviour and Approaches to Public Involvement in English Health Scrutiny’, Manchester Business School.
Eisenstat, R. A. 2001, Organisational Dynamics, pp. 6-14.
Dead cool in the icy gale’, The Independent, 06 January.
Roney, C.W. 2004, Strategic Management Methodology: Generally Accepted Principles for Practitioners. Westport, CT: Praeger.
Shelton, R & Davila, T 2005, ‘The Seven Rules of Innovation’, Optimise Magazine, 01 August, no. 46.
Smith-Hunter, A, Kapp, J, and Yonkers, V 2003, ‘A Psychological Model of Entrepreneurial Behaviour’, Journal of the Academy of Business and Economics.
Yves Saint Laurent 2008, Accessed: August 18, 2008, Available at: <http://www.ysl.com/>
[1] From http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/obituaries/2063264/Yves-Saint-Laurent.html
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