Tech transformation: Why you should join L’Oréal Beauty Tech adventure
L’Oréal’s ambition is to become the #1 Beauty Tech Company. It means going beyond the boundaries of the traditional Beauty Market and creating new consumer journeys, new user experiences and new business models, enabled by emerging technologies (Eg: AI, AR/VR, Robotics and IoT). A big ambition! We sat down with Stephane Lannuzel, Beauty Tech Program Director to learn more about the vision and concretely what is behind it!
What is L’Oréal’s Beauty Tech ambition about?
S.L: “For L’Oréal, Beauty Tech is about inventing the Beauty of the future while transforming in the company of the future. It relies on a multi-Tech transformation (AI, Data and Analytics, Cloud, AR/VR, IoTs…) to design and build augmented and enriched experiences both for our consumers and our employees. For our consumers, it means inventing new services such as diagnostic, personalization, virtual try-ons, livestreaming…. As for our employees, it means providing them with state of the art tech solutions to make fast fact-based decisions and to quickly identify early market trends. Data is at the heart of this transformation as L’Oréal has gathered a unique heritage of Data thanks to its strong portfolio of brands active in all beauty categories, its worldwide presence and its continuous significant investment in research and innovation. As leader of the Beauty market, L’Oréal wants to be the pioneer, to shape and to lead the Beauty Tech revolution.”
Could you share a flagship project realized by the beauty tech teams?
S.L: “Using AI to detect new upcoming trends, L’Oréal teams are all about innovation and a true passion for developing new products to serve the quest for people around the world. It is crucial when it comes to product development to be able to seize at the earliest stage new consumers expectations. Today’s Tech is here to make possible what seemed impossible yesterday. And that’s what TrendSpotter is all about: detect & predict beauty trends accurately. First, an AI Trend Detection Engine reads what the trendsetters have shared and contributed online: on blogs, social media etc. The AI engine reads everything and is trained and intelligent enough to capture beauty related posts and spot keywords that could become the products of tomorrow for beauty consumers across the world.”
Who are the teams that compose the Beauty Tech and what are their main expertise?
S.L: In order for us to speed up the pace of innovation and transformation, we have established Tech Accelerators to delivers strategic use cases at speed and at scale, based on the agile methodology, strengthening the partnership between the Business, and IT.
Each hub contains expertise in key areas — such as UX/UI design (Product design, Data Visualization, Prototyping, User Testing), Data Science (Data Engineering, Analytics, AI, Machine learning), Tech Engineering (Front/Back end development — APIs — Cloud solutions).
Taking an agile approach allows multi-functional teams to work together to find real-time solutions that are built piece by piece, through an iterative process.
Another very important dimension for us at L’Oréal is Diversity & Inclusion. We are looking to build diverse teams from different backgrounds and of course we would like to promote opportunities for women in Tech. There is still a big bridge to gap: only 21% of Computer and Information Science bachelor degrees were received by women last year. As the Leader of the Beauty Industry we clearly have a role to play in addressing this issue that creates a very unbalanced work environment. We are committed to make things change!
Would you have any tips for someone to join the adventure?
S.L: “L’Oreal sense of purpose is ‘Create the Beauty that moves the world’. To join the adventure, you need to have the passion for People, Business and for Tech, ready to be a pioneer in this exciting Beauty Tech journey, with the ambition to create the #1 Beauty Tech company. Your team spirit, your resilience, your agility combined with you Tech and Data savviness will be key in this endeavour.
Curiosity, networking skills in an open ecosystem and an always-on learning attitude will foster your creativity. People at L’Oreal are entrepreneurs always ready to seize what is starting. Remember the Beauty Tech ambition is to invent the Beauty of the future while becoming the company of the future. Nothing short of that!”
If you are craving for more inspiration from our Beauty tech projects and achievements, see a full section on our official website that you can navigate in!
And if you wish to apply to join our teams, heads up to our careers website:
More about Stephane’s path to L’Oréal: An engineer from Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées (Paris) and Imperial College (London), Stéphane started his career in Project Finance in Australia at Caisse des Dépôts et Consignations, a large French Bank. He then spent 7 years with Kearney, a premium-consulting firm, specializing in the Luxury and Consumer Goods industries. For the past 15 years, Stéphane has been working for the Beauty Industry first for Shiseido and then for L’Oréal. He has held various positions as Chief Digital Officer of Operations for 3 years before to become the Beauty Tech program Director for the Group!
