Staying ahead of the revolution

Car­o­line Neville, Pres­i­dent, CEW (UK)

Dur­ing the last five years we have wit­nessed an indus­try-wide rev­o­lu­tion, which has had a pro­found effect on the entire beau­ty estab­lish­ment. There have been changes in the way con­sumers shop for beau­ty and a change in how new brands are enter­ing the mar­ket.

The increased use of social media, and the con­tin­ued rise and suc­cess of e‑commerce, has allowed small inde­pen­dent beau­ty brands, niche enough to launch off and ride the dig­i­tal wave, to reach mar­ket dom­i­nance with lim­it­ed ini­tial invest­ment.

This is being helped by a new breed of dig­i­tal influ­encers, who con­nect with their audi­ence on a more per­son­al lev­el, con­tin­u­ous­ly doc­u­ment­ing new prod­ucts, trends and likes, and gen­er­at­ing huge incomes for a brand.

There has been an increase in the use of vlog­ging to show con­sumers how to cre­ate a look, which is par­tic­u­lar­ly ben­e­fi­cial for make-up brands.

Suc­cess will be dri­ven by new skills as what worked in the past will not nec­es­sar­i­ly pre­de­ter­mine suc­cess in the future

We have wit­nessed a rise in the use of mobile among beau­ty con­sumers, often women lead­ing busy lifestyles who want cus­tomised ser­vices and prod­ucts tai­lored to the life they lead. Hair and beau­ty ser­vices can now be deliv­ered to your home or office from an app on your mobile, which is mak­ing the ser­vices indus­try sit up and take notice.

The out­come of all this change is that these new ways of engag­ing with con­sumers have made tra­di­tion­al retail­ers and ser­vice providers up their game and incor­po­rate val­ue-added ser­vices into their offer­ings, both online and in-store.

Now it’s all about the in-store, in-salon expe­ri­ence offer­ing new ser­vices, nutri­tion infu­sions and non-inva­sive ser­vices – as well as cham­pagne.

Suc­cess will be dri­ven by new skills as what worked in the past will not nec­es­sar­i­ly pre­de­ter­mine suc­cess in the future.

That is why CEW (UK), the most influ­en­tial glob­al organ­i­sa­tion for women (and more recent­ly men) work­ing at exec­u­tive lev­el with­in the beau­ty indus­try, has had to stay ahead of the curve and lead the con­ver­sa­tion around the rev­o­lu­tion of the beau­ty indus­try.

In Sep­tem­ber, I cel­e­brat­ed 20 years as pres­i­dent of CEW (UK), a not-for-prof­it organ­i­sa­tion that runs like a for-prof­it com­pa­ny. Our orig­i­nal remit was to nur­ture and recog­nise top female tal­ent with­in the beau­ty indus­try, how­ev­er today we offer much more. The organ­i­sa­tion has evolved and we now have three main pil­lars – edu­ca­tion, recog­ni­tion and phil­an­thropy – to our work.

Through our pro­grammes, we offer mem­bers an indus­try-wide view of the entire beau­ty space, edu­cat­ing through our men­tor­ing pro­grammes and busi­ness events, sup­port­ed by a board made up of the top influ­encers in the beau­ty indus­try. They have found a com­mu­ni­ty of women in CEW with shared inter­ests and issues.

You have to remem­ber that when CEW began in the UK in 1992, there were few women in cor­po­rate lead­er­ship posi­tions and the advance­ment of women was not on the agen­da for dis­cus­sion, unlike today.

We have also recog­nised that there are more women in the over-50 set still work­ing. We should val­ue the wis­dom, expe­ri­ence and grace they can bring. Tomor­row I will cel­e­brate my 74^th birth­day. I have no inten­tion of retir­ing; this word does not fig­ure in my vocab­u­lary. In my opin­ion all you need are your wits and mobil­i­ty, and if you are lucky enough to work in the beau­ty indus­try, you are in the right place.