Company Context

Christian Dior Couture is evaluating a new engineering initiative for Dior.com and omnichannel clienteling operations: building a unified Client 360 and personalization platform that connects browsing behavior, boutique interactions, CRM data, and fulfillment signals across regions. Today, Dior operates with partially fragmented systems across e-commerce, retail, and client services, which limits personalization, slows campaign execution, and creates inconsistent experiences for high-value clients. You are the Engineering Manager asked to recommend whether this initiative is worth the investment versus continuing with incremental improvements to the current stack.

Strategic Situation

The decision is time-sensitive because Dior leadership wants to finalize next year’s technology investment plan within 6 weeks. Commercial teams argue that better personalization on Dior.com and stronger clienteling support in boutiques could increase conversion, repeat purchase rate, and average order value, especially among VIC and returning luxury shoppers. However, the initiative would require meaningful engineering capacity, cross-functional coordination, and temporary roadmap trade-offs against other priorities such as checkout optimization and regional site performance.

Assume the initiative would deliver three core capabilities:

• Unified client profiles across Dior.com, boutique CRM, and customer service
• Real-time product recommendations and audience segmentation for campaigns
• Better attribution of online-to-offline journeys and follow-up outreach

Data Points

Additional assumptions:

• Commercial team estimates the platform could improve conversion by 3-5% relative, AOV by 1-2%, and repeat purchase rate by 2-4 percentage points for identified customers.
• Only 65% of Dior.com revenue is realistically addressable in the first 2 years due to rollout limits and data readiness.
• Engineering capacity required: 28 FTEs for 12 months, drawing from platform, data, and digital product teams.
• Dior’s hurdle rate for discretionary tech investments is 15% IRR, with preference for payback in under 3 years.

Deliverables

1. Build a structured approach to evaluate whether the initiative is worth funding.
2. Estimate the potential business impact using the data provided, including a base case and downside/upside view.
3. Assess strategic benefits beyond near-term revenue, including competitive positioning and organizational leverage.
4. Identify the major risks, dependencies, and opportunity costs of pursuing this initiative now.
5. Make a recommendation: invest now, stage-gate/pilot first, or defer.

Constraints

• Decision required in 6 weeks for annual planning
• Budget is limited; only one major cross-functional engineering initiative can be prioritized this cycle
• Rollout must begin in Europe first, then US and Japan
• Legal, privacy, and regional data governance requirements may limit data unification speed