SDA Bocconi Visit to Intercos Manufacturing Showcases Beauty Product Development and Made in Italy Innovation

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Disclaimer: This post may contain references to past events, but only because they have had a full-circle moment for me.I was part of the GNAM week at SDA Bocconi, and my choice to attend this at my own school was entirely driven by the curriculum that focused on “Made in Italy”. Professor Gabriella Lojacono, who has been the biggest spokesperson for the initiative, had arranged for students who were residents or visiting from across the world to visit the Intercos Group facility outside of Milan.Imagine that you’re Charlie in Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory (2005 version). That is precisely what visiting Intercos Italia’s manufacturing facility was like for me, except that, instead of chocolate, there were endless amounts of beauty products being made right in front of my eyes. From pink powder blushes being pressed into pans, lipstick bullets being assembled with record precision, to the most finely milled highlighter being prepared to bake, think of any brand, from drugstore to prestige, and it was present there. We talked about product development, raw materials, packaging, and distribution of an industry that runs 18-12 months ahead of trends.Now, coming back to the present: earlier this week, my childhood friend Shreya Shridutt, who works as a branding expert at Faces Canada, came bearing gifts, like she always does. Faces Canada Lipstick.For someone else, it may be just a lipstick, but for me, it was a product that my friend had developed, made in a factory that I had visited, situated on a different continent. I could almost visualize the bullet being made in real time. I had witnessed the entire value chain of this lipstick, from when the formulation was developed to actually having the end product.It's not the process, but the details of the product that I actually wanted to talk about. The cute and whimsical lattice-with-hearts pattern in the second picture is Shreya’s jacket, and the Intercos team had made it permanent in product history by transferring it onto the bullet of the lipstick. The team at Faces Canada had imagined it, and the team at Intercos had made it tangible. Thousands of women who will eventually buy and use this lipstick will look at the pattern on the bullet and find it cute, just like I did; they may even find it serendipitous if they have the same jacket.Just like the cerulean sweater in The Devil Wears Prada, nothing about product development in the world of beauty, fashion, and luxury is ever serendipitous; every detail is important, thought out, and executed by multiple partners and eventually ties into the user's experience.hashtag#Beauty hashtag#BrandManagement hashtag#ProductDevelopment hashtag#fashionluxury hashtag#cosmetics

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