Inside the troubled house of Tiffany
By Bloomberg Published January 27, 2025 When Tiffany & Co. executives were looking for ways to boost staff morale, they rolled out an internal app called “Tiffany Joy.” They asked workers to post photos celebrating couples getting engaged, colleagues’ big sales and other meaningful moments at stores. Web Tiffany & Co. It didn’t take long to turn into a chore. Executives started telling US staff they weren’t posting frequently enough and asking workers to “like” posts more quickly. Within a few months, by early 2024, some US employees had given the app a nickname: “Forced Joy.” What started as a way to make Tiffany a more enjoyable place to work turned into a reminder that the iconic jeweler was not hitting the mark in the US under Christopher Kilaniotis, the head of Americas at Tiffany. Employees said they were surprised that Kilaniotis, who is responsible for nearly half of Tiffany’s global revenue, focused on an internal app while stores were missing sales targets and employees were leaving for competitors, according to current and former executives, managers and employees familiar with the app who were unauthorized to speak publicly on the matter. Kilaniotis and Chief Executive Officer Anthony Ledru joined Tiffany from Bernard Arnault’s Louis Vuitton after the fashion tycoon’s conglomerate, LVMH, bought the jeweler for $16 billion in 2021, the world’s biggest luxury acquisition. LVMH aimed to combine the venerable jewelry retailer’s history and design with the conglomerate’s extensive resources to expand Tiffany’s presence in markets like China and India, enhance its digital capabilities and capture a new generation of luxury consumers. So far, though, Tiffany’s performance doesn’t appear to stack up against Louis Vuitton, Dior, Bulgari and the other prestigious brands under LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton SE, which reports earnings on Jan. 28. LVMH doesn’t break out figures for Tiffany but sales at the conglomerate’s watches and jewelry segment dropped 4% in the last quarter, the division’s third straight quarterly sales decline. Roughly four years after the Tiffany acquisition, LVMH continues to ask…
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