Coopetition in the French luxury industry: five cases of brand-building by suppliers of luxury brands

Abstract

The growth and globalization of the luxury market has led to a profound rethinking of business models. In traditional luxury markets such as France, it has become harder for suppliers to have full discretion of their strategies alongside large conglomerates. To deal with this challenge, some suppliers have decided to move to coopetition, that is, to develop their own brand (competition) and continue to work as a supplier for other luxury brands (cooperation). The objective of this paper is twofold. First, a preliminary analysis aims to present a panorama of various coopetitive situations in the luxury industry and identify five triggers: the first three involve situations where cooperation is added to a competitive situation (horizontal cooperation, internal cooperation, and cooperation through a third-party actor); the second two occur when competition is added to a cooperative situation (through upstream or downstream integration). The second part of the paper focuses on this latter type of coopetition, that is, when suppliers decide to move down the value chain. Five cases on the French market are compared, based on the separation, mediation, and integration strategies used to design relevant value architectures and propositions. These strategies respond to two main challenges raised by the move to coopetition: suppliers need to master the necessary capabilities to promote their own brand (capabilities challenge), and they need to make sure that this new activity does not threaten their existing business as a supplier (balance challenge). Coopetitive business models need to be carefully designed in order for value to be created and appropriated at different levels of the ecosystem.