A Burberry Group PLC store in Beijing. Burberry's comparable store sales increased by 13 percent year-on-year during the three months ended Dec 31, 2011. [Photo / Bloomberg]

But Burberry's award-winning chief executive officer still insists family must always come first

BEIJING - Angela Ahrendts, chief executive officer of Burberry Group PLC, was named as one of Forbes' 100 Most Powerful Women in the World four times in the past five years.

In 2010, her name also appeared on the list of Fortune's Businesspeople of the Year, the Financial Times' Top 50 Women in World Business, and she was awarded the Outstanding Leadership Award at the Oracle World Retail Awards in 2009.

The key for the success, Ahrendts said, is that she doesn't think about herself.

"It is not about me. It is about the company. I tell everyone in the company, 8,000 employees, don't do it for me or Christopher (Chief Creative Officer Christopher Bailey). Always do the best for the brand," she stressed.

"The Burberry brand has been around for 155 years. Our job is to keep the brand relevant, modern and strong, so it will stay around for another 155 years. The brand will outlive anyone of us.

"I do not think of me or my success. My success is the company's success. If the company does well, then Angela gets into the magazine. If the company does not do great, then Angela is nothing."

Ahrendts became the CEO of Burberry on July 1, 2006. Under her leadership, Burberry has entered the FTSE 50 and has seen annual revenues almost double to 1.5 billion pounds for the year ended March 31, 2011.

Despite the slowdown in the global economy, Burberry achieved record performance.

According to the company's third-quarter report, comparable store sales increased by 13 percent year-on-year during the three months ended Dec 31, 2011, and retail revenues were up 23 percent as compared with the same period of 2010.

The reason for the growth, according to Ahrendts, is largely because of Burberry's focus on investing to drive growth and executing innovative strategies in product design, digital marketing and retail.

Invest heavily in digital

"We spend 60 percent of our marketing budget in digital, as we feel very strongly that digital is the new universal language," said Ahrendts, adding this is also the same in China.

Looking across the world, in all the high-growth markets such as China, India, Turkey and Latin America, the average high net-worth individual is 15 to 20 years younger than in developed markets.

"So if they are younger, they are digital, they have a smart device and they are living on that device. That is their language. So, as a brand, if that is the customer that we are targeting, we had better speak their language," she explained.

Burberry's strategies in China are no different from what the company does in other markets. It has the same products and the same content.

"But we have to market the products to the consumers in a different way and work with different partners in China," Ahrendts said.

Instead of YouTube, the company puts Christopher Bailey and Burberry Acoustic on Youku. Instead of Twitter or Facebook, the company uses Sina Weibo and other local social media sites.

According to Ahrendts, Burberry has 5.8 million impressions on Youku, and 308,000 fans on Sina Weibo.

However, investing heavily in digital for Burberry is not just about promoting online shopping, she added.

"Online is a way for us to connect with our consumers, to engage and to entertain."

For most of the luxury businesses, around 60 percent of the consumers shop online but want to buy in-store.

"So we say, Burberry World, our website, is our number one marketing opportunity. We have more than a million people come to Burberry World every week," she said.