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Christian Dior shortens time to market from 15 minutes to instant updates

Before

Cumbersome release and targeting process

Software fixes would take hours

Lengthy process to GA features

After

Target users within seconds

Rollback errors within minutes

Accelerated time to market - new features take seconds to GA

About Christian Dior

Christian Dior, one of the world's most renowned luxury fashion houses, has always been synonymous with elegance, sophistication, and innovation. With a legacy spanning over seven decades, Dior continues to redefine fashion trends and set new standards in the fashion retail industry.

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Customer experience is one of our core values. We are always looking for ways to use innovative technology to improve our customer experience and deliver value to our customers.”

Nawel Nsir

Lead Software Engineer, Christian Dior Couture

Challenge

Christian Dior recognizes the pivotal role of technology in enhancing customer experiences. To that end, they were in search of ways to streamline their digital transformation efforts and ensure the seamless deployment of new features across their online platforms.

Before adopting LaunchDarkly, the teams across Christian Dior had a cumbersome workflow reliant on manual pull requests, leading to decreased developer productivity and slower time-to-market. They also needed a way to test features in production and roll them out gradually. This posed significant challenges for the DiorStar mobile app for the Sales Associates in stores, where any unstable changes could impact target pilot stores and revenue. Additionally, Christian Dior could not target specific features based on geographic or user segments.

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LaunchDarkly has revolutionized our development process by streamlining feature flag activation, allowing our developers to focus on more critical tasks. Delegating this responsibility to our Product Owners and Project Managers has not only optimized our developers' time but has also empowered our Quality Assurance team to test various activation combinations, significantly enhancing test coverage

Sebastien Thibaud

Lead Developer, Dior.com

The Solution

Christian Dior implemented LaunchDarkly, empowering teams with the autonomy to set up specific environments for testing and releasing software changes quickly. LaunchDarkly enabled granular feature targeting, allowing teams to roll out stable and tested features by store, region, and even by specific sales associates. This targeted approach helped minimize the risk of outages and disruptions to the in-store customer experience, crucial for a significant portion of Dior's revenue.

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LaunchDarkly allowed us to progressively deliver key features with confidence, creating a safety net for developers.

Fabien Gasser

Retail Lead System Architect, Christian Dior Couture

LaunchDarkly also facilitated feature testing in production safely and provided real-time monitoring capabilities, enabling Christian Dior to gather feedback and iterate rapidly while keeping production environments secure. Integrations with Jira and communication platforms like MSTeams allowed for seamless collaboration among product managers, release managers, and development teams, enhancing visibility and communication throughout the feature release process.

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LaunchDarkly greatly improved our development process at Christian Dior, liberating our teams from cumbersome workflows. With the ability to safely test and roll out features in real time, we've transformed our software delivery process and accelerated our time to release a feature from hours to minutes. We can also roll back changes in real-time ensuring our production environments are safe and the customer experience remains stable. LaunchDarkly has become an integral part of our quest for excellence in delivering seamless digital experiences to our customers.

Nawel Nsir

Lead Software Engineer, Christian Dior Couture

The Results

LaunchDarkly yielded significant benefits for Christian Dior:

Accelerated Time-to-Market: By streamlining feature management and enabling targeted rollouts, Christian Dior experienced a dramatic reduction in the time required to release new features, shifting from a process that could take hours to one that now takes minutes.

Enhanced User Experience: With the ability to target features based on geographic location, user segments, and even individual sales associates, Christian Dior improved the relevance and effectiveness of its digital experiences, ultimately enhancing customer satisfaction and engagement.

Improved Developer Productivity: The LaunchDarkly user-friendly SDK and seamless integration with development workflows empowered developers to focus on delivering value to production confidently, while providing the business with control over feature releases.

Maintained Production Stability: The LaunchDarkly granular feature targeting and real-time monitoring capabilities enabled Christian Dior to innovate and iterate rapidly while minimizing the risk of disruptions to production environments, crucial for a customer-centric retail brand operating in a fast-paced industry.

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The luxury retail market is constantly changing and LaunchDarkly helps our business be able to adjust to the demands of our customers in real-time quickly. Before LaunchDarkly we used configuration files and other internal systems. This was inefficient as we had no visibility into the changes and oftentimes would slow down developer productivity when releasing new features

Nawel Nsir

Lead Software Engineer, Christian Dior Couture

Conclusion

With the help of LaunchDarkly, Christian Dior achieved its core principles of customer-centricity and faster time-to-market, enabling innovation and iteration while safeguarding production stability in a highly competitive and dynamic market.

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Being able to innovate and iterate while keeping our production environments safe is essential for our business. LaunchDarkly has empowered us to achieve this delicate balance, enabling us to deliver cutting-edge digital experiences to our customers while maintaining the highest standards of reliability and stability.

Thomas Texier

Head of IT Technical Department, Christian Dior Couture

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