of drift. After the company’s challenging first half, Schulman introduced Burberry Forward to reignite brand desire, improve performance and drive long-term value creation.  “Our customers are responding to our timeless British luxury brand expression,” said Schulman. “With improvement in brand sentiment, we will be ramping up the frequency and reach of our campaigns as our Autumn and Winter collections arrive in store.” The company said since the launch of Burberry Forward, its core business has seen a significant improvement in our comparable retail sales in the second half relative to the first half. “There is a lot of logic in the Burberry Forward strategy,” Mathew Dixon, partner at DHR Global, told Inside Retail. “The brand has a unique heritage and always had functionality in their DNA, which was overlooked in their quest to be perceived as a luxury player. Schulman also recognises the brand needs to embrace the British with what it once had and use it as a differentiator in the market.” A decade ago Burberry was luxury’s automatic answer to which brand does digital best with its in‑house social‑media studio, early live‑streamed runway shows and RFID‑enabled “smart” mirrors.  Then came creative whiplash. Christopher Bailey, the architect of that digital lustre, ceded the reins to Riccardo Tisci, who traded trench‑coat understatement for street‑wear logos. The pivot was culturally noisy but commercially tepid. By the time Schulman arrived from Coach last year, Burberry’s once‑distinct blend of utility and heritage had blurred into the wider luxury wallpaper. “Burberry were once perceived as technology leaders, but this has faded over the past few years. Schulman’s decision to prioritise bringing data back to the forefront of decision-making is a wise move,” Dixon said.  “Burberry Forward prioritises storytelling, clarity of position and data as their pillars of future growth. They are having a more realistic brand conversation with their customer and in this market a slightly lower market positioning is a plus for them. The early signs are that this is beginning to have a positive impact.” Cutting to invest Following the full-year results, Burberry announced its plan to reduce a fifth of its global workforce, equivalent to about 1700 roles, in the next two years. The move will generate an additional £60 million of savings once fully enacted, on top of £40 million previously announced. The job cuts will affect mostly office roles, and a night shift at its trench coat factory in Castleford, England, will be cancelled, according to the company.   Yet the market’s verdict was, if not jubilant, at least intrigued. Burberry shares jumped 18 per cent on results day.  “Shedding 1700 jobs was more than anyone anticipated,” Dixon said. “However, although this is incredibly painful, it feels necessary to reignite the brand. Schulman had to be bold and make a big call here to ease the pressure on the share price. There will be other right-sizing in the luxury space. Brands had grown too big, based upon unsustainable growth projections and the cuts seen at Burberry will not be the last.” Macro-headwinds Macro‑headwinds persist. Chinese demand remains spotty, tourism flows are only slowly normalising and American shoppers are balking at steep post‑pandemic price rises. Washington’s mooted tariffs on European luxury goods add another layer of uncertainty. “In terms of tariffs, to be clear, we have relatively small exposure among our peers to the US. We have 19 per cent of our business in the US, and we knew that something was coming in terms of tariffs,” Schulman said in the earnings call. “We didn’t know how big, and, frankly, we still don’t know how big that impact is because it’s dynamic and it’s changing all the time.”  The CEO said Burberry has spent the past year mapping price elasticity category by category. Where the company needed to stay sharp at entry price points, it has. Elsewhere it has taken surgical, mid‑single‑digit increases. That discipline, he argues, will allow Burberry to absorb or pass on any tariff shocks without up‑ending demand. “While we are operating against a difficult macroeconomic backdrop and are still in the early stages of our turnaround, I am more optimistic than ever that Burberry’s best days are ahead and that we will deliver sustainable profitable growth over time,” Schulman said.  Further reading: Burberry’s turnaround strategy reveals the power of emotional connection.