Prada Base Case

Prada wants to reinvent retailing. So its first Epicenter store features everything from antennas and chips embedded in clothing tags, to video displays hanging from the racks, to clear doors on fitting rooms that are supposed to fog up when you walk in.

Prada Base Case

Headquarters: Via Andrea Maffei 2, 20135 Milan, Italy

Phone number: 011-39-0254-6701 (from U.S., direct)

Business: Prada designs and sells high-end men's and women's apparel, shoes and accessories. Prada operates about 300 stores worldwide and either owns outright or has a majority interest in fashion houses Church's & Co., Helmut Lang and Jil Sander

Chief Information Officer: Fulvio Grignani

Financials in 2001: Sales, $1.46 billion; earnings before interest and taxes, $119.3 million; net profit, $28.6 million

Challenges: To reinvigorate the Prada brand name; capture market share and "mind-share" in luxury goods retailing; collect better information about customers; improve store results

BASELINE GOALS:

• Perfect new retail concept, known as Epicenter plan. Open Epicenter stores in New York, Beverly Hills, San Francisco and Tokyo
• Improve Prada brand sales, from 2% growth rate in 2001
• Increase Prada directly owned store sales, which dropped 6% in 2001 to $728.4 million
• Reduce debt, from $1.2 billion at the end of 2001