????艾倫茨常常說到的一句話是，公司的年輕員工就是向她解釋當(dāng)今數(shù)碼世界的“翻譯”。艾倫茨自己也非常樂意接受新事物，她經(jīng)常從自己的三個孩子那里發(fā)現(xiàn)現(xiàn)代科技的最新進(jìn)展。她也是公司里第一批用上蘋果iPad的人之一，而且她還給各個辦公室以及所有的主要商店都配備了這種設(shè)備。（因此博柏利開發(fā)了一個iPad皮套產(chǎn)品也就不足為奇了。）最近《財(cái)富》（Fortune）雜志來到博柏利的總部進(jìn)行采訪，在采訪過程中，艾倫茨通過Skype與印第安那波爾州立大學(xué)（Indiana's Ball State University）的一些博柏利獎學(xué)金獲得者通話——這座大學(xué)也是艾倫茨的母校。她讓學(xué)生們閱讀一篇關(guān)于社交游戲公司Zynga首席執(zhí)行官馬克?平卡斯的文章，還說如果他們搜索不到這篇文章的話，可以在她的Twitter上找到相關(guān)鏈接。

????科技在博柏利公司的員工溝通方面也扮演著重要角色。艾倫茨和首席創(chuàng)意官克里斯托弗?貝利會定期對員工進(jìn)行網(wǎng)絡(luò)廣播，最近他們決定將頻率從每季度一次提高到每月一次。博柏利的辦公室里還播放著艾倫茨在亞特蘭大的一次領(lǐng)導(dǎo)力會議上的講話。企業(yè)資源高級副總裁雷格?辛達(dá)爾打趣道：“我們把自己拍自己的樣子拍了下來。”

????博柏利已經(jīng)從諾基亞（Nokia）和微軟（Microsoft）的Xbox部門挖來了不少技術(shù)人才。但它在科技使用上真正的成功之處在于它幾乎在從時裝秀到員工溝通的每件事上都應(yīng)用了有機(jī)的數(shù)字化方法。首席創(chuàng)意官貝利稱：“‘我們記得做數(shù)字化了嗎？’這種問題永遠(yuǎn)不該出現(xiàn)?！?/p>

????博柏利公司使用了Salesforce.com的“聊天”平臺——你可以把這個平臺當(dāng)成一個企業(yè)版的Facebook。艾倫茨稱，這個工具已經(jīng)成功地加速了整個企業(yè)的溝通。比如有些體格較大的男性顧客覺得某款西裝不大合身，博柏利商店里的銷售團(tuán)隊(duì)是第一批注意到這個現(xiàn)象的人。博柏利總部通過“博柏利聊天”平臺得知了這件事，然后設(shè)計(jì)團(tuán)隊(duì)在針對這個問題做出了相應(yīng)的調(diào)整。

????與此同時，博柏利也在充實(shí)自身的企業(yè)軟件系統(tǒng)，艾倫茨認(rèn)為這最終能改善顧客的體驗(yàn)。SAP技術(shù)的全球集成已經(jīng)快完成了。另外在五月中旬的SAP商業(yè)同略會上，艾倫茨和SAP的共同CEO孟鼎銘宣布，雙方將合作開發(fā)一款應(yīng)用程序，它能將博柏利的所有產(chǎn)品和顧客信息都集成在銷售人員的手上，使他們只需查找一個顧客的姓名，就可以看見這個顧客的相關(guān)信息，包括他的全球交易史，以及與博柏利相關(guān)的社交媒體活動。

????企業(yè)軟件可能沒有奢侈品那么光鮮奪目，不過博柏利卻鐵定了心思要為這些看似平凡的“后勤”系統(tǒng)投資。艾倫茨表示，博柏利已經(jīng)向科技伙伴開放，成為一個各種研發(fā)活動的實(shí)驗(yàn)室，以使公司的運(yùn)營方面做到像公司的銷售情況一樣令人羨慕。執(zhí)行副總裁兼首席財(cái)務(wù)官史黛絲?卡特萊特說：“由于這是奢侈品行業(yè)，過去人們往往覺得創(chuàng)意對這個行業(yè)才是最重要的，因而投資主要流向了那個方向，而不是流向后端。不過現(xiàn)在我們已經(jīng)做得非常平衡了?！?/p>

????Ahrendts likes to say that the members of her young employee base act as her interpreters for today's digital world. But Ahrendts herself is an early adopter, often discovering the latest tech advancements through her three children. She was one of the first in the office to acquire an Apple (AAPL) iPad, and she has since outfitted staff across corporate offices and all mainline stores with the device. (Not surprisingly, Burberry makes a line of iPad cases.) During a recent visit by Fortune to Burberry's offices, Ahrendts Skyped with a group of Burberry scholarship winners at Indiana's Ball State University, her alma mater. She told the students to check out an article about Zynga (ZNGA) CEO Mark Pincus. If they had trouble tracking it down, they could find the link on her Twitter feed.

????Technology plays heavily into employee communications too. Ahrendts and chief creative officer Christopher Bailey do regular webcasts for her workforce, and recently decided to up the frequency from quarterly to monthly. Her talk at a leadership conference in Atlanta in May was streamed at Burberry's offices. Reg Sindall, executive vice president of corporate resources, jokes that at Burberry "we film ourselves filming ourselves filming ourselves."

????Burberry's real tech cred (it has attracted employees from Nokia (NOK) and Microsoft's (MSFT) Xbox division) comes from its organically digital approach to virtually everything it now does, from fashion shows to employee communications. "It should never be on a list: 'Have we remembered to do the digital thing?'" says Bailey.

????The company uses Salesforce's Chatter platform -- think of it as a corporate version of Facebook -- a tool that Ahrendts says has accelerated communication throughout the entire operation. Sales teams in the stores, for example, were among the first to notice that larger male customers were unhappy with the fit of one style of suit. Headquarters heard about it via "Burberry Chat," and the design team made some alterations.

????The company is also beefing up its corporate software systems, which, Ahrendts says, will ultimately result in better customer experiences. A global integration of SAP technology is almost complete, and at SAP's Sapphire Now conference in mid- May, Ahrendts and SAP co-CEO Bill McDermott announced a new, jointly developed app that will put all of Burberry's product and customer information into sales associates' hands, allowing them to look up a customer's name to see a profile that includes global transaction history and social media activity as it relates to Burberry.

????Enterprise software may not be glamorous, but the luxury retailer is committed to investing in such seemingly mundane "back office" systems. Ahrendts says she's opened Burberry up to its tech partners as an R&D lab of sorts, in an effort to make the operations side of the business as admired as the front end. "Because this is luxury and where people have grown up, in the past people have thought that perhaps creative needs to lead the way, and therefore what investment there is needs to go there, rather than into the back end," says EVP and CFO Stacey Cartwright. "We're very balanced."