Phillip Kennedy, Director, Information Technology, Pandora Jewelry

SuperNova Award Category

Matrix Commerce

The Company

Pandora is a jewelry manufacturer and retailer of charm bracelets, rings, earrings and necklaces.  Their goal is making luxury jewelry accessible to all women of all income levels. They are headquartered in Denmark and since 1982 have expanded into more than 50 countries including Germany, Australia, Switzerland, Canada, United Kingdom and the United States. 

Pandora is now the 3rd largest jewelry brand in the world and has grown exponentially since first launching in the United States in 2006.  With that growth, the company wanted to ensure each of the retail stores provided a consistent customer experience.  These inconsistencies prompted the search for a CRM solution. 

The Problem

Phillip’s CRM initiative coincided with the change in business focus making certain Pandora’s branding efforts were having a positive effect on the business.  He worked with the Visual Merchandising Team to ensure that retailers were trained and can present Pandora’s consistent brand message.  He implemented Microsoft Dynamics CRM which now tracks and measures data and correlates it to increased sales and drive for more branded sales. 

The Solution

Phillip worked with the team to revamp the whole Visual Merchandising and sales visit process with new entities and workflows inside CRM.  They would refine the process after using them for 8-10 months and then collect more data, make changes and incorporate any additional changes from the business. The final version has been widely received by the users as the Visual Merchandising team has an “ownership” in the system they helped to create. 

The Results

Phillip recommended Microsoft Dynamics CRM, implemented it, worked with the team to design it and actually coded the solution.  Before their CRM implementation, Pandora’s retail stores had no cohesive feel to them.  Now as customers walk into each of the stores, they will have a consistent experience at every store. Additionally, the Visual Merchandising team can work with retail stores to create marketing plans and can measure the results against that plan.  This makes the retail stores more accountable and provides insight on what products they need to stock, which promotions worked and how they can grow their business. 

The Technology

Pandora chose Microsoft Dynamics CRM as a development platform and Phillip’s vision was that they would continue to develop other business processes into the solution.  The Visual Merchandising Team was the first process they defined and since then, CRM has become their “go to” solution for any additional projects.  Therefore, any business process they want to rework, whether it’s from sales, marketing, merchandising, IT or customer service, Phillip revamps and designs it in the CRM system. 

Metrics Matter

Three years ago, before their CRM implementation, Pandora was a $180M business and has since grown to an $800M business in North America.  They have also been able to keep the Sales/Merchandising headcount at the same 1% growth while total headcount has grown 16%.  Additionally, topline sales have grown over 60% with transaction volume has grown at a similar rate of ~67%. 

Disruptive Factor

Phillip worked with Pandora to create account scorecards for each of their retailers using Microsoft Dynamics CRM.  This card is a series of metrics and reports that have been collected and then collated into one document for the field team.  Before they visit the account, they can pull up the scorecard, review it and then share the information with the account. 

Shining Moment

The Visual Merchandising reporting solution is just one of the processes that Phillip built in Microsoft Dynamics CRM.   They also do business and marketing plans, sales data tracking, and all the marketing job workflows inside of CRM.  The internal marketing teams take ad orders, process and deliver the ads with all tracking and reporting completed within CRM.  They handle co-op advertising submissions and processing and IT Asset Management as well. 


Many of the projects Phillip and his team have worked on have had little documented guidance or business requirements from the beginning; it’s been more of an idea.  Meaning, the business came to them with an idea and they’ve been able to work with them to collaborate on a solution.  They’ve been able to show Pandora what’s possible using the technology platforms they have, based on the idea.

His team can be compared to a proof of concept shop.   They are a fairly lean IT team and their focus is on delivering new solutions to the business or at least showing them what’s possible.  Then if they want to see it through, Phillip brings in one of their IT partners to help with the heavy lifting.  However, their focus is working in partnership on projects that would be good for Pandora and then showing them how it can be done.

A side note:  Phillip was actually a consultant working on the Pandora project before being hired by Pandora.  Before Phillip joined the team, all Pandora’s IT work was outsourced.  He was their first internal IT specific hire and now leads a team of 16 members.  

About Pandora Jewelry

PANDORA designs, manufactures and markets hand-finished and modern jewelry made from genuine materials at affordable prices. PANDORA jewelry is sold in more than 70 countries on six continents through approximately 10,300 points of sale, including approximately 950 concept stores.

Founded in 1982 and headquartered in Copenhagen, Denmark, PANDORA employs over 6,900 people worldwide of whom 4,900 are located in Gemopolis, Thailand, where the company manufactures its jewelry. PANDORA is publicly listed on the NASDAQ OMX Copenhagen stock exchange in Denmark. In 2012, PANDORA’s total revenue was DKK 6.7 billion (approximately EUR 900 million). For more information, please visit www.pandoragroup.com