Systems that hold up across countries, brands and controls

A multi-brand luxury group operating across Latin America and the Caribbean faces a particular kind of complexity. Each country brings its own regulations, currencies, tax rules and ways of working. Each brand brings its own standards. And the group needs all of it to add up to one consistent, controllable operation.

In luxury, the tolerance for error is low. Client information is confidential, inventory is high value, and brand standards are not negotiable. Systems that work in one country and break in the next are not acceptable.

Klaus managed regional IT for Richemont across Latin America and the Caribbean and built software solutions for Cartier and its sister brands. The work combined running the regional technology operation with designing and delivering the systems the business relied on.

The discipline was consistency: one design that holds up across countries and brands, with local variation handled deliberately rather than by workaround, and with controls — access, approvals, records — that travel with the process wherever it runs.

The region could operate on systems that behaved the same way across countries and brands, with the local differences that genuinely mattered built in rather than improvised.

Leadership gained a more consistent view across the region, and the controls that a global group requires did not depend on how each location chose to work.

Multi-location consistency is the core problem behind most of the processes we rebuild today — the same procurement, approval or onboarding process run five different ways in five places. The answer is the same now as it was then: understand how each location really works, agree the standard, design in the legitimate exceptions, and make control part of the process.

It is also why our hospitality and luxury work starts with confidentiality and access design, not with the AI.