Guillaume Bourdon, co-founder and Managing Director of Quinten France

If one aspect of perfumes still makes people dream, it is their creation process. Brands are definitely aware of this, so they put their perfumers in the spotlight, like authors in their own right. It is quite hard to imagine what part Big Data can play in this creative process; and yet, they are actually gaining importance, without devaluing the strength of creativity, according to Guillaume Bourdon.

Quinten is already working with major cosmetics groups and three great perfumers of the industry. “We contribute to perfumes’ development and R&D by speeding up the development process, helping the perfumer focus on his own creativity and artistic direction,” the Director explains.

During the competition phase, the process developed by Quinten makes it possible for the composition house to meet brands’ requirements by capitalizing on the work done by all its creative team over about two years.

We work on a database provided by the company, which gathers data from the two previous years. It corresponds to more than 200 formulas, each of them containing 100 to 150 ingredients at various doses. Analyzing these anonymized, encrypted data enables to identify the two or three common ingredients which, if they are combined, can generate the same sensorial perception and optimum satisfaction,” Guillaume Bourdon specifies. “We just seek the best internal practices.” Thanks to its algorithms, Quinten finds the winning formula to develop products corresponding to market expectations. In addition, the company provides a smart tool to the trade expert in the form of an application to make it easier to exploit the bank of results.

This very concrete dimension of the use of data has been gaining widespread acceptance among companies. “Whether it be for various industries, insurance, the media, or cosmetics, our job is to work on an operational issue to generate value, by concretely enhancing the performance of the phenomenon of interest,” Guillaume Bourdon comments. Indeed, three perfumes among the ten best sellers in the world were designed with the help of Quinten.

Within the broader Big Data debate, the expert drums out the importance of determining three elements before collecting any data: the issues, the stakes, and the objectives. “The idea is not to make information available at all costs, but to help a company implement the strategic changes induced by the data,” he concludes.