It wasn’t until Alicia Peyrano had her daughter Zulema in 2011 that she realised she didn’t like the toys available on the high street. “I didn’t realise that I felt so strongly about how to raise children until I had my own”, she says. “I was living in Northern Ireland, but I’m from the US and my parents are Latin American. I was concerned that I’d be bringing my daughter up remotely from the culture that I knew.”
Peyrano set about sourcing toys from artists and illustrators in the UK and around the world, when she travelled for business as a documentary maker. Eventually, she launched Little Citizens Boutique in 2013, which has already experienced 100% year-on-year growth in the past two years. The focus of the product range and the business’s vision is on creativity and learning: “We think of our company as an engine to bring more creativity into the world, and specifically into families ... The toy is just a tool for the child to discover the world they’ve been born into.”
The business now needs to manage its growth in a sustainable way, “so potentially SAP Anywhere might be a really great solution for us, timing wise”. Peyrano is particularly interested in utilising the multiple currency checkout functionality, to improve the business’s stock inventory control across its various channels (online and offline), and to use insights to learn more about their customers.
“We have lots of return customers – lots of loyalty, lots of enthusiasm, which is really nice because you feel like you’re doing something well. [We’d like to] figure out what age group of child are the customer is generally looking for, are they interested in birthday presents, did they buy something that was part of a collection and they might be interested in the next piece to add to that collection – SAP Anywhere would definitely be a useful tool.”
Toby Davidson, vice president of product strategy for SAP Anywhere and one of the competition judges says: “Little Citizens Boutique is a highly innovative business so it’s only right that its technology software is on par. As the business continues on its path to success, SAP Anywhere will be able to provide a tailored support system that doesn’t stifle growth but instead adapts to its changing needs.”
Peyrano is working on developing a range of toys that focus on the skills needed for science, technology, engineering and maths, particularly for girls. “We’ve done some research and little girls from as young as six start to turn off maths. We’re trying to build something that’s really intuitive and lays foundations in their head, without even thinking about it too much.”
On the back of this, the business is also exploring how virtual reality film can aid learning, exposing them to travel and spatial awareness skills. It’s a model, she says, that the technology and science minds have really pioneered, but they want to bring a more artistic, creative side to it to appeal to a broader range of children. “It feels like the great new frontier. We’ve done some testing with my daughter and some of her friends and they are blown away by it, much more so than adults. They don’t think it’s weird, it’s not uncomfortable. I think it’ll start to take more of a role in the future.”
This advertisement feature is paid for and produced to a brief agreed with SAP Anywhere, sponsor of The Disruptors hub on the Guardian Small Business Network.
