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Dive Brief:
Ulta Beauty is working to take advantage of improvements to core technology systems with an eye toward growth, executives said during an April investor conference.
“[For] the last three years, we’ve been in a heavy investment cycle on our foundational systems,” CEO and President Kecia Steelman said during the event. “In this competitive environment, you’ve got to continue to invest in your business or you’re going to become irrelevant. We are focused on the right things that are going to continue to grow the business for the long-term growth of the future.”
The company upgraded its ERP system, moved to a more bespoke digital store platform, ditched an outdated point-of-sale system and made inroads in data management and governance. “We didn’t have really good data governance around all of our data, which is a huge unlock if you can have clean data sources to leverage AI, generative AI in the future,” Steelman said.
Dive Insight:
Executives backing high rates of technology spend continue to field ROI questions as uncertainty persists in the macroeconomic environment, such as changing consumer spending patterns to impacts associated with potential tariffs by the Trump administration.
Clorox CEO Linda Rendle stood behind the company’s $580 million digital transformation efforts earlier this year after analysts voiced concerns during its Q2 2025 earnings call. The company’s technology spending included its first ERP upgrade in two decades, along with AI investments and widescale modernization of processes and systems.
“We have owners for each one of those line items who are accountable for delivering that value,” Rendle said during the earnings call in February. “We feel this is a great program for our company… and we’re going to do that with a strong return focus in mind that we intend to deliver and have been delivering to date.”
As technology budgets expand, so does the pressure to make that spending count. Understanding which projects to prioritize and building flexibility to account for a range of scenarios can support technology leaders in keeping their businesses on track.
Clear accountability and expectations are also helpful.
Ulta’s Steelman took on the CEO role in January and has since prioritized putting the “right people” are in the “right places,” she said during the April investor conference.
The executive separated digital and e-commerce from marketing to create a chief merchandising and digital officer role, yet to be filled. Steelman also changed former Chief Technology and Information Officer Mike Maresca’s title to chief technology and transformation officer in January.
“I’m very confident that, under his leadership … he’s bringing it all together in a way that we can really understand our CapEx and our OpEx spend, and making sure that we’re getting our ROI and getting the value realized out of these investments,” Steelman said referring to Maresca.
