Bma610 : Social Media Marketing Assessment Answer

Answer: 

Introduction:

In this work a report will be prepared on Adidas Company. The report will focus on the business and marketing strategies of the company. The business policies adopted by Adidas have also been discussed in the report. SWOT analysis has been conducted for assessing the position of the particular company in the global market.

About the Company

Adidas is a renowned MNC which has headquarters at Herzogenaurach, Germany. The company was founded by Adolf Dassler in 1924. This company operates in the apparel and accessories industry. Adidas Group includes other famous brands like Reebok, TaylorMade, Runtastic and Bayern Munich. Presently the company has employee strength of 56,888. The annual revenue of the company in 2017 was €21.218 billion. Adidas is considered as the largest manufacturer of sportswear across Europe and is ranked as the second in the world.     

Mission and Vision of Adidas

The mission of the Adidas Group is to become the global leader with respect to the sports accessories industry. They want to commit towards constant strengthening and development of their products and brands in order to stay in the global competition.

Their vision is to provide innovative and useful commodities to the consumers. They will constantly improvise the feel, look, image and quality of their organizational structure and products for exceeding consumer satisfaction and expectation. The organization is also environmentally and socially responsible.

Business strategies of Adidas

Business strategies are very important for maintaining the sustainability of any business organization in the global market (Mahdi et al, 2015). Several changes with respect to business strategies have been adopted by Adidas in order to achieve faster development and growth. The main components of the business strategy undertaken by Adidas are discussed below.

Corporate strategy: The new strategic plan devised by Adidas bears the name “Creating the New”. The new strategy of the company depends on three aspects – speed, cities and open source. Adidas believes that it is necessary to speed up the processes so that the customers can get desirable and fresh products as per their requirements (Dickson and McCord, 2016). This particular organization is also identifying and exploring new technologies and business models for speeding up the business programs. Adidas focuses on major cities for its expansion. With respect to open source in order to initiate learning the company carries out interaction between consumers, external experts and the brand.

Focusing on sustainability: For maintaining sustainability the company has formed effective partnerships for reducing the environmental impacts of its processes. It has raised its investment on sustainable processes and products (Charles Jr et al, 2017).

Investment in digital technologies: Adidas has given great importance to the use of advanced digital technologies for improving the level of its production. The company has introduced new technologies to the commercial website which has improved the online shopping experience of the customers.

Marketing for high impacts: Adidas implements innovative and inspirational marketing approaches for positively impacting brand equity and consumer advocacy. The company uses effective marketing for building consumer trust (Lee et al, 2017).

Effective supply chain management: Adidas carries out suitable management of its supply chain. The company’s global operations channel looks after the relationship with the supply chain partners.    

Business policies of Adidas

Adidas has set up certain policies and standards for maintaining the framework of interaction with the stakeholders. The rules and regulations in the “Labour Rights Charter” are meant for specifying the responsibility of the company towards its employees. The “Code of Conduct for Employees” is applicable for all the employees, executives and managers of the company. It helps in understanding the value of the organization (Anon, 2018). There is “Code of Conduct for Suppliers” which is applicable to the suppliers for ensuring health, safety, environmental safety, etc. The company has sourcing and purchasing policies, policies on the use of restricted substances, integrated management policy for safety, health, energy and environment. Adidas has set guidelines with respect to corporate giving. These guidelines are useful for the company to understand in which areas they will get involved, what will be the grant requirements and what will be the application procedure.     

Marketing strategies of Adidas

Adidas implements market segmentation by considering psychographic, behavioral and demographic factors. The company makes the use of differentiated target strategies for targeting the younger generation as well as the customers who are inclined towards sports and fitness. In order to create a distinctive image on the minds of the consumers Adidas implements user as well benefits dependent positioning (Marketing91.com, 2018). The company emphasizes on maintaining the standard quality of the products. In this way it maintains brand trust and brand essence. Adidas has increased focus on evaluating the changes taking place in the consumer needs and demands. The company has adopted distribution strategy for increasing the speed of their response. The particular company keeps their marketing strategies quite lean, fast and simple (Holtbrügge and Schuster, 2017).

SWOT analysis

Strengths:

• Adidas is carrying an age long legacy, therefore has a strong market presence.
• The product portfolio is quite diversified.
• The company has a strong financial position with 2400 stores across the world and a net income of €72 billion (Rudolph, 2016).
• It has strong relationship with ILO and IFC

Weaknesses:

• The price range of the products is high due to incorporation innovative technologies.
• The product line is limited.
• Adidas greatly depends on third party manufacturers for outsourcing its production process (David, 2017).

Opportunities:

• Incorporation innovation will increase the demand of the products.
• Entry into new markets will increase future scope.
• Expansion of the product will open up new opportunities.

Threats:

• Adidas is facing tough competition in the global market due to brands like Nike.
• Great dependency on third parties for production has increased the bargaining power of the suppliers.
• Government regulations of the countries can affect the success and the pricing structure of the company (Funk et al, 2017).

Conclusion:

It can be concluded from the above discussions that Adidas has undertaken robust business strategies, business policies and marketing strategies for improving its presence in the global market. It is the second largest sportswear manufacturer in the world that means this company has come a long way in solidifying its position in the apparels and accessories sector. However there remain opportunities for Adidas in undergoing further improvements.

Reference:

Anon, (2018). Available at: https://www.adidas-group.com/en/sustainability/reporting/policies-and-standards/ [Accessed on 1 Sep. 2018].

Charles Jr, O.H., Schmidheiny, S. and Watts, P., 2017. Walking the talk: The business case for sustainable development. Routledge.

David, L.P.F., 2017. Equity Research-Adidas AG (Doctoral dissertation, Instituto Superior de Economia e Gestão).

Dickson, M.A. and McCord, J., 2016. The integrated business strategy of a Central American denim apparel manufacturer. Latin American Journal of Management for Sustainable Development, 3(1), pp.66-79.

Funk, D., Alexandris, K. and McDonald, H., 2016. Sport consumer behaviour: Marketing strategies. Routledge.

Holtbrügge, D. and Schuster, T., 2017. The Internationalization Strategy of Adidas. The Internationalization of Firms: Case Studies from the Nürnberg Metropolitan Region, p.19.

Lee, C.S., Chan, L. and McNabb, D.E., 2017, July. The Role of Strategic Orientation in Business Innovation. In Management of Engineering and Technology (PICMET), 2017 Portland International Conference on (pp. 1-5). IEEE.

Mahdi, H.A.A., Abbas, M., Mazar, T.I. and George, S., 2015. A Comparative Analysis of Strategies and Business Models of Nike, Inc. and Adidas Group with special reference to Competitive Advantage in the context of a Dynamic and Competitive Environment. International Journal of Business Management and Economic Research, 6(3), pp.167-177.

Marketing91.com. (2018). Available at: https://www.marketing91.com/marketing-strategy-of-adidas/ [Accessed on 1 Sep. 2018].

Rudolph, M., 2016. A Financial Analysis of the Sportswear Company Adidas AG.