Report on Adidas Company: Business and Marketing Strategies

This report provides an overview of Adidas Company's business and marketing strategies, policies, and SWOT analysis. It includes information on the company's mission, vision, and corporate strategy.

REPORT ON ADIDAS COMPANY
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Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
About the Company.........................................................................................................................2
Mission and Vision of Adidas.........................................................................................................2
Business strategies of Adidas..........................................................................................................2
Business policies of Adidas.............................................................................................................3
Marketing strategies of Adidas........................................................................................................4
SWOT analysis................................................................................................................................4
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................5
Reference List..................................................................................................................................5
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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
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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
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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 €0.72 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).
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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 List
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.
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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.
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