Marketing - Analysis of Adidas in China

Running head: MARKETING
Marketing
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Executive Summary
This report provides a detailed analysis of Adidas and its operation in a target market. In this
context, China has been chosen as the target market. Adolf Dassler started the company at his
mother’s house where his brother Rudolf joined him in the year of 1924. The company designs
shoes, accessories and clothing. It is the second largest sportswear company after Nike and is the
largest company in Europe. The evaluation of the culture of both nations suggest that three of the
dimensions between China and Germany are similar in terms of organisation culture. Therefore,
while expanding business into China, Adidas needs to modify some of their organisational
policies to facilitate and accommodate the Chinese culture within the country. The customer
profiling, internal environment and external environment has been able to provide a vivid picture
of the operating market. The supply chain analysis, porter’s five forces and swot has provided a
detailed analysis of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of the company in China.

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Introduction of ADIDAS
Adidas AG is one of the major multinational organisation in the sports industry having its
headquarters in Herzogenaurach, Germany (adidas-group.com). The company designs shoes,
accessories and clothing. It is the second largest sportswear company after Nike and is the largest
company in Europe (adidas-group.com). Adolf Dassler started the company at his mother’s
house where his brother Rudolf joined him in the year of 1924 (adidas-group.com). The
company was initially named as Dassler Brothers shoe factory but both brothers parted ways due
to breakdown in relationship where Adolf started ADIDAS and Rudolf started Puma (adidas-
group.com). It led to a bitter rivalry between both the companies which still exists. Adidas
started with making spiked boots for athletes and have a come long way to diversify their
product to become one of the best in business.
Figure 1: Adidas Logo
Source: Rogoza
The distinctive look of the company logo has always worked for them and consumers can
easily recognise the brand from the logos. The unique and simplistic style created by the
company has led to the accomplishments of the company (Rogoza). The logo three bars depict a
mountain and challenging the consumers to push themselves to their limits. Therefore, the logo is
an inspiration to all athletes who face challenges to overcome steep obstacles and the company
wants to contribute to the well-being of athletes by supporting to achieve success (Rogoza).

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The mission statement of Adidas states that they want to be the global leader in the sports
good industry and develop brands with a passion of leading a sporting lifestyle along with a deep
passion for sports (Sorbello). The company is committed to improving their competitive
positioning at all times by strengthen their products and brands. Therefore, as per the mission
statement of Adidas, they consider sports and lifestyle of sportsperson as exceptional and they
would continue to encourage people to lead such as lifestyle by continuously innovating their
products (Sorbello). They want to improve the quality of sports at the global level which is why
they are targeting both men and women to support young talents by providing right quality of
products at value prices. The mission statement depicts the idea of exceeding expectations which
implies that are continuously invested their efforts in offering higher quality, value and
professionalism to their consumers.
Adidas is a global company and they employ 59,000 people in over 100 nations (adidas-
group.com). The global headquarters Herzogenaurach consists of diverse with employees various
countries to offer best solutions. The company produced more than 1 billion sports and lifestyle
products by partnering with independent manufacturers at the global level to generate a revenue
of € 23.640 billion (adidas-group.com). The figures suggest that Adidas is a multi-faceted
organisation and large in terms of global expansion and sales revenue. The figure 2 depicts the
key brands, mission and purpose of the organisation. Adidas wants to change the lives of people
by providing them the adequate support they need to excel in their respective fields. On the other
hand, the figure 3 shows that key locations which is essential for controlling their overall
business operations at the global level (adidas-group.com). It includes all the port areas from
where the organisation can ship their products to different countries and operate freely in all the
continents.
The figure 4 provides an overview of the overall years and trends for the company where
it can be seen that 48% of the employees are male whereas 52% of the employees are female.
Moreover, 79% of the global sales was accounted by the products launched during the current
years which shows high success rates of the new products introduced in the market (adidas-
group.com). The operating margin of the company was 11.3% and net income from the
continuous operations amounted to € 1918 billion (adidas-group.com).

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Figure 2: Adidas basic information
Source: (adidas-group.com)
Figure 3: Adidas strategy

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Source: (adidas-group.com)
Figure 4: Adidas Facts
Source: (adidas-group.com)