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Assignment on Under Armour PDF

   

Added on  2021-05-31

13 Pages3230 Words323 Views
Running head: UNDER ARMOURUnder ArmourName of the student:Name of the university:Author note

1UNDER ARMOURIntroductionBackground of the studyThis research is based on the American company Under Armour, which excels inmanufacturing footwear, casual apparel and sportswear. The company is headquartered in theBaltimore region and other offices are spread in Amsterdam, Jakarta, London, Mexico city andothers. The company was founded in the year 1996 by former football captain of Mrylandfootball team, Kevin Plank (Baughman 2018, pp. 133- 134). The business was initiallyfunctioning from the basement of the owner’s grandmother in Washington. The business startedfrom a grass- root level to give a tough competition n the later days. After Plank was able to setup his business successfully, his brand started getting tough competition from the existingcompanies such as Reebok, Nike and Adidas. The innovation of products in the form of usingmoisture- wicking synthetic fabric gave the brand a competitive advantage in the market. Theproducts started getting popular among the common people and the sports person when themedia started advertising about the same. The company started making new products rapidlysuch as ColdGear, TurfGear and others, which gave the company a major break in 1999(Bohnsack et al. 2016, p. 154). This research proposal will look into the current market of thecompany and the problems that it is facing in the recent days. Problem statementIt is evident from the background study and the market research of the company that thisbrand is responsible for doing business in the product category of sportswear, footwear,accessories and apparels. This sheds light on the fact that the business is conducted only on thespecific group of customers who are sportsperson or related to sports industry. The problem is

2UNDER ARMOURfaced by the company, as they do not target the common people in general. This has limited theirtarget population to only a certain section of the society. Moreover, there is tough competition inthe market from the existing brands of Nike, Adidas and Reebok. The customers have a tendencyto trust on the older brands rather than a new brand. The issue has become more prominentbecause the company conducts their business on an international level and the lack in theiroperation is hampering their sale in the global market too. The problem will take a worse shape ifit is not treated in the initial stage and the rival companies will take advantage of the situation.Moreover, the increase in the cost of product development and the marketing and advertisingcosts have taken a toll on the financial management of the company (Grady 2016, p.1). It hasbeen marked as an underperforming brand and the reasons are many. The company has arestricted patent protection ability, which is focused under the problem area of the company.Recent downturn in the global economy and maintain a positive brand image in this environmenthas come as a major challenge for Under Armour. This research proposal will further highlightthe problems faced by the company Under Armour to conduct a research on the same. Rationale of the researchThe research that will be carried out on the American Company, Under Armour will beable to find out probable solution to the problems that were highlighted in the previous section ofthe proposal. The recent downturn in the economy all over the world has taken a toll on thebusiness of Under Armour and this research will be helpful in finding out strategies that mightsave the future of the company. The research will be able to look out for alternative strategiesused by the rival companies in the market in order to be at par with the industry standards. Therationale of the research was based on finding out the problems to carry out a research on thesame and look for probable solutions of the problems. It will help the company to overcome the

3UNDER ARMOURissues to certain extent and emerge as a reputed brand in the market. The tough competition fromthe rival companies of Nike, Adidas and Reebok will be evaluated to look for innovation in theproduct and services of Under Armour (Grady 2017, p. 3). This proposal will be effective instructuring the research questions so that the study can be carried out in a systematic manner todraw a probable solution for the rising problems. Management decision statement (MDS)The management decision statement or the MDS referred to the opinion of themanagement regarding the problems pertinent to the company. Past information and forecasts,resources and constraints, objectives, customer behavior, legal environment, economicenvironment and marketing and technological skills are considered important with respect to thedecision statement of management (Guyan and Paunil 2017, p.44). In the case of Under Armour,the management decision statement has thrown light on the company reports and their rate ofsuccess in the past years. It was found out from the opinion of the managers that the companywas following a positive graph from the initial days of its business. However, the problem startedarising when there was a economic downturn all over the world. Under Armour, fell prey to thisglobal issue and their business started falling low. Additionally the company also had lack ofproprietary product rights and intellectual property rights, which tended to be major problem intheir business. The information gathered from the managers bore proof to the fact that thecompany was finding it difficult to cope up with the financial crisis as well as maintain a positivebrand image in the market. The data collected from the existing documents highlighted that therival company Nike had a market share of 13.13%, whereas Under Armour had 1.87% (Heroux2017, pp. 124- 128). This huge difference in market share was considered as one of the problemsin the research area.

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