MBA Report: ASICS Marketing Mix, Strategies, and SWOT Analysis

This report provides a comprehensive analysis of ASICS Corporation's marketing strategies, focusing on challenges and opportunities related to its marketing mix. The report examines issues within the product line, channels to market, and communication strategies. It includes a SWOT analysis, an evaluation of Porter's Five Forces, and an assessment of the company's value proposition. The report also explores how ASICS aims to achieve its 2020 goals by expanding its customer base and embracing a direct-to-consumer approach. Recommendations are provided to address labor conditions, protect intellectual property, and expand product offerings. The analysis also includes the PESTEL factors influencing the company's operations and concludes with a summary of key findings and recommendations.

Running head: MBA ASSIGNMENT
MBA assignment
Name of student
Name of University
Author note

1
MBA ASSIGNMENT
Table of Contents
IIssues..............................................................................................................................................3
Product line..................................................................................................................................3
ntroduction.......................................................................................................................................3
Channels to market products and services...................................................................................4
Communications..........................................................................................................................4
Company moving in the right track to achieve its 2020 goals........................................................5
Marketing strategies.........................................................................................................................5
SWOT analysis............................................................................................................................5
Value proposition.........................................................................................................................7
Conclusion.......................................................................................................................................7

2
MBA ASSIGNMENT
Introduction
The report is presented to discuss about the changes made to the marketing mix for the
ASICS brand to attract more customers, overcome issues related to complaints from customers
and place the products and services wisely to create a sustainable position within the
marketplace. There can be issues associated with the product line, marketing channels and
communications, which are needed to be overcome and the report will illustrate about how these
issues can be overcome and effective marketing strategies can be implemented successfully.
Issues
Product line
ASICS Corporation aims to extend its product line but there have been some issues
related to it such as the lack of optimization of production and innovation along with high cost of
products and shutting down the product line to make changes. To bring out new product, there is
need to go through various stages including the concept and idea generation, designing, test and
releasing the products finally. According to Huang and Sarigöllü (2014), often the customers’
requirements are ignored, which enables designing the product in such a manner that it may be
unable to meet the expectations of clients properly for ASICS (Huang and Sarigöllü 2014). The
product line issues also comprise of quality issues and confusions regarding the market
conditions, which could also create complexities to deliver the products and services properly in
the different market segments.

3
MBA ASSIGNMENT
To overcome such issues, managing stable relationships with the distribution channel
partners could be beneficial along with channel marketing programs implementation through
proper investments. This would, in turn, facilitate the advertising and promotional activities,
furthermore contributing to the marketing efficiency and allowing products and services of
ASCS to be easily accessible by customers (Mintz and Currim 2013).
Channels to market products and services
The marketing and channel distribution issues are frequent and it can make ASICS
unable to cover a wide market, which should decrease the demands for the resources by
managing operations as an additional sales force. The channel distribution issues might also
occur due to lack of knowledge about the product and market conditions, which could result in
poor customers; services along with ineffective marketing techniques, thereby resulting in
downfall of business and lesser revenue generation (Ho 2014). Stead and Hastings (2018) stated
that without proper distribution arrangement with a channel partner, there will be lack of
motivation, which can result in lesser commitment of the channel partners while the marketing
through distribution channel could reduce the effectiveness of the brand due t poor usage of
identity standards during the communication process (Stead and Hastings 2018).
The customer services standards must be set for encouraging the channel partners to
develop sale of products by operating various incentive programs and achieving the revenue
targets quite conveniently.

4
MBA ASSIGNMENT
Communications
Communication issues are faced both within organization and outside and it has been
seen that often conflicts and misunderstandings emerge within the workplace, due to which, the
employees’ performances deteriorate, thus degrades the organizational performance. This affects
the production and sales revenue negatively too, thereby degrading the organization’s capability
to sustain a competitive edge over its competitors (Osterwalder et al. 2014).
The use of information technologies within the workplace and using social media tools to
communication should be effective while the social media marketing strategies could attract
more clients; attention and influence them to try out the sportswear and other sporting goods
efficiently from ASICS, India.
Company moving in the right track to achieve its 2020 goals
Yes, the company could aim for achieving the business goals and objectives properly by
implementing various marketing strategies including the market orientation, conducting SWOT
and PESTEL analysis along with assessment of Porter’s five forces and value proposition
procedures (Huang and Sarigöllü 2014). The company aims to expand globally in the market
segments present in Europe and United States and so proper marketing strategies should be
relevant and effective for analyzing the strengths and weaknesses and ensuring advancement in
the international expansion all over the world for ASICS, India.

5
MBA ASSIGNMENT
Marketing strategies
SWOT analysis
Strengths
 The company presents itself as a well
known niche brand in sports footwear
industry, being consistent with
innovation
 Strengthened global presence through
expansion and reaching worldwide
customers
 Effective research and development
activities to assess market conditions
 Tie ups with sports teams to create
better brand image and identity and
attract more customers to generate
higher sales revenue (Mintz and Currim
2013)
Weaknesses
 Lack of diversification leading to
product dilution
 The lack of adopting a proper culture
while expanding in foreign countries
Opportunities
 Creating more awareness through social
media marketing and promotional
Threats
 The threats of competitors and

6
MBA ASSIGNMENT
activities
 Management of e-business to promote
online business transactions
substitute products and services
 Lack of market penetration abilities
 Better pricing strategies implemented
by rivalries in sportswear industry
Poster’s five forces
The bargaining power of suppliers is moderate considering the fact that ASICS brand has
multiple options for achieving the most effective supplier from whom the supplies and raw
materials can be derived. In case a supplier do not provide proper amount of supplies, the
company has viable options to switch from one supplier to another while the buying power of
consumers is high, because with the presence of competitors, ASICS may face difficult to sustain
in the marketplace by delivering the best quality services with low dependency on distributors
(E. Dobbs 2014). The threat of rivalries is immense due to the presence of multiple sportswear
companies all over and threats of substitute products are lower, because the company has already
introduced active wear other than the sportswear to gain global exposure and brand equity. The
threat of new entrants is moderate because the products and services are unique when compared
to other sportswear industries.
PESTEL
Political
India, being a democratic nation has accurate macroeconomic policies, due to which,
growth strategies are implemented properly. With the Government intervention, E-Governance

7
MBA ASSIGNMENT
management has improved the political administration and created ease for ASICS to manage
business.
Economic
The GDP rate is moderate and thus the living standards are economic as well, which
creates ease in making the products and services available at lower prices. The country’s
economy of managing foreign exchange reserves further should assist in exporting services and
manage global expansion successfully (Marshall 2013).
Social
The social factors include providing right employment opportunities to people and
overcome the issues such as ageing population and decline in labor workforce to bring
consistency in business functioning.
Technological
The advanced technologies and investments in research and development activities have
fostered innovation and reduce the costs of business operations too.
Legal
The violation of human rights is monitored and with the strong compliance with the laws,
legal rules and frameworks, the business will be able to sustain (Ho 2014).
Environmental

8
MBA ASSIGNMENT
The environmental policies are considered to reduce the emissions of harmful gases and
manage production in such a manner that an ecological balance in nature is maintained.
Value proposition
ASICS new approach by transforming its sportswear production to health and wellness
products production has been considered as an effective value creation strategy. It is an effective
form of marketing that has one beyond the actual products and services provided by the company
and focused on production of something new and unique that could be beneficial for the
customers. This has been aimed at increasing sales and stay ahead of rivalries by producing
active wear items with a new branding considering the health and wellness aspects to manage
diversification of products (Ryan 2016). This should attract more customers and with the
celebrity endorsements and social media promotions, the modernization of products would be
possible along with digital marketing effectiveness to create a better brand appeal among the
clients. It would not only allow the company to expand outside the local country, but should even
facilitate better management of business and enhance the revenue generation capabilities for
ASICS, India (Marshall 2013).
Recommendations
 The sportswear company should address concerns related to the labor conditions and
practices and ensure formation of a skilled workforce
 It is recommended to protect copyrights, patents and prevent violation of other
intellectual properties to strengthen the brand name, image and identity.

9
MBA ASSIGNMENT
 ASICS brand must introduce new rage of items including active wear to target the market
segments comprising of customers from every ages and ensure fulfillment of their needs
and preferences
 The cost leadership strategy must be adopted to set the right prices and stay ahead of
competitors
 Focusing on greener approaches to reduce pollution level and keep the environment safe,
clean and healthy is also recommended for ASICS
Conclusion
The report was prepared to discuss about the changes to marketing mix of the ASICS
brand that resulted in issues related to communication, inability to use the right channels to
distribute products and services and also poor communication, which contributed to
inappropriate business functioning and decline in sales revenue too. To overcome these issues,
the SWOT analysis was done along with the implementation of value proposition strategies
where the company increased its product range with the inclusion of active wear and expanding
globally to improve business management and attain competitive advantage in business as well.

10
MBA ASSIGNMENT
References
E. Dobbs, M., 2014. Guidelines for applying Porter's five forces framework: a set of industry
analysis templates. Competitiveness Review, 24(1), pp.32-45.
Ho, J.K.K., 2014. Formulation of a systemic PEST analysis for strategic analysis. European
academic research, 2(5), pp.6478-6492.
Huang, R. and Sarigöllü, E., 2014. How brand awareness relates to market outcome, brand
equity, and the marketing mix. In Fashion Branding and Consumer Behaviors (pp. 113-132).
Springer, New York, NY.
Marshall, S.J., 2013. Evaluating the strategic and leadership challenges of MOOCs. MERLOT
Journal of Online Learning and Teaching, 9(2), pp.216-227.
Mintz, O. and Currim, I.S., 2013. What drives managerial use of marketing and financial metrics
and does metric use affect performance of marketing-mix activities?. Journal of Marketing,
77(2), pp.17-40.
Osterwalder, A., Pigneur, Y., Bernarda, G. and Smith, A., 2014. Value proposition design: How
to create products and services customers want. John Wiley & Sons.
Ryan, D., 2016. Understanding digital marketing: marketing strategies for engaging the digital
generation. Kogan Page Publishers.
Stead, M. and Hastings, G., 2018. Advertising in the social marketing mix: getting the balance
right. In Social Marketing (pp. 29-43). Psychology Press.

11
MBA ASSIGNMENT