Marketing and Change Management Analysis: Levi Strauss Company Report

This report analyzes the change management strategies of Levi Strauss Company, focusing on how the company has adapted to challenges and embraced sustainability. It examines the role of Chip Bergh's leadership in revitalizing the brand image, particularly after a period of financial underperformance and a disrupted relationship with P&G. The report details the steps taken to engage employees and foster enthusiasm, including implementing transactional and transformational leadership styles and investing in employee development. It highlights the importance of sustainability initiatives, such as reducing water and energy consumption, improving supply chain practices, and protecting worker rights. The report also explores how Levi Strauss has enhanced its brand with Millennials by aligning its values with their priorities and supporting community initiatives. Finally, it emphasizes the importance of a leading role in addressing sustainability challenges within the apparel industry, focusing on incremental and radical change management approaches and the company's commitment to environmental and social responsibility.

Running head: MANAGEMENT
Change management of Levi Strauss Company
Name of the student:
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Table of contents
Brand image and financial performance....................................................................................2
Steps for engaging support and enthusiasm of the people.........................................................3
Sustainability initiatives.............................................................................................................4
Sustainability initiatives to enhance the brand with Milennials.................................................5
Importance of a leading role in terms of addressing sustainability challenges..........................7
References..................................................................................................................................9

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Brand image and financial performance
According to the arguments of Chip Bergh, risk assessment seemed to be an effective
agent for enhancing the brand image of the company, Levi Jeans. Opportunistic social stance
proved to be beneficial for generating authenticity in the business practices. One of the
turning points in this aspect is that of leaving the partnership with P&G, which aggravated the
complexities in sustaining the brand image. For one year, the financial performance of the
brand was unsatisfactory. It was at this time, there was a need for a strong and flexible hands,
which can formulate strategic planning for effective handling of the situation. Self-
proclamation compelled Bergh to take the risk of separating itself from the partnership with
Proctor and Gamble (Cnbc.com 2020). The basic issue, which Levi encountered was the
disrupted connection with the clients and customers, which aggravated the complexities
towards enhancing the brand image. Symbolic criticisms of the white jeans ignited a spark
among the customers for protests, which degraded the brand image of Levi.
According to the statements of Bergh, he was incapable of handling the comments
and protests, as he was a “non-apparel and non-retail person”. The critics associated him with
the other products of P&G, which raised suspicion over the business practices of Levi.
However, he confessed about the need for change in terms of attaining success and
development. The immediate outcome of this was the shift of focus to the renovation of
women’s clothing. Upon investigation by the credit agencies, it was discovered that the
practices are very much concentrated. Delving deeper into the aspect, the wholesale
operations was challenged. From the perspective of the brand image, ombre shade was added
into the ecommerce management of the store operations. Hiatt and Timothy (2012) highlights
the ineffective marketing strategies for marketing the men’s clothing, which further degraded
the brand image.

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The plans also revolved around altering the focus on increasing the sales revenue on
the women’s jeans. As a result of this, the initial public offerings encountered drastic change.
The stock gains witnessed growth by $17.
Steps for engaging support and enthusiasm of the people
Chip Bergh needs to be praised for exposing transactional and transformational
leadership style for extracting collaborative performance. Conscious approach towards
acquiring sustainable practices attaches value for money for the investments made by the
clients and customers. Strategic planning is one of an important elements in the business
management, which consists of innovation. Mention can be made of the marketing campaigns
on the digital platforms, which contradicts the aspect of disconnection with the clients and
customers (Forbes.com 2020). Attempts were made for acquiring social media marketing for
increasing the trafficking of the audience towards the brand image.
Social sustainability is an integral part of Levi Strauss’ business management, which
helps in conducting the innovation programs. In this context, mention can be made of the
inclusive practices, which expands the scope and arena of the decision making processes
towards embracing the innovations into the products and services. In spite of the differences
in the consumer habits and purchasing intentions, the bottom line production is consistent,
which reflects the practices of abiding by the traditional cultural values and elements. Typical
example can be cited of involving the community farmers in the production process, which is
effective for planning sustainable means for manufacturing the jeans. The environmental
plans cater towards reduction in the consumption of energy and water (Levistrauss.com
2020).
Great Workplace Award generates interest among the employees to expose better
performance. The culture of engagement and business performance enhances the brand

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image. Investing in the upgradation of the talents of the people is the main agent towards
improving the standards and quality of the operations.
Sustainability initiatives
The implementation of sustainability initiatives is related to the management of
change at the organisation, which can be possible with the involvement of Chip Bergh and his
team. The management of change at the organisation could not only bring changes in
behaviours of employees, but would also ensure adherence to the various new policies,
procedures and enrichment of values and beliefs required to bring success in business in
terms of profit and competitive advantage to. Chip Bergh, being the President and Chief
Executive Officer (CEO) of Levi Strauss, made sure to emphasize on the management of
sustainability policies and principle, thereby, bring in new products that are aimed at the
targeted market, grow the brand powerhouses and implement innovative marketing
campaigns and techniques for creating awareness among people largely. According to the
arguments of Hiatt and Timothy (2012), this would also help in capitalising on the digital
marketing platforms, furthermore, influence the buying behaviours of clients and ensure
drawing in potential customers in large numbers as well. Considering the innovation as a
major important pillar for Levi Strauss, Chip Bergh ensured implementation of change
management principles combined with the sustainability principles to facilitate innovation
and creativity all throughout.
The CEO not only prioritized on the environmental sustainability, but also
emphasized on the social sustainability, which is critical to the management of innovation
program, furthermore, ensure communicating with the clients and people within the
community about the importance of reducing water usage along with use of energy and its
consumption. As per the arguments of Strand and Martin (2016), not only are the

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sustainability initiatives essential for improving the business functioning, but also has been
effective for improving the supply chain systems that could ensure proper supply for meeting
the demands in the marketplace. To improve the performance of LS, Chip Bergh also
implemented a major code of conduct representing the various Terms of engagement so as to
ensure that the basic needs and rights of the workers in the supply chain are protected and
also focus is on the protection of environment largely, thereby, contribute the excellence of
environment and its improvement too. Within the apparel industry, it is something new and
thus this could be considered as a major change management initiative, which has been kept
aligned with the sustainability goals and objectives, thereby, improve the business
performance and overall environment as a whole (Shimoni 2017). The shareholders of the
company made investments to the company, which allowed the company to go beyond
compliance and emphasize on the improvement of lives of workers and meet their basic
needs and preferences too.
LS has also been engaged with the non-profit organisations and also with the various
NGOs for prioritising on the health and safety of employees, thereby, facilitate the supply
chains and implement necessary programs for creating a healthy and productive workforce.
By initiating the Worker Wellbeing program, it would be much easier and convenient for the
company use it as a catalyst required to transform the apparel industry and improve the
overall business performance as well as its employees. According to Dietz et al. (2017), this
would help them to perform to their potential, furthermore, reach the desired financial
performance in the form of higher revenue generation and attaining competitive advantage in
business as well.
Sustainability initiatives to enhance the brand with Milennials

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The Millennials has always tried to implement some major initiatives and programs
that can benefit the community or society as a whole. Thus, it has been quite related to the
sustainability initiatives undertaken by Levi so as to achieve the sustainability goals and
objectives, thereby, focus on the achievement of profit and resole the recruitment and
selection issues in the future as well. Levi has managed its values and beliefs so as to keep
itself aligned with the corporate goals of Millennials, thereby, lay foundation to those things
that can allow for maintenance of sustainability while at the same time, making profit and
attaining competitive advantage in business (Lauche 2019). The enhancement of brand with
Millennials has been facilitated as the company made sure to provide enough funds to the
foundation on the basis of profit percentage achieved. With the formation of partnership with
the foundation, not only there have been introduction of numerous programs, but also the
earnings made have been used for good purposes towards benefiting the society as a whole.
The Levi Strauss Foundation has further helped in the maintenance of proper values and
ethics, which are considered as critical for the attraction and retention of new as well as
existing talents.
Periyasamy and Militky (2017) is of the view that to leverage its sustainability
initiatives, Chip Bergh also enabled combining the system with the corporate goals so as to
evaluate the percentage of water being consumed while washing materials or clothing goods.
It has been found that in US, most of the individuals, clean the clothing items such as jeans
two times before wearing that and thus, preventing the cleaning of the jeans for two times
could be beneficial while the individuals should even wear the jeans for few more times,
before getting that cleaned. This could contribute to the management of sustainability and
ensure saving water consumption and energy usage in large amounts too. To contribute to the
community, LS also partnered with the healthcare institutions to offer financial literacy
training about how money could be saved and energy less consumed such as by using the

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solar powered lights (Amutha 2017). To enabling participation in sustainability projects, the
company has provided grant to Harvard University’s Sustainability and Health Initiative for
Net Positive Enterprise program for improving the health and wellbeing of the workers and
ensure that their good performances are linked to the overall business performance, which
could help in improving its brand image and identity.
To facilitate the change management furthermore, the marketing leadership has
proved to be beneficial for streamlining the decision making process and manage
accountability through extensive growth drivers (Godelier 2018). The change in leadership
has further helped in delivering sustainable as well as profitable growth, thereby, integrated
the supply chain in the customers’ buying behaviours and activities. Due to this, the company
has been customer centric and at the same time, remained focused on the sustainability
management too, which improved the business performance effectively (Lowe et al. 2016).
Importance of a leading role in terms of addressing sustainability
challenges
According to the arguments of Hiatt and Timothy Creasey (2012), one of the basic
tenets of change management is that organizational outcomes are the outcomes of the
individual change. Change saturation is high at all times, which is inclusive of the variations
in the choices and limitations of the employees. This is a norm, which is imposed on the
employees for moulding them according to the organizational requirements. In this context,
mention can be made of the essential concepts, which is catered for embracing change. These
are: senders and receivers, resistance and comfort; authority for change, value systems,
incremental vs radical change, inadequacy of the right answer and cyclical nature of change
(Duijn 2018).
Incremental and radical change is an agent in terms of planning improvements for the
standards and quality of the products. In the case of incremental change, the aspects

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considered is that of the Total Quality Management and Six Sigma, which considers all of the
parameters. The conditions in this context is empowering the employees through the means
of providing challenging and enduring tasks. On the contrary, radical change requires
business process change modelling proposed by Lewin. Ability towards maintaining the
balance in the transition to the unfreezing and freezing stage is crucial in terms of achieving
the desired results (Kirchmer 2017).
In case of apparel industry, the sustainability challenges cover the climactic changes,
chemicals, water shortage and human rights. The consumption patterns adds an interrogative
parameter to the conglomeration of the triple bottom approach. This is even reflected in the
management practices of Levi Strauss Company. Chip Bergh needs to be praised for
undertaking conscious step towards proposing climactic action strategy, catered towards
reduction in the carbon emissions. The immediate outcome of this was the expansion in the
scope and arena of the supply chain network. Mention can also be made of inspiring the staffs
to make judicious use of the natural resources, so that there is plenty in stock for the future
generation to satisfy their needs, demands and requirements. Reference can be cited of
Water<less jeans, which resulted in the decline in the issues of water shortage by 2 billion
liters (Saroukhanoff, Rene and Manik 2016).

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References
Amutha, K. "Sustainable chemical management and zero discharges." In Sustainable Fibres
and Textiles, pp. 347-366. Woodhead Publishing, 2017.
Cnbc.com (2020). Levi Strauss CEO Chip Bergh on taking big risks with an iconic jeans
brand. Available at: https://www.cnbc.com/2019/11/19/levi-strauss-ceo-chip-bergh-on-
taking-big-risks-with-the-jeans-brand.html [Accessed on 12th March 2020]
Dietz, Joerg, Stacey R. Fitzsimmons, Zeynep Aycan, Anne Marie Francesco, Karsten Jonsen,
Joyce Osland, Sonja A. Sackmann, Hyun-Jung Lee, and Nakiye A. Boyacigiller. "Cross-
cultural management education rebooted." Cross Cultural & Strategic Management (2017).
Duijn, Michael. "The value of reflection on the evolving individual and collective practice of
public policy innovation in water management: An action science approach." Journal of
Cleaner Production 171 (2018): S34-S44.
Forbes.com (2020). Chip Bergh: Why Levi Strauss Cares About Sustainability. Available at:
Godelier, Maurice. Claude Lévi-Strauss: A Critical Study of His Thought. Verso Books,
2018.
Hiatt, Jeffrey M., and Timothy Creasey. "Change management." The people side of
change (2012).
https://www.forbes.com/sites/danschawbel/2015/04/29/chip-bergh-why-levi-strauss-cares-
about-sustainability/#779a6604619f [Accessed on 12th March 2020]
Kirchmer, Mathias. "Innovation: Enabled by Process Management." In High Performance
Through Business Process Management, pp. 29-46. Springer, Cham, 2017.

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Lauche, Kristina. "Insider activists pursuing an agenda for change: Selling the need for
collaboration." Managing Inter-organizational Collaborations: Process Views (Research in
the Sociology of Organizations, Vol. 64), Emerald Publishing Limited (2019): 119-138.
Levistrauss.com (2020). Sustainability. Available at:
https://www.levistrauss.com/2018/11/12/lsco-stepping-sustainability-challenges/ [Accessed
on 12th March 2020]
Lowe, Sid, Michel Rod, Astrid Kainzbauer, and Ki-Soon Hwang. "Exploring the perceived
value of social practice theories for business-to-business marketing managers." Journal of
Organizational Change Management (2016).
Periyasamy, A. P., and J. Militky. "Denim and consumers’ phase of life cycle."
In Sustainability in denim, pp. 257-282. Woodhead Publishing, 2017.
Saroukhanoff, Rene, and Manik Aryapadi. "Strategic Inventory Management in an
Omnichannel Environment." Journal of Business Forecasting 35, no. 4 (2016).
Shimoni, Baruch. "What is resistance to change? A habitus-oriented approach." Academy of
Management Perspectives 31, no. 4 (2017): 257-270.
Strand, Robert, and Martin Mulvihill. Levi Strauss & Co.: Driving adoption of green
chemistry. The Berkeley-Haas Case Series. University of California, Berkeley. Haas School
of Business, 2016.