Case Study Analysis: Uniqlo's Stakeholder Management in US Market

This case study analyzes the challenges Uniqlo faces in the US market, focusing on stakeholder management. It identifies problems with employees, competitors, and customers, highlighting issues such as low employee satisfaction, competitor strategies, and customer concerns due to closed stores and limited online presence. The study explores goals and concerns of each stakeholder group, followed by a problem identification phase that pinpoints issues like lack of outsourcing, absence of middle management, and insufficient customer feedback. Alternative solutions are proposed, emphasizing employee management, inventory management, and quality control. The recommended solutions include reinstating middle management, reopening stores, strengthening online business, and merging with other companies, along with implementing improved store management policies. The study concludes that Uniqlo needs to address these diverse issues through stakeholder engagement to improve its operations and gain support. The case references various academic papers and reports to support its findings and recommendations.

Running head: CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
Name of the student:
Name of the University:
Author Note:

1CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
1. Introduction:
The aim of this paper is to discuss the importance of stakeholder management to promote the
business in one hand and sole many a problems immediately. The company here will be analysed
is Uniqlo. This a Japanese appeal company doing business in various countries in the world but
actually not being able to operate successfully in the market of US. The companies have strong
background to flourish but there are issues regarding stakeholders like the human workforce,
management, competitors and the customers (Devos, Gallani and Firbank 2020). However the
stores and internal situation are problematic for which this report will recommend some path.
2. Body
A. identification of stakeholder problems goals and concerns:
Troubles of stakeholders:
Employees:
Human resource is the most important stakeholder of any company because it is the employees
who creates a medium between the markets for customers with the company. It is the employees
whom the customers first come across and develop the impression about the company. Now in
the case of Uniqlo, the employee satisfaction is very much low. This is due to the fact that the
management skills of the higher management authority is not up to the mark and a pressing
expression of maintaining traditionalism is seen (Di Matteo, Dandy and Maier 2017). The
employees find trouble while working with the vocal leader of the company named Tadashi
Yanai. Whose ambitious nature is over emphasising on the productivity of the employees? This
leader is critical of the business culture of Japan that focuses on internal reporting which is
creating barrier for the employees to gain more knowledge about the customer demands and the

2CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
market rather than reporting the higher management constantly. Another problem that this
stakeholders like employees are feeling in this company are insensibility of the higher
management and destroy of middle management. In any company the presence of middle
management is essential because they act as medium between the lower level employees to the
higher authorities but in this case the absence of middle Management has increased the confusion
and reduced motivation of the employees (Cohen 2019).
Competitors:
The competitors are important stakeholders for any company who directly or indirectly create
stressful situation for the company. All of the competitors like Zara, H&M, Gap, Forever 21 and
others have followed the vertically integrated model. the main problem of these computers are
associated with capturing what do will indeed visited model stumble mingling of these computer
are associated with capturing information about this company Uniqlo and strategizing their own
policies. In some cases the computers are facing issues related to the marketing and sales in
different markets (Dowling, Ruiz-Mercado and Zavala 2016). Another problem that the
competitors of Uniqlo is facing right now is associated with the legislation of the countries and
the demands of the customers. in different countries the requirements of the demographics at
different therefore the companies need to have different and innovative production system. Some
of them use Outsourcing process implemented in the products and some implement those on the
employees.
Customers:
As mentioned in the internationalisation of Unilqlo part of the case study, another important
stakeholders are the customers who are facing issues like closed stores of this company therefore

3CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
they are not being able to show loyalty to this brand even if they are intended to buy products
from this organisation.
Goals:
The employees have the goal to improve the organisational culture so that they can stay with this
organisation for long.
The competitors on the other hand intend to gain more knowledge about this company so that
they can improve themselves and get a fair opportunity for competition (Andriof et al. 2017).
The customers have the goal to get unique and high quality products at low price within their
local market of the US they also intend to have the fashion that amalgamate Western and Asian
techniques in a proper way. They have the goal to promote this company for their own interest.
Concerns:
The concerns lying with the fact that the employees do not have middle management to show
their motivation level that will reach to the higher level management of the company. Despite the
fact that they are unwilling to work in such pressure situation they cannot Express their problem
directly but leave the company.
The concerns related to the competitors are our inability to have a joint venture in the US market.
Immediate concerns associated with the demands of the customers are that they are not being
able to buy the products from this company in the absence of stores as this company is not very
much active in online marketing or sales in the US (Gregory and Keeney 2017).

4CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
B identification of problems
The importance of proper identification of the problems is essential. In the case of Uniqlo, there
are various issues like
 no outsourcing
 no middle management
 knowledge sharing
 taking comer feed back
 traditional culture
 reporting rather than innovative outlook
 competitors are more expansive
Firstly identification of proper way of Outsourcing is essential in this era of globalisation unlike
the competitors this company also need to outsource its products right from the home market to
the US markets it is operating (Payne and Calton 2017).
Secondly the problem lies with the fact that the company does not have middle management
which balance the requirements and expectation of the higher management in one hand and the
ground level employees and the other (Gregory et al. 2020). The presence of perfect
communication is not seen in this company.
Thirdly sharing knowledge and information from high level to lower level is seen but the higher
level management is not ready to listen to their ground level employees.
The communication system of this company is so underdeveloped that the feedback from the
customers are neglected directly. The company does not initiate any feedback system from the
customers so that they can share their points of you directly or indirectly (Hosseinichimeh et al.

5CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
2019)s. This is the reason why the company is not being able to understand the true requirement
of the US market.
Competitors of this company are more focused on expensing their stores in the local US market
as well as in the foreign ones but this company is constantly closing its stores due to constant
loss.
Finally the focus on reporting to the management is more effective in this company where the
employees feel to get trapped in a loop and not being able to understand either the customer or
the demand of the US market in a proper way (Schoenfeld, Radecki and Melnick 2018).
C. analysis of alternative solution:
The alternative solutions will be focusing on proper management of employees and the
quality as this is the chief factor of any Japanese appeal company. This can enhance the price in
the foreign market of the products but the quality of offerings will increase (Ci, Park and Kim
2017). As Japan market is reputed for its high quality products and ability of the customers to
find out minimum discrepancy. This is the reason why the company can outsource the products
manufactured in China. In addition to this the company can also outsource the employees from
other region because the traditional culture maintained in the stores can only be handled by the
Japanese employees (Anwar 2017).
The alternative solution will also include proper management of the inventory where the
employees will be acknowledging the demands of the market and the preference level of the
customers (Usui, Kotabe and Murray 2017). Unlike many of the competitors, Uniqlo can apply
fast inventory turnovers. It allows the company not to replenish the items once sold out so that it
can understand the preference of the customers more deeply.

6CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
D. Recommended solutions
Firstly the company must allow the middle management to be operative in an inclusive way so
that the actual grievances of the employees can be understood and retention in the company
enhances.
Secondly, the company needs to have more focus on reopening closed stores as the customers
despite want to visit the stores find those closed. This will be eliminated if these customers are
properly notified with information of relocating of the stores, they will be retained (Ahmed and
Tinne 2017).
Thirdly, in this world of technology, more importance to online business in necessity. The
company needs to be more active in the online business rather than in the physical sores only.
Fourthly, it must be merging with other companies for either entering the new countries or
outsourcing employees from other places. Having proper connection with a marketing
organistion can also change the situation (Tan and He 2019).
Fifthly, the employees working in the stores are demotivated as they are to follow strict measures
of Japanese culture despite having irrelevance in the stores. Therefore increasing store
management policy can solve the problem by distributing responsibilities among the employees
and providing them all needed trainings to cope up with the customer issues.
3. Conclusions:
Therefore it can be concluded that the company named Uniqlo has diverse of issues affecting
their operations. There are several stakeholders who are facing problems for which the company
is suffering also. The competitors of Uniqlo is facing right now is associated with the legislation
of the countries and the demands of the customers staff in different countries the requirements of

7CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
the demographics at different therefore the companies need to have different and innovative
production system. There are various process which can be implemented by the company to gain
support from these stakeholders.

8CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
4. References:
Ahmed, J.U. and Tinne, W.S., 2017. Grameen UNIQLO: Social business initiatives in
Bangladesh. SAGE Publications: SAGE Business Cases Originals.
Andriof, J., Waddock, S., Husted, B. and Rahman, S.S., 2017. Unfolding stakeholder thinking:
theory, responsibility and engagement. Routledge.
Anwar, S.T., 2017. Zara vs. Uniqlo: Leadership strategies in the competitive textile and apparel
industry. Global Business and Organizational Excellence, 36(5), pp.26-35.
Ci, C., Park, S. and Kim, B., 2017, July. DIFFERENCES IN THE BRANDING STRATEGY OF
THE BIG 3 SPA BRANDS: ZARA, UNIQLO, AND H&M. In 2017 Global Fashion
Management Conference at Vienna (pp. 65-66).
Cohen, M.A., 2019. The problem of imposing risk and the procedural dimension of stakeholder
management. Business and Society Review, 124(3), pp.413-427.
Devos, Y., Gallani, B. and Firbank, L.G., 2020. Stakeholder workshop “Problem formulation for
the environmental risk assessment of gene drive modified insects”(15 May 2019,
Brussels). EFSA Supporting Publications, 17(3).
Di Matteo, M., Dandy, G.C. and Maier, H.R., 2017. A multi-stakeholder portfolio optimization
framework applied to stormwater best management practice (BMP) selection. Environmental
modelling & software, 97, pp.16-31.
Dowling, A.W., Ruiz-Mercado, G. and Zavala, V.M., 2016. A framework for multi-stakeholder
decision-making and conflict resolution. Computers & Chemical Engineering, 90, pp.136-150.

9CASE STUDY ANALYSIS
Gregory, A.J., Atkins, J.P., Midgley, G. and Hodgson, A.M., 2020. Stakeholder identification
and engagement in problem structuring interventions. European Journal of Operational
Research, 283(1), pp.321-340.
Gregory, R. and Keeney, R.L., 2017. A practical approach to address uncertainty in stakeholder
deliberations. Risk Analysis, 37(3), pp.487-501.
Hosseinichimeh, N., Kim, H., Ebrahimvandi, A., Iams, J. and Andersen, D., 2019. Using a
stakeholder analysis to improve systems modelling of health issues: the impact of progesterone
therapy on infant mortality in Ohio. Systems Research and Behavioral Science, 36(4), pp.476-
493.
Payne, S.L. and Calton, J.M., 2017. Towards a managerial practice of stakeholder engagement:
Developing multi-stakeholder learning dialogues. In Unfolding stakeholder thinking (pp. 121-
135). Routledge.
Schoenfeld, E.M., Radecki, R.P. and Melnick, E.R., 2018. Shared decision-making's stakeholder
problem: whose outcome takes primacy?. Physician Leadership Journal, 5(4), pp.70-72.
Tan, X. and He, Y., 2019, September. Research on Marketing Modes of New Retail Based on 4C
Principles: a Case Study of UNIQLO. In The 4th International Conference on Economy,
Judicature, Administration and Humanitarian Projects (JAHP 2019). Atlantis Press.
Usui, T., Kotabe, M. and Murray, J.Y., 2017. A dynamic process of building global supply chain
competence by new ventures: The case of Uniqlo. Journal of International Marketing, 25(3),
pp.1-20.