Levi Strauss Japan K.K: A denim jeans market

Résumé du document

Levi Strauss is a world renowned brand in the apparel industry. Its core product lines for men, women and youth are the LSJ brands of jeans and jean-related products.

Facing a period of economic crisis in the Japanese market, Levi Strauss risks to lose its market shares. How can LSJ manage to overcome this situation, especially in a tough competitive environment?
In order to answer this question, one will have to analyse the current jeans market in Japan and LSJ's position in the market.

In order to make evidence of rates, tables and a map of Japan will be used. Moreover, a magazine advertisement has been drawn for the next promotion.

Looking at the marketing strategy, 1993 can be seen as a turning point: leading firms raise the bar for excellence by trying to improve marketing efficiency and effectiveness. Levi Strauss Japan must understand the strategic value that marketing brings to the rest of the company, leverage technology as well as process automation, in order to grow.

Extraits

[...] If LSJ has such high prices, it is because it has top-of-the-range jeans. As a matter of consequence, prices reflect the premium quality of the products. It is important to note that there is no significant difference regarding price in different distribution channels as they maintain the suggested retail price. Thus, wherever the customer goes, they will always have to pay the same price for a particular brand. Structure of distribution channels There are two kinds of distribution networks: At first, direct sales, made of 40 sales personnel and then, wholesale made up of 13 sales agencies. [...]

[...] Levi Strauss Japan has to do its best to add value to the chain of services it is providing for its customers. However, it has to make crucial strategic changes in the segmentation. LSJ should show a bigger interest in magazines, as it has to promote its brand and it want to remain competitive. In a word, it has to reinforce its pull strategy. In its advertisement, LSJ has to show a different image that differs from rivals so that prospective customers remember it. [...]

[...] Creation of a LSJ National brand If new shops open under the “Levi Strauss” name without any intermediary, it will be less difficult to know what customers really want since market research could be directly conducted on-site. Furthermore, selling directly to customers via LSJ's own shop would improve sales margins. Moreover, LSJ's new brands would be sold there before being sold elsewhere to add to service differentiation. The difficulty is to get governmental agreement and to focalize the strategy on finding an appropriate placement and point-of-sale support, so that there will be very good rates of sale. [...]

[...] Levi Strauss Japan K.K.: A denim jeans market Management summary Levi Strauss is a world renowned brand in the apparel industry. Its core product lines for men, women and youth are the LSJ brands of jeans and jean- related products. Facing a period of economic crisis in the Japanese market, Levi Strauss risks to lose its market shares. How can LSJ manage to overcome this situation, especially in a tough competitive environment? In order to answer this question, one will have to analyse the current jeans market in Japan and LSJ's position in the market. [...]

[...] It has a reputation of high quality product as well as a premium brand image. Moreover, it benefits from strong brand recognition. Similarly to its competitors, LSJ promotes an image of Americaness to seduce the Japanese market. Financial Results Jeans represented 73% of sales revenues and 16% shares of the market in Japan in 1991. The Japanese company achieved satisfactory performances, its results were much better than its competitors in 3 categories: in return on sales, with an impressive (nearly three times the industry average), in sales-to-employee ratio with ¥180 million (three times better than the average of rivals) Finally in Price to Earnings ratio of 50. [...]