Corporate Strategy: outdoor case

Résumé du document

The world market for sporting goods has two parts. The team sports and fitness market is worth $ 80, against $ 42 billion for the outdoor goods market. Three kinds of products are made: clothing (46% of production), footwear (30%) and equipment (24%). Here we deal with the environment of the outdoor goods market. There are different categories of activities that take place outside, and we can segment the market according to these different kinds of products: -winter sports (white) - summer sports in the mountains (brown) - Open air activities including golf (green) - Water sports (blue) - Urban sport (grey)

Extraits

[...] Comments The French market for sports equipment (textiles, footwear, equipment) is estimated at nearly 5.9 billion euros, with the essential sports equipment. As demonstrated by the case and as seems to be emerging, growth prospects are favorable. It is driven by changes in lifestyles, styles of dress and sport, more and more common among the French. These trends have primarily to segments of the outdoor, as the mountain and running. Team sports, racquet sports and golf are however the number of practitioners stagnates. [...]

[...] Key Success Factors Variables that determine the conditions of existence and operations of the business are: - Technical aspect of the products, safety, hygiene, solidity and ergonomic, that contribute to brand credibility and image and need research and development spending - International expansion - Price trade off - Proximity with the world fashion - Marketing events - To be present in several outdoors categories Porter Strategic groups Strategic groups include companies having the similar strategy or same sources of competitive adavtanges. Strategic groups normally bring together companies with one or two common dimensions. We can take the example of the restaurant industry that can be divided into several strategic groups including fast-food and fine-dining based on dimensions like preparation time, pricing, and presentation. [...]

[...] Meanwhile, manufacturers rely on innovation to differentiate products and imported products mainly under private label with the tech continues to grow. The market for sports equipment is dynamic but competitive intensity tends to increase it. In this context, manufacturers and distributors face the following problems: How to reduce the seasonality of the business? In the outdoor, manufacturers are positioned on activities with strong seasonality. The constitution of portfolios multiunivers and internationalization solutions to solve this problem; How to renew the contract for maintaining the dynamism of consumption? Major efforts in terms of innovation are made by manufacturers and distributors. [...]

[...] Supermarkets specialized as Decathlon and Go Sport are nearly 70% of the distribution of sporting goods in France. Faced with the rise of private labels, manufacturers are offering their products less enhancement in the linear. The consideration of these issues and sociological developments cause a reconfiguration of the sector including: The importance of the emergence of multi-brand groups / multiunivers with the recent acquisition of Salomon by Amer Sports, Rossignol by Quiksilver, Lafuma, Oxbow and recently by Reebok by Adidas. [...]

[...] The aim is to compensate for merchandising specialist distributors that value less the brands. If sportswear is a loss leader in the sales channels of its own, the willingness of manufacturers is to present their entire supply of sportswear products and techniques to capture margins distributors. However, given the financial investment needed, what are the prospects of developing such circuits? [...]