Adidas Global Business Paper

Adidas is a sportswear manufacturing company started by Adolf Dassler. Adidas group has incorporated brands including Adidas, Reebok, TaylorMade-Adidas and Rockport. The wings of the company are widespread and have assimiliated other productions including handbags, shirts, spectacles, watches, balls, and sportswear. Adidas is being the largest company that sells footwear in the European market and have achieved a momentous market share at the global platform. Adidas has achieved phenomenal sale and have reached the pinnacle of success on the global scale with other international footwear companies (McDonald & Milne, 1999).

First started in Bavaria, Germany by Adi Dassler officicially registered his company in 1924, as “Gebruder Dassler Schuhfabrik”. In 1949, he officially registered a shoe under “Adi Dassler adidas Sportschuhfabrik”, which bore what would later become the trademark adidas 3-stripes. The success that came with the German national football team in the 1954 World Cup final against Hungry, according to the Adidas-group website, “made adidas a household name on football pitches everywhere” (adidas –group). However, interestingly, in a 2010 study reported by Leizpig University in Germany, the victorious West Germany players had, in fact, been injected with the banned substance methamphetamine, as well as other performance enhancing substances.

12. Brief Competitor’s History? adidas AG, a listed German stock corporation, and its subsidiaries design, develop, produce and market – increasingly through own-retail activities – a broad range

PUMA is a German Sportswear company that produces and sells sporting and casual apparel to athletes and the average person all over the globe. PUMA is technically a later version of the German sports footwear store, “Dassler Brothers Shoe Factory”, founded by the brothers Rudolf and Adolf Dassler in the early 1920's. Dassler Brothers shoe factory very popular in the 1920's. They had a great amount of exposure. Famous Athletes wore their products and they were worn in events that were really a big deal. For example, at the Olympic Summer Games in Amsterdam in 1928, a lot of the German athletes wore Dassler spikes. In 1936, Jesse Owens won four gold medals at the Olympic Games in Berlin wearing spikes made by Dassler. Approximately seven gold medals and five bronze medals were won by world class athletes wearing Dassler shoes and two World and five Olympic records were broken.

Adidas is a European Sports company created in 1949. Today, the company is known all over the world (it is one of the ten most famous company in the world).

Adidas was founded by Adi Dassler on August 18, 1949 in Herzogenaurach, Germany. Adidas has been in business longer than Nike, they have had their logo since the inception; thus, the three stripes on the side of their shoes. In Spring of 2015, they came out with their new strategic business plan called, “Creating the New”. The focus was on Cities, Speed, and Open Source. According to Herbert Hainer, the CEO at that time stated, “The company is working every day to inspire and enable people to harness the power of sport in their lives (Adidas Group, n.d.). Adidas current competitive strategy is not the same as Nike’s competitive strategy. In October 2016, Kasper Rorsted became Adidas’ current CEO. He believes health and fitness will continue to become a lifestyle not a fad. Furthermore, he wants to expound the three clear strategic choices: Speed, Cities, and Open Source.” They are more focused on the broad target market, a low-cost provider strategy. In March 2017, he updated the focus for Adidas to include “Corporate Culture, Digital, One Adidas, North America and Portfolio.” (Adidas Group, n.d.).

A major weakness of the adidas brand is that they are currently third in the American market for athletic footwear sales. Another weakness is adidas’ recent fall in the soccer shoe market. Nike took over first place in the European soccer shoe market with its success of the Air Zoom Total 90. adidas’ final weakness that must be mentioned is their use of sweatshops. There were allegations of inhumane conditions in adidas’ Asian factories in 2000. However, adidas-Salomon

Adidas was created in 1924 in Herzogenaurach a small town just outside Nurnberg in Germany. The company’s headquarters are still located in Herzogenaurach in Germany with subsidiaries in 60 countries. Adolf “Adi” Dassler was the founder of Adidas and he started to produce his own sports shoes in his mother’s wash kitchen. Adolf’s brother named Rudolf Dassler joined the business right after World War I. The company started in 1924 called Gebruder Dassler OHG, and began to manufacturing shoes for athletes (www.adidas-group.com). On August 18, 1949 the company registered the name of Adidas AG from “Adi” (a nickname for Adolf) and “Das” (from “Dassler”) starting again after the brothers split up in 1947. After the brothers split up, Rudolf Dassler created the firm Puma and they became big business rivals in their own home town.

Moreover, Adidas is the main competitor of Nike and their competition intensified when Adidas acquired Reebok. The company is committed to becoming the global leader in the sporting goods industry with sports brands built on a passion for sport and sporting style. Some of the famous brands of Adidas include Reebok, Rockport, and Taylormade. Unlike Nike, Adidas makes a strong move in understanding its customers and work on different strategies so as to capture the market. Moreover, the company follows a multi-brand strategy to reach maximum customers and build a positive relationship with brands.

1. What is adidas’ position in the athletic shoe market? How does the brand seem to be doing in this market? Position: the position of adidas has transferred from “leading supplier of soccer footwear worldwide” to “leading sport brand”. Adidas was founded in Germany in 1920. In 1995, it became a public company as well as the leading supplier of soccer footwear due to its great performance of footwear sales. In 1998, adidas began to move into the U.S. market. Adidas doubled its U.S. market share within only one year, so it hoped to continue to make big move in following years. In its way to U.S. market, adidas confront with the

Adidas was registered as a company Germany, 1949. They are a multinational corporation now that produces sports clothing, casual clothing, sports gear, and accessories. Adidas are a holding company which means that they own other companies. The companies that are under Adidas groups are Reebok Sportswear Company, Taylor Made-Adidas Golf Company, Rockport Company, and CCM-Hockey. Each of these Companies under Adidas Company produces different or some similar materials for sale. Reebok creates footwear, apparel, and accessories. Taylor Made creates golf Equipment like metal woods, irons putters, golf balls, footwear, apparel and accessories. Rockport creates Dress, casual and outdoor footwear, apparel and accessories. And CCM-Hockey makes Hockey equipment and appeal.

This Adidas retail store happens to be located near to New York City; which according to the 2010 U.S. city population ranking, it is number one with an approximated population of 8,175,133, which at least 30% of this statistics fit within the 13- to 30-year-old target market of Adidas. This makes of this area a really good trading area that geographically contains a large amount of potential customers of this particular retailer store.

Adidas’ story is much like the athletes it represents: it comes from humble efforts to global greatness. “We started in a wash room and conquered the world”, the company says in the history portion of their website. The adidas Group is an athletic footwear and apparel German multinational, founded in 1949 by Adolf “Adi” Dassler. Its headquarters is situated where it all started, in the small town of Herzogenaurach in Germany. Rachel Chambers, author of the article “A Feud Between Two Brothers Leads to the Three Stripes”, says that During World War I, sports-loving Adi started making shoes out of his mother’s laundry room with a bicycle-powered fabric trimmer (2010).

Adidas is a major German sports apparel manufacturer, which was founded in 1948. It is the largest sportswear manufacturer in Europe and the second biggest sportswear manufacturer in the world, after Nike. The company's clothing and shoe designs typically feature three parallel bars. The company revenue for 2009 was listed at €10.38 billion. The market segmentation; targeting and position play an important role in this company. This essay will use the three factors to analyze this company.

As you can tell from this financial statement, The Adidas group has been on a successful track for quite awhile. Net sales between 2014 and 2015 grew a whopping 16.7%, as did the cost of sales by 16.5%, which puts the overall gross marginal change of The Adidas Group at 16.9%. This took the overall gross profit from €5,303 million to €6,202 million in just one year. The Adidas Group states, “In March 2015, we presented the next five-year strategic business plan for the Adidas Group. 'Creating the New ' is the attitude that leads us into the future. We believe that sport has the power to change lives. We work every day to inspire and enable people to harness the power of sport in their lives. We also translate our competence in sports into streetwear and fashion because sport is an attitude and a lifestyle. Everything we do is rooted in sports. At the very heart of 'creating the new ' are our brands. Our brands are what connect us with our consumers; therefore, the success of our brands defines the success of our business. With 'Creating the New ', we will get closer to them than ever before. To achieve that, our plan is based on three strategic choices: