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Mckinsey's 7s Case Study

Satisfactory Essays

Introduction
Established in 1996 by Kevin Flank, Under Armour [UA] is an incorporated (Under Armour, 2017a) American company that has grown since then to become a globally-recognised manufacturer of sports performance apparel (Under Armour, 2017b). The company’s management consists of the CEO, Kevin Plank, and a board of nine directors (Under Armour, 2017c). Flank started the company as a small idea to create the best sports T-shirt that will “keep athletes cool, dry and light” (Under Armour, 2017d) in extremely hot weather conditions (Under Armour, 2017d). The UA mission is “to make all athletes better through passion, design and the relentless pursuit of innovation” (Under Armour, 2017e). Since 1996, the company has grown consistently …show more content…

It consists of seven components split into hard elements: Strategy, Structure, Systems; and soft elements; Staff, Skills, Style and Shared Values (Beech and Chadwick, 2004). Any change or opportunity can potentially influence any of these elements to a different degree. To maintain a company’s organisational stability, the influence of external factors on each element within the model needs to be monitored (Beech and Chadwick, 2004).
The Discussion of Three Elements
Under Armour’s international expansion may influence the alignment between the seven elements of the McKinsey 7s model. To demonstrate this, an analysis of three elements that are influenced the most is proposed in this essay.
The first is Staff. The company currently employs 15,200 people (Under Armour, 2017a). Kaplan (2005) stated that the Staff element of the framework consists of the following aspects: the people employed, people’s background, organisation’s methods of recruitment, selection process of new staff, training, socialising, managing and promoting the employees to higher positions (Wolsey, Abrams and Minten, 2012). Expanding the brand internationally will require building and opening new stores in the ICASA countries and hiring more staff in the offices and shops. It will also require employing more diverse workforce, including people who can speak local languages and understand the local culture in these countries. In addition,

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