The Organizational Leadership Changes Of Lululemon Essay

The background of this paper we need to mention is that West Coast Fashions, Inc. (WCF), a large designer and marketer of branded apparel announced a strategic reorganization calling for a divestiture of certain assets, and one of the divisions it intended to shed was Mercury Athletic, its wholly owned footwear subsidiary. John Liedtke, the head of business development for Active Gear, Inc. (AGI), a privately held athletic and casual footwear company, contemplated an acquisition opportunity of Mercury that would significantly improve his business. So, he wanted to evaluate this opportunity.

The brand discussed in this report is Lululemon Athletica Inc. The brand is an athletic apparel retailer, whose main objective is building a community with a healthy lifestyle. Lululemon’s target market is middle/upper class 30-year-old woman. The brand is positioned as a premium high fashion brand for the athletic community. Some of Lululemon’s main competitors include Nike, Under Armour and Gap.

Hennes and Mauritz AB is a Swedish retail-clothing company, which has expanded enormously in the past years. H&M has grown from one single store in a small town in Sweden to a multinational ranked as the second largest global fashion retailer with its 3,600 stores in over 58 countries and $22 billion in annual sales (The World’s). This incredible story of success makes us wonder about their strategies and how they managed to get where they are today.

Finally, Lululemon’s founder, Chip Wilson, made a publicly offensive suggestion, that some women’s bodies were not made to wear his yoga pants. “The problem was that the yoga-apparel company has been having with its pants on the size of women 's thighs” (EBSCO, Nov 14, 2013). After making those comments discourage plus size customers were embarrassed and felt like they don’t want to shop at the store anymore. Some women blamed CEO for making products that don’t last long. One of the examples from Financial Post. However, despite the unfortunate occurrences last year Lululemon is in a very healthy position in the Canadian and US markets. In addition to that, Lululemon’s baggiest competitor is now Sears Canada. Sears became a new stop for consumers who want high-quality and affordable yoga gear. “The struggling department store chain says its Pure Energy Athletics line of yoga clothes has been a hit with customers since they were introduced in February. The chain says it sells yoga pants for $14.99 or $29.99 — a steal compared to similar clothing from other retailers, like Lululemon Athletica” (Edmonton Journal, May 21, 2014). However, Lululemon has a tremendous

This report has been created with the intent to analyze the athletic apparel industry with a specific focus on Lululemon Athletica, Inc., further refered to as Lululemon. In this report you will find that the strengths and weaknesses of Lululemon’s current strategies and future goals are analyzed and compared to that of its closest competitors. In conclusion to the analysis, recommendations have been made to potentially guide Lululemon Athletica, Inc. in a positive direction in regards to its future endeavors. The following

Economic: Continued economic struggles, especially within the European Union, have the potential to negatively affect Lululemon’s international expansion(Thomas

Lululemon Inc. has a strong history of making quality fitness clothing for yoga and other athletic purposes by the founder of the company. Dennis “Chip” Wilson in 1998. After becoming “overwhelmed” by the company’s success in Vancouver, Wilson transferred management of the company to trained managers (Nicholes, 2016, p.6). During this time, Corporate CEO Christine Day’s leadership was put into question due to the low level quality of material used to make the Luon Pants, which had a “see-through problem” due to the extreme sheerness of the pant material. More so, in 2013, corporate leadership had a lawsuit brought against the company directors, including Christine Day, of massively raising the

Lululemon is a rapidly growing company with a different niche for its products. Its philosophy as well as their business model has allowed them to increase revenue over the past years. The dilemma they faced is how to continue expanding without losing their special niche, grassroots and a nontraditional feel of the brand that sets them apart from their competitors.

This paper commences by defining the problems that were faced by Lululemon Athletica Inc in 2013. After, the author explores the causes of the issues that the company was experiencing and the effects that they had on Lululemon Athletica Inc. The next step is to look at ways in which the issues could have been addressed both for the short-term and long-term. When all is said and done, the audience will fully appreciate why “Lululemon Athletica Inc should revert to its fundamentals – that is, to concentrate on the needs of the consumer”.

Over the past twenty-five years we have had to reinvent ourselves many times. The first surge was with the Waffle Trainer and the running craze. When that slowed, we thought we ran out of market. We had another surge with basketball behind Michael Jordan, and cross-training with Bo Jackson. Then again, we Thought our growth was dead. Another surge came in 1995, when Nike became fashionable and athletic urban wear became king. But,that too ended in early 2008, as did the health of the Asian economy. There we were, with an over-extended brand. Each time we reinvented our company. In 1995, when we reached $3 billion in sales, we said $5 billion was the absolute limit. Three years later we were closing in on $10 billion. Each time we did succeed it was due, in part, to

Process‐driven change seeks to create a context and environment in which employees at all levels of

We are also informed that Knight is subordinate oriented, as per the leadership continuum developed by Tannenbaum and Schmidt. In this approach the manager allows the team to develop options and make decisions within their mandate which has been agreed upon at the onset. In the case of Knight, it is demonstrated on more than one occasion that he is prepared to sit and watch from the sidelines, whilst his executives make decisions. This style is very suitable for industries whereby there is a need for development of new products within the organization. In Nike, we observe that they are always in the process of developing new products and therefore giving his senior executives a “free hand” in developing new ideas and executing them is vital to the success of the organization.

Wal-Mart is arguably the most dynamic corporation in the last 50 years in the United States, if not the world. Arising from its beginnings in Bentonville, Arkansas, it has grown to over 4,400 discount stores, super centers and corner markets worldwide. Wal-Mart continues to expand despite public criticism of its labor practices as well as complaints about their treatment of competitors. The many strengths of Wal-Mart, like their low cost production and marketing practices, will aid Wal-Mart as it continues to grow in the retail

Centuries ago, a famous Greek philosopher, Heraclitus disputed conventional wisdom that things will always stay the same. Using the flow of the river as an example, Heraclitus describes the changes that were going on the time a fluid. He challenged the Greek leadership to acknowledge these changes or risk their global dominance. Two thousand years later, modern civilization is facing the same challenges. A rapid improvement in technology compounded with an increase in global competition has given rise to the emergence of change in most major industries. One industry were change has become inevitable is the health care industry. Today, there are increasing calls from management experts to a change the health care system to one that can

Nike‘s vertical structure includes CEO Mark Parker and a board of directors chaired by co-founder Phil Knight. Although Nike has functional divisions and divisions based on specific products it is not a matrix organization. In a matrix organization, employees report to a functional and divisional manage. At Nike, employees report to the divisional manager and the president of each division reports directly to the CEO. Nike’s continued product innovation and successful marketing are due to the combination of functional and divisional organization using an operations department to insure communication between divisions. There is division of labor but it is not clearly identified. With a more pronounced division of labor and levels of direct supervision Nike can improve its