Under Armour Swot Analysis Essay

When examining the potential for a new business or product, a SWOT analysis can help determine the likely risks and rewards. A SWOT analysis is an organized list of a business’s greatest strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Strengths, which are the appearances of the business that give it an advantage over others, and weaknesses, which are features that place the team at a disadvantage, are internal to the company and can be changed over time but not without some work. Opportunities, which are basics that the business could use to enhance its strengths, and threats, which are elements in the environment that could cause concern for the business, are external and they are out there in the market,

a. Under Armour’s approach towards innovation is very unique, they think and plan out their projects thoroughly in order to create a one of a kind product that could be appealing to their consumers. The company has been extremely progressive throughout the years in order to stay ahead of the other competitive companies in their targeted industry. By constantly updating and coming up with different product lines, such as compression shirts and cleats, Under Armour is able to compete with other top athletic wear company’s in their market. If

After review the information on past and estimated in the future, company, products, competitors and branding, I recommend the following strategy:

Under Armour’s business strategy towards market segmentation is broken down into three different basis; Age, Gender, Uses. The first major market segmentation is by age, different age groups demand different products and Under Armour has produced certain merchandise to appeal to each generation. The second is Gender, both male and female respectively make up roughly 50% of the market equally.To appeal to females UA produces apparel in brighter colo, as a fashion forward athletic wear. While for males they they cater toward masculine vibe of tight fitting and resistant to wear and tear. Lastly, UA segments by the range of uses for their products.

Under Armour is in the Textile- Apparel Clothing industry, in the consumer goods sector. The market has been driven by economic recovery, new product offerings and a

Under Armour is a leading athletic clothing line directed towards the overall athlete who is looking for the most comfort during extracurricular activities. The mission of the company is, "to provide the world with technically advanced products engineered with exclusive fabric construction, supreme moisture management, and proven innovation. In short, every Under Armour product is doing something for you; it's making you better."

SPACE Matrix The Space matrix shows that Under Armour’s financial position is in a good spot at the moment and also that the competitive pressure is very high. There competitive position is much lower than it should be because Nike and Adidas have such a stronghold on the market. Under Armour does have a very good profit potential and growth potential and these really helped out their Industry Position. Under Armour Revenue and Net income is very good internally, but against their competitors they are definitely lacking.

1. We chose to study Under Armour because of their explosive growth over the last five years in a very competitive industry. From a marketing standpoint, it is quite apparent that the company is doing well and one could assume that because the firm appears to have had great success in aggressively expanding their market share, they are by extension creating value for investors. By studying the financial information, we aimed to confirm or deny whether Under Armour is indeed creating value.

SWOT Analysis: The internal strengths and weaknesses of the company, and the external opportunities and threats from the viewpoint of the company

Since the evolution of the company, Under Armour rapidly expands their business while some internal problems still exist. For example, unprotected intellectual property right issue and supplier relationship management. Also, the current business strategy was focusing on marketing, international expansion, product differentiation, and other expenses while they have weak financial management. These will certainly pose future problems to the company.

Identifying influencing factors of a company’s macro-environment helps in the strategic development and management within a company. The macro-environment outlines an industry and the competitive environment as seen in figure 3.1, (Gamble, Peteraf, Thompson, 39). Within the macro-environment there are the political factors, economic conditions, sociocultural forces, technological factors, environment forces, and legal/regulatory factors. All of these factors blanket the habitat an industry and its competition thrive in. Inside the industry and competitive environment there are five factors that influence an individual company. The five factors are suppliers, rival firms, new entrants, buyers, and substitute products. The biggest impact on a company are these five factors. For example, Under Armour focuses on their industry and competitive environment to survive and grow. Their strategy to win over the market share from Nike and Adidas consists of expanding a stable and original brand within record time, taking an innovative approach to their product line-up and brand-name appeal where the market seemed to be barren, and lastly, the company enters in the foreign market early on to establish its brand and influence markets outside of the US.

Other than Under Armour, the industry’s most prominent competitors are Nike and Adidas. In Figure 1 of the Appendix, a strategic group model illustrates Under Armour’s performance in comparison to the other leading competitors in the same industry. 7The size of each bubble is the amount of market share that that company holds. According to the map, Under Armour comes in at third place; it is apparent that the firm needs to make some changes if they desire to remain a legitimate player in the long run.

THREAT - LOW to MEDIUM: Interesting because Under Armour was a new organization not long ago entrants must differentiate somehow, powerful companies not willing to surrender market share and increasing apparel technology raises start-up costs.

Under Armour is a very popular and well-known brand throughout the world, there are many reasons why this is the case and why they are very successful as a company. Under Armour creates value for their customers in many ways, one of these ways is with their basketball shoes. Customers wouldn't want to buy shoes if they didn't think it would be durable and a good shoe. Customers can trust Under Armour’s basketball shoe because it is a shoe that somebody in the NBA wears. This shows that someone is willing to trust their million-dollar contract with their shoes to help them get their well-earned money, and that shows to confidence in Under Armour. Under Armour also gives many different options that the customer can choose from. They offer different technologies, materials, and articles of clothing. There are many different technologies they have, but I will only list a few. One of these technologies is cool switch, this helps athletes perform longer because the clothing will keep them cool and save them from sweating as much which helps save energy. Also, they offer many different materials in case a customer is allergic to a certain type of material there is always another so that they don't lose a customer. They also offer all different types of clothing so that whatever you need they'll have. Based on this research it proves that Under Armour has done so much to get where they are and be as successful as they are.

SWOT analysis is a framework that allows managers to synthesize insights obtained from an internal analysis of the company’s strengths and weaknesses with those from an analysis of external opportunities and threats. Strengths are those factors that give an edge for the company over its competitors. Weaknesses are those factors that can be harmful if used against the firm by its competitors. Opportunities are favourable situations which can bring a competitive advantage. Threats are unfavourable situations which can negatively affect the business. The comparison of ABCD analysing framework and SWOR analysing framework is given in table 1.