Adidas Company in Sports Industry - Coursework Example

Achieve the impossible This paper emphasizes the exceptional contribution of Adidas Company toward the development of world sports industry by means of its leadership approach and the ability to innovate. Uniting athletes all over the world, the brands of Adidas Group help them to perform, play and feel better achieving the impossible with every move. The innovative approach and the exceptional contribution of employees make Adidas capable of leading one’s success and the consumers’ brand love encourages the company to want to shape the sporting goods industry with more offers. Having more than a hundred years in its history, Adidas is truly inspired by its heritage and has a profound understanding of how to create a culture of innovation and keep on being creative pushing the boundaries of its products and processes that ensure Adidas to drive its long-term strategic advantage. Starting its business in the wash room, the company now accounts more than fifty-three thousand people in more than one hundred and sixty countries across the globe (The Adidas Group at a glance, 2015). Embracing the multi-brand strategy, the company includes such brands and divisions as Adidas Sports Performance, Adidas Originals, Adidas Sports Style, Five Ten, and also the Reebok sports brand, TaylorMade-Adidas. The business of Adidas comprises key strategic pillars, which are the diverse brand portfolio, investments focused on highest-potential markets and channels, creation of the flexible supply chain, leading through innovation, desire to become a sustainable company and the development of the team based on the company’s heritage (Strategy overview, 2015). Success for Adidas: World Cup final 1954 with unbeatable Hungarians gave the company a name on football pitches everywhere 1967- the  first piece of apparel for Adidas named after Kaiser Adidas started to provide the Official Match Ball to every FIFA World Cup since 1970 TaylorMade company was started in 1979 The new century represented the sport-inspired streetwear in partnership with Yamomoto, McCartney and Porsche Design Sport Adidas team culture To Adidas Company, putting too many efforts into the whole career thing and strict adhering to certain routines during life do not coincide with the overall expectations. Instead, the company is about passion and a belief that one should push own limits everywhere and all the times. It is sports as the foundation of everything that company does; it is about the redefining the benchmark for discovering and shaping the future; it is the fair play which creates the basis for company’s performance among similar businesses (Our expectations, 2015). All these considerations create the mission of Adidas Group as the company which strives to be the global leader in the provision of sports goods and the services of which are built on the passion for sports and a sporting lifestyle. Values of the company describe the desired culture, which are the promotion of sports as the foundation of all Adidas does, passion for constant moving, innovation and the improvement, the integrity approach based on such characteristics as honesty, openness, ethical and fair attitude toward others, and the understanding of the diversity of ideas, strengths and interests in building the company’s brands (Our mission, vision and values, 2015). At the same time, however, one should understand that vision and mission which are the visual part of the company’s strategy are different from the forces that embed innovation. According to (Dobni, 2010), innovation is premised on the market orientation, the creation of value and defining of the new opportunity space. Besides, the mission of the company is reached through budgeting, scheduling and cycles of the goods offered, while innovation can be stifled by such planning. In Adidas, its future forecasts of where the company wants to be are based on its experiences and innovation cannot be bounded by schedule or structure. Consequently, company’s mission and vision are based on the innovation and design leaders who strive to promote athletes to achieve the desired performance with every company’s product (Our mission, vision and values, 2015). In achieving a sustainable leadership within the industry, Adidas uses the cutting-edge design in its products as it is what the customers expect from the company. However, the company’s innovative approach does not concern products only, but it feels across all the employees as they drive innovation and foster the culture of implementing change and meeting challenges to make the company meaningful. Innovative capabilities According to the Adidas Group Annual Report (Make a difference, 2014), company’s innovation strategy is driven by the desire to maximize the number of consumers, embrace a multi-brand strategy, create inspiring products and maintain a culture of the constant innovation obtained through improvements of the products and processes. Strategy While it seems that strategy improves the probability to success in the cases when it breaks the rules and enables the company to create something more, than it is the strategic innovation. At the same time, Koivisto (2005) states that whether the product innovation is to be really successful and the process innovation is worth, the company then needs new strategic to encourage its products. Here the creativity will be visible as the new strategy leads to the break of stereotypes and acceptance of certain challenge of an organization. In Adidas, this strategic innovation refers TaylorMade and Reebok-CCM Hockey segments (Make a difference, 2014). One of the Adidas strategic innovations refers to the Golf products targeted on the athletic and achievement-oriented golfer who strives to achieve in every piece of footwear and apparel. Besides, strategic innovation is essential for marketing of TaylorMade- Adidas Golf’s success, where the great effort is put on the creation f compelling messages through the wide variety of channels. The other innovative approach of Adidas refers to Reebok-CCM Hockey Strategy, while the company is a leading designer and marketer of ice hockey equipment and apparel related to this kind of sports. The secret of success lies in the innovative and technological advancement with the priority on the design and market innovative and technologically advanced products. To capture the relevant stages of the process of idea forming, the BAH model can be utilized by the company. It starts with the new product strategy and then the main idea of the innovation is formed. It is evaluated and the screening on the main factors affecting the idea is conducted. The next stage of innovative strategy is about the Source: Bhuiyan (2011). business analysis and the design and development of the product. It should also be tested and the ways for commercialization should be found (Bhuiyan, 2011). Ideas The innovation capabilities construct includes the idea management as the strategic growth requires the constant flow of ideas to be able the company to compete and satisfy the needs of the customers. While many companies have the not invented syndrome in capturing and developing ideas, there are those businesses that have been discovering the ideas for many years, finding and commercializing them through R&D labs (Jaruzelski & Holman, 2011). The R&D is the integral part of the product experience creation process in Adidas, which puts its strategic and long-term visions and distinctive positioning through the activities of R&D. Based on the product creation process, consumer research and feedback and competition analysis, the company employees work for the purpose of the company to analyze the new materials for production, new processes and scientific researches in order to enhance the scope of idea generation (Make a difference, 2014). Process For the purpose of the company to ensure the constant flow of ideas, it is important to challenge for the research and practice and so the regularity of innovation streams was present. In other words, to companies to generate and launch the innovative products and services, there should be the new or improved processes which increase productivity (Dadfar, Dahlgaard, Brege & Alamirhoor, 2013). To move forward in the most efficient way and in order to help the company to create a streamlined approach for more innovative ideas, in Adidas defines the processes to make these innovations happen. The inspiration is identified through the need or the problem where the creation of idea stands after the certain customer’s need. As the company strives to respond the eco-friendly requirement, it sets the objective to make its processes in the environmentally-friendly ways. As a part of Group’s strategy, the leveraging of the company’s infrastructure and processes can be obtained through the provision of connected solutions for its business models (Make a difference, 2014). Climate The creation of right working environment is one of the most important issues within any organization. Hence, it is the responsibility of companies to solve such issues by encouraging their employees by all possible means in order to innovate in the constant and consistent manner and achieve common organizational goals. In fact, the chances to reach and improve obtaining of organizational goals depend on the characteristics of human potential. Here the organizational climate influences greatly the way people contribute the company’s targets (Moussa, 2014). In particular these are the factors of dominance in the business relationship, poor lateral communication, limited tools and resources, restricted vehicles for change and unfocused innovative activity (Qingrui, Chen, Shou & Liu, 2012). The culture of Adidas is deeply grounded on the history of the company, however, it fosters the corporate performance, passion, integrity and diversity creating by these approaches a positive working environment and climate that stimulates innovation, teams spirit and achievement of long and short-term goals and objectives. The unique culture of Adidas encourages employees to commit more to the company’s performance through attractive working environment such as the possibility of move globally, work-life balance opportunities, employees’ engagement and diversity approach. While the company strives to achieve its ambitious strategic goals, it gives people opportunity to gain international experience, harmonize the commercial interests with the personal targets, offers staff a wide range of diverse activities and recognizing the most talented of employees (Make a difference, 2014). Risk taking When developing new products like Adidas does, a company should understand that it risks that product cannot be accepted by the mass or can be met with disinterest. Consequently, risk taking is a core skill for the modern businesses and they should know how to prepare themselves to communicate, work in teams, make decisions and adapt activities and take risks. Effective precautious activities will help to maximize reward and avoid failure. The role of risk-taking is in the preparation of the responsible people, employees for the future challenges (Rolfe, 2010). As Adidas is has a long history, it has succeeded to manage potential risks related to the innovation of products and services by using the comprehensive risk management system, which addresses both internal and external risks that can impact company’s strategy and goals. Thus, according to Adidas (Governance and risk management, 2015), the Social and Environmental Affairs function is to provide the Executive Board the updates about the risks related to human right, environment concerns and opportunities for the company’s success an possibility of future planning. What’s next for Adidas? Despite the achievements of the company, there also several recommendations to be given to the Group. They are related to the use of technology which will give customers strong association that the company is a modern and well-equipped business which knows the latest technological trends. In addition, while Reebok is a strong competitor for Nike, the company should be repositioned with more fashionable brand for normal and professional use. To be the truly global company, Adidas should also target the untapped markets of Asia and Africa. With the innovative campaigns and new products, Adidas can be an example to follow to many companies. The modern consumer-thinking needs to be fully met in the development process, and Adidas succeeds in this launching good quality and sometimes unique brands. These are the limited editions of shoes and the reissued classic editions, those with influencers like Lionel Messi and Kanye West who collaborated with the brand and even created the street shoes for the company. Adidas strives to create as much value to its stakeholders as possible notwithstanding the customers to be professional athletes, potential employees or any other stakeholder. How would you consolidate your mission, vision and goals in encouraging stakeholders to use the power of business together with your company? Have you effectively communicated the principles of your company? To Adidas the great ideas do not come from the experience, it comes from challenges. How turn a competition of brilliant ideas into culture of collaboration toward targeting the same goal? The Group has been historically focusing on the following of the certain process by creating and developing new products. How can you improve the well-established process of innovative ideas production? At Adidas, its culture is constantly shaping by the past and present achievements where its corporate performance depends on the passion, integrity and diversity of employees. What strategies would you develop to encourage employees’ commitment toward the achievement of company’s goals? References Bhuiyan, N. 2011. 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The role of leadership, individual creativity and organizational climate in the development of innovative capability, International Review of Management and Business Research, Vol.3, Is.4, [pdf] Available at: http://www.irmbrjournal.com/papers/1418113506.pdf [Accessed on September 17, 2015]. Our expectations, 2015. The official website for Adidas Group, [online] Available at: http://www.adidas-group.com/en/careers/our-expectations/ [Accessed on September 17, 2015]. Our mission, vision and values, 2015. The official website for Adidas Group, [online] Available at: http://careers.adidas-group.com/mission-and-values.aspx [Accessed on September 17, 2015]. Qingrui, X., Chen, J., Shou, Y. and Liu, J. 2012. Leverage innovation capability: application of total innovation management in China’s SME’s study, World Scientific Rolfe, H. 2010. Learning to take risks, learning to succeed, Making Innovation Flourish, [pdf] Available at: https://www.nesta.org.uk/sites/default/files/learning_to_take_risks_learning_to_succeed.pdf[Accessed on September 17, 2015]. Strategy overview, 2015. The official website for Adidas Group, [online] Available at: http://www.adidas-group.com/en/group/strategy-overview/ [Accessed on September 17, 2015]. The Adidas Group at a glance, 2015. The official website for Adidas Group, [online] Available at: http://www.adidas-group.com/en/group/profile/#/adidas-goes-all-in-to-make-you-a-better-athlete/ [Accessed on September 17, 2015]. Read More