Giorgio Armani and Internet Use Within the Market - Case Study Example

Heading: Giorgio Armani analysis Customer Inserts His/her Name Customer Inserts Grade Course Customer Inserts Tutor’s Name 15, 10, 2013 Company to be analyzed Giorgio Armani Giorgio Armani is a company owned by Giorgio Armani, an Italian designer; the company was founded in 1975 and majored mainly in men’s wear. It has since diversified and now deals with bags, shoes, jewelry women’s wear, cosmetics and home furnishes among others. Giorgio Armani, the founder was considered the most successful fashion designer from Italy in 2001. Its annual income is $2,093.259. Domain Giorgio Armani is a large corporation with wide presence in the web; it allows many languages and access to men and women sites as identified below. http://www.armani.com/au Australian women’s ware www.giorgioarmanibeauty-usa.com Site for luxury cosmetics, make up, perfumes, men’s grooming products, and skincare among others www.armanibeauty.com/index.aspx Allows side choice of locations and languages. www.armaniexchange.com Youthful fashion label www.giorgioarmani.com The main website www.biography.com Contains, facts, birthday, and biography. www. dressingthebest.armani.com Mainly contains mixed wears. Search Engine position In Google, the most popular search engine, the ranking or Giorgio Armani is highly represented as follows. 1 www.armani.com/us 2 www.giorgioarmanibeauty-usa.com 3 www.armanibeauty.com/index.aspx 4 www.armaniexchange.com 5 www.style.com/fashionshows 6 www.giorgioarmani.com In bing.com, Giorgio Armani is also represented and ranked as follows. 1 www.armani.com/us 2 www.giorgioarmani.com 3 www.giorgioarmanibeauty-usa.com 4 www.armaniexchange.com 5 www. dressingthebest.armani.com 6 www.giorgioarmanibeauty.com When the term Giorgio Armani is searched, high representation is evident in both Google and bing, the links are not sponsored. There is no conflicting name when searching for Giorgio Armani and hence easy to search even if the word is misspelled. Condition Market size The fashion and design industry is very competitive, the main competitors of Giorgio Armani includes: Gianni Versace S.p.A., Dolce & Gabbana Srl and Hugo Boss AG. Companies Financial data Company Annual Revenues in (€) Dolce & Gabbana 597 million Gianni Versace S.p.A., 340.2 million Hugo Boss AG  1.729 billion Giorgio Armani 1.1844 billion As noted from the above financial revenues, it is clear that the industry is lucrative; Giorgio Armani and Hugo Boss AG lead the industry with more than a billion annual turnover. Distribution channels In the design and fashion industry, suppliers are increasingly adapting retail outlets especially in through the internet e-commerce available platforms. Giorgio Armenia has adapted retail online outlets in many regions. This has allowed it to increase sales turnover within a short period of time. Some of the company’s products are also available in common e-commerce retail outlets such e-bay. Flexibility to discontinuous change in the industry is playing an important role in every aspect and mostly in distribution of the products that the company has. Giorgio Armani has about 500 stores worldwide, the group has retail network which consist of 81 boutiques, 171 Emporio Armani stores, 17 Armani Collezioni sores, 165 Armani Exchange store, 16 Armani Jeans stores, 6 Armani Junior and about 33 Armani Casa stores in 46 countries (Polan & Tredre 2009, p.76). Internet use within the market Customer and suppliers have equally adapted to the usage of the internet in a number of ways. Customers are taking advantage of the easy access to the internet to access information and details about the current fashion and design in different areas. The U.S. dominates in the number of fashion and design shows, online platforms allows easy access to information about different men wear, women wear, jewelry and other luxury accessories (Potvin 2012, p.45). The most commonly used search engines in the internet is Google and Bing. These search engines allows user to search for different distributors of design and fashion and also links these clients to social networks that these companies are registered with. On the other hand, suppliers and distributors of fashion and design have adopted the internet and optimized the existing platforms to reach to their customers in a unique. High quality photos and collection of galleries with many photos of the existing products are employed to get the attention of consumes. Giorgio Armenia employs this technique effectively and even allows its users to search for different locations as well as languages. The main advantage of the internet is its easy access and limitless geographical reach. Most of the fashion and design websites are creatively designed with consideration of Search Engine Optimization (SEO). This allows the website links to be available when a visitor types a key word in the website. Unlike the traditional means of advertising, the internet has taken the center stage because of its capabilities and cost, it has high benefit to cost ratio as compared to orthodox means of advertising such as print media like magazines, broadcast media like radio and television. The social media is particularly employed by these companies Giorgio Armenia links to Facebook, twitter, Youtube, Viddy, pinterest and Google+ (Steele 2010, p.23). By employing a number of platforms, the company is able to get to a large base of clientele; the growth of social networking in the past decade has inspired many suppliers and manufacturers alike to adapt the usage of the internet in order to enhance their information dissemination to a wider clientele base. The current internet trends is focused especially to the social network where millions of consumers congregate to chat, share photos and communicate about the current fashion trends. This form of information sharing is viral and thus very important to businesses as well. Information disseminated via the internet is far reaching and consumers can get information irrespective of their geographical location. Most design and fashion companies like Giorgio Armenia and its competitors like Hugo Boss AG have adapted the social networking in order to reach their clientele easily. Most common trends in popular social networking sites like twitter and facebook come into use through creation of fan pages (in facebook) and pages to follow in twitter. These pages are frequently updated with new products; consumers are allowed to comment on them, this is the current trend in social networking website (MobileReference 2007, p.1223). The other platform that has played a major role in the development of fashion and design is the blogs and webinars about latest fashion and trends. Business model used The most notable business model employed Giorgio Armenia is the Web 2.0. Web 2.0 is the 21st century network effect and collective network traffic employed in enhancing content and improving online based companies. Social networking is part of the Web 2.0 employed by Giorgio Armenia. The rationale for Web 2.0 employment by Giorgio Armenia is to enhance its online capability and gain competitive advantage over its main competitors (Sterlacci &Arbuckle 2009, p.56). Conventions Giorgio Armenia websites are well designed with easy access to other links containing more products. The diagram below shows some of the major companies links and how they are well spaced within the website. The website is professional and excellently presented especially to the target group, forming the main clientele of the company. Customer navigation is easy; in fact the company has also integrated option of changing language in order to cater to non-English speakers. Customer focus Identification The customer base for Giorgio Armenia is wide, it initially started with Menswear in1975 but it has diversified its portfolio and now includes: women swear, apparel, eyewear, watches, accessories, jewelry, fragrance, home furnishings and cosmetics among others. The current customer base of the company is wide as it includes all the demographics. Since its inception, the company has expanded to the European market as well as the American market (Manlow 2011, p.123). Individualization Giorgio Armenia has been in existence for the past about four decades, the company is well engineer for sustainability, its presence online and globally through its retail store outlets is a strong indicator of the intention to exist to the future. The brand has also developed and is the one of the global leaders in the fashion and design industry. Like its competitors, the key target of most of them is to be sustainable (Manlow 2011, p.123). This is evident by the strategies that have been adapted in order to achieve this goal. Dynamism also dominates this industry; ease to cope with change implies high potential of survival in the competitive fashion industry. Interaction Most companies in the fashion and design industry have dedicated their energies towards learning customer needs and adapting changes within the company in order to meet these ever changing needs. Notably, there are many companies competing especially in this field, with growing economies such as China, fashion and design companies must adapt to these upcoming markets in order to ensure sustainability. Fashion and design companies have learnt how to effectively adapt to the new technological changes in order to enhance fundamental communication and interaction with wide base of customers (Manlow 2011, p.123). Customers are able to communicate their opinions online through surveys and comment on online platforms established by these companies as well as social networking sites such as facebook and twitter. The pages created in social websites allow consumers to comment and give their opinions about different products that are marketed in these websites. Integration In the design and fashion industry, integration of clients into the core business of companies is necessary. This is especially relevant in the modern changing consumer trends with intense demands. Many of the companies including Giorgio Armenia has adapted this mechanism and allowed consumers contribute to the daily innovation and progress of the company. This is an important initiative as consumers considerations are being integrated into the daily operations of these companies. Giorgio Armenia has integrated consumer’s needs by creating a platform that allows easy customer acceptance and connection. Fashion and design unites people and this knowledge has been used by key players in the industry to fully integrate consumers into the daily happenings in the industry. Better understanding of consumers helps in improving the quality of the product as well as tailoring these products to meet the demands of the consumers in the market. Integrity With the evolution of varying marketing platforms, marketing intrusion has become common in almost every industry. This is the same case with fashion and design industry. Intrusion is unethical and unacceptable, many fashion and design companies still insist on committing this offence. Some in the industry have however adapted better and polite marketing mechanisms that are effective and not intrusive in nature. The aspect of maintaining good relationship with the clientele is the driving force among these ethical companies, Giorgio Armenia has not been left behind in this initiative. Over the past decades, the company has developed fundamental platform of dealing with these challenges in the market. Polite and attractive online and offline mechanisms have been implemented in bid to boost customer relationship over the past few decades (Jones 2005, p.123). Community Giorgio Armenia has integrated social networking into its platform; embracing social networking works to the advantage of the company as consumers are able to access the products and the latest fashion trends that the company is currently involved in. Giorgio Armenia has links to Facebook, twitter, Youtube, Viddy, pinterest and Google. All these social websites allow the company access most of its clientele and be able to receive response from them in a timely manner. The social media encourages strong relationship between the company and the clientele. This is important because through social media, the company is able to get the feelings of the customers about their product, share useful information with its customers and hence improve their marketing strategies as well as address customers needs more precisely. Notably, the social media helps in increasing presence in the most common search engines such as Google and Bing. By registering and remaining active in most of the available social media, such updates play a pivotal role in improving the sites search engine optimization. Google employs a web crawl which picks unique words, key words and fresh updates (Gillespie & Jeannet 2012, p.234). This allows the site to be ranked highly and hence gaining competitive advantage over other similar companies. Giorgio Armenia has successfully implemented this strategy over the past decade. Some sections of Giorgio Armenia websites and how they provide links to social media are demonstrated in the diagram below. Link to facebook and allow invitation of friends References Gillespie, K & Jeannet JP 2012, Global Marketing, Cengage Learning, Michigan. Pp.234-243. Jones, SJ 2005, Fashion Design, Laurence King Publishing, London. Pp. 123-134. Manlow, V 2011, Designing Clothes: Culture and Organization of the Fashion Industry, Transaction Publishers, London. Pp.123-126. MobileReference 2007, Travel Milan, Italy: Illustrated Travel Guide, Phrasebook, and Maps, London. Pp.1223-5. Polan, B & Tredre, R 2009, The Great Fashion Designers, Berg, New York. Pp. 76-9. Potvin, J 2012, Giorgio Armani: Empire of the Senses, Ashgate Publishing, Ltd., London. Pp. 45-56. Steele, V 2010, The Berg Companion to Fashion, Berg, New York. P. 23. Sterlacci, F &Arbuckle, J 2009, The A to Z of the Fashion Industry, Rowman & Littlefield, London. Pp.56-67. Read More