Menswear Manufacturers/Wholesalers

Introduction

Adidas Ltd is a Germany manufacturer of sports apparel and it is part of the Adidas group, which composed Taylor is made- Adidas Golf Company, Reebok sport Wear Company and Rockport. Other than producing sports products like shirts, bags, and other sports related clothing. Adidas is the largest manufacturer of sports wear in Europe and the second largest after in the whole world after Nike.

History of Adidas

Upon returning from world war one, Adolf Dassler started making his own sports in his mother’s kitchen.  Rudolf Dassler his brother joined him (Adolf Dassler) in 1924, and they named their business Gebrüder Dassler Schuhfabrik (a Dutch word for Dassler brothers shoe company), the company generated a lot of profit they sold many pairs of shoes until world war two. In 1948 due to mis understandiung between the two brothers, they splitted with Adi forming Adidas and Rudi forming Puma. Adidas was formally regitered as a company on August 18th 1949 while adopting the phrase “all day i dream about sports“ however some scholars have urgued that the origin of the word Adidas was reteroactively used. Portmanteau is the actually that originated from Adi (Adolf’s nickname) and Das (the short form of  Dasler).(www.Adidas.com)

After the death of  Dassler Horst the son of  Adolf Dassler the company was faced with a lot of problems in 1987, the company was sold to Bernard Tapie a French industrialist  for 1.6 billion French Fracas. Bernard Tapie was a famous French man who was widely known for rescuing companies that were bankrupt, a profession on which he used to build his fortune. However upon taking over the company Tapia moved Adidas production unit to Asia, he hired Madonna and charged her with the responsibility of promoting the products, he also hired Walter Head to be his Shoe sales representative and two descendants of Adolf Dassler (Bella Back Dassler and Amelia Randall Dassler) to be is promoters in Germany. In 1992 Tapie failed to pay is loan and he gave the bank the go ahead to sell the company, the bank declined and gave it to him as an equity loan. The bank (Credit Lyonnais) finally sold Adidas to Robert Louis Dreyfus. The headquarters of Adidas is in Germany however the company has many business locations all over the world such as Toronto, England, Australia, Hong Kong, Spain and Taiwan. However its main business is US. (www.Adidas.com)

Product assortment

Adidas has many products that are meant for running, football, cricket, Golf and others.

In its running products, Adidas is currently manufacturing some shoes for running such as adistar rider, adistar control 5, adistar cushion 6, supernova 7, and supernova glide just to mention them but a few. Many runners have always recommended the use of Adidas. Some of these running shoes are made using Kangaroo leather which makes them more expensive as compared to the others. The main concentration of Adidas is in football products, the company focuses more on the football kit and its associated equipment. Their warm up kits, team kits and football boots are widely used by many countries such as Germany, Spain, Argentina, Israel and Greece national team and clubs. Adidas is also charged with provision of equipments and apparel for the entire major league soccer.

The is so innovative in foot wear the most notable one is the they developed as Copa Mundial molded boots, the predators boots which featured  a ribbed surface structure that was used fro the upper leather of the shoe, used to direct the movement of the ball whenever it was struck. Adidas has also played a role in shaping football in the world. The world football governing body FIFA commissioned the company to develop a ball that was to be used in 2006 world cup. The ball that they came up with was of higher quality as compared to the other. It could travel much faster, hence making players to be able to score goals at a longer range. Many free kick specialists such as Beckham, Roberto Carlos, and Juninho described the ball as the most fantastic one. Adidas entered In Cricket in early 2008 when they sponsored the two Englishmen stars Bell Ian and Pietersen Kevin. Currently the company is manufacturing Libro and Pellara ranges. After acquiring the Taylormade in 1997, they company made its subsidiary. They redirected the image of Taylormade and the company became the number one in driver in Golf.  The company also   acquired Ashworth clothing. (Spiegel 2008) .

Licensing arrangement

Adidas Company has entered into many license agreements with other smaller companies who are charged with the responsibility of manufacturing their products under Adidas brand name. Depending on the agreement the license can run for over several years. A good example of a license agreement in which the company recently entered into a deal with Stalberger. WFA will be carrying out products that have been manufactured by Pastime Sports. The foot bags will be sold using Adidas brand name, and the came will be paid   thirty percent with of whatever is sold. Adidas Company has also entered into agreement with football players like Kaka and Beckham who are charged with the responsibility of marketing the Adidas products. (Spiegel 2008)

Distribution of products from Adidas

The company has many outlets world wide. There are also some small sports shops that Adidas has given the right to sell their kits.

The Key Executives of Adidas and their background

The key executives of Adidas are, the chief Executive officer of the Group is Herbert Hainer, the chief executive for Finance in Adidas group is Stalker J. Robin, the chief executive office for Adidas brand is Stamminger Erich while the Global Operation Adidas Group is Bennett S. Glenn. (Supervisory board 2008 report)

Herbert Hainer who is the chief executive officer was born in 1954 in Germany in a place called Din golfing he is a Married German national with three children. He started working in Protector and Gamble GmbH in 1979 and he resigned as a Division sales and marketing manager in 1987 to join Adidas Germany sales director of hardware. Between 1989 and 1991 he served as the sales director field of Adidas in Germany. He served as the Germany national sales director between 1991 and 1993 from where he rose to the position of the Adidas Chief executive officer and the chairman of the executive board. (Bloomberg 2008)

Adidas competitors

The companies have many competitors, whoever the main ones are Nike and Puma. Nike is the biggest and most profitable company in manufacturing sports wear the company is located in USA, other competitor are PUMA and Mikasa.

Business Analysis and financial review of Adidas

Corporate strategy –Adidas has a wide range of sporting goods business most of them are branded among the product line. The strategic that Adidas has adopted offers an important strategic benefits, it offers portfolio benefits such as skills transfer and purchasing economies between the apparel and the foot wears can be achieved easily. The corporate strategies that the company has adopted have proved to be successful.  The company has realized a great improvement in the sales and their income has also risen over the years. (Bloomberg 2008)

SWOT Analysis – the company has many strengths ranging from profit, loyalty from their customers, wider market and their business mix. The weakness of Adidas are: competition from Nike which is the leader in the market, the economic doldrums that has hit the world as also affected them , given that they have had to retrench some of their workers. The business opportunity that the company has includes the unexplored customers who have not yet been reached by their sales and marketing team. The main threat to the company is the ever changing technology which forces them to keep on changing their machines. (Supervisory board 2008)

The table below shows the revenue that the company has earned from the year 21006 to 2008.

Reference:

Bloomberg 2008 Adidas, infenon deutsche telekom equity preview of Germany retrieved from http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601100&sid=ah3ZhaeNWMdM&refer=germany on 27^th February 2009

http://www.adidas.com/campaigns/women/content/stella/stella.asp?strCountry_Adidascohttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUZrKj6ClBgm=com

Spiegel D 2008 Adidas Chef Criticizes protestor retrieved from http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/0,1518,551262,00.html on 27^th February 2009

http://www.adidasnationallacrosseclassic.com

MLS & Adidas have strike a ling term agreement retrieved from MLSNET.COM on 27^th February 2009

www.Adidas.com

Supervisory board 2008 report retrieved from http://adidas-group.corporate-publications.com/files/pdf/en/Supervisory_Board_Report.pdf. On 27th February 2009