Adidas is one of those brands that do not need introduction – in the 21st century, it has practically become a household name. However, as the process of globalisation unwinds, the need to apply new strategies and use new techniques to attract more customers emerges. By entering a new market with an innovative product, the company will be able to keep in pace with time.
Promoting change in an organisation is not an easy task, especially when it comes to altering the internal processes of a company as big as Adidas. Therefore, a proper change management framework is to be utilised.
It can be suggested that identifying the organisation’s competitive position and relating this to the principal opportunities and threats can be used as a tool for facilitating change within the company. Entering an entirely new market, Adidas will have to make a dull research of this environment, identifying its key challenges and seeking out the major opportunities, which the approach in question will help identify.
Needless to say, Adidas will have to carry out regular audits in order to evaluate the progress made and set further goals for the organisation to meet. In order to assess the outcomes of the company’s endeavours efficiently, one will have to resort to the PESTLE test.
Allowing for attaining a quantitative evaluation of the firm’s progress, the specified test is impeccable as a way to compare the initial net revenue and the one that the company will retrieve after the integration into the global food market and introducing a new product to the target audience (Hopkin 2013).
Assessing Adidas’s capability for carrying out the process of change, one must note that the company has, in fact, a lot of potential. The strengths of the firm come not from its popularity all over the world, though it also factors in, but from the company’s resources, as well as the fact that Adidas utilises these resources in a very efficient manner.
It should be born in mind, though, that, once entering the food market, the company will have to deal with the resources that are rather different from what it traditionally handles. The rules for acquiring, transporting and storing food resources are quite different from that ones for managing resources for sportswear and sports tools production.
Primarily, the time issue is of great essence – as a rule, food resources have a much shorter shelf life than any other ones. This means that Adidas must redefine its transportation principles by putting a stronger emphasis on the deadlines and the time of products delivery.
As far as the rest of the company’s resources are concerned, it will be safe to say that the marketing capabilities of Adidas are quite high. The firm has impressive human resources, with devoted staff, who are motivated enough to deliver high quality performance. The same can be said about the intangible capabilities.
The financial resources, however, may become scarce in case the company will not be able to reach its objectives within the first few months of its operation. Therefore, the reconsideration of finances distribution must take place. For Adidas to handle the new set of liabilities, it may be reasonable to split them by making a merger with another company, or making an acquisition of stocks and shares of another organisation (Rejda & McNamara 2014). As a result, Adidas will share some of its financial liabilities with its new partner.
One might argue that the creation of a marketing plan is not necessary for Adidas at this stage. However, creating a marketing plan is crucial for Adidas at present, since the company is going to risk greatly by introducing an entirely new product into the market. With very strong competitors, the lack of information concerning the target audience and its demands, and the need for reinventing the company’s vision, the threats are obvious.
Hence, Adidas will need a cohesive and adequate plan with a set of specific goals so that the firm should not fail in its new campaign. A marketing plan will help both choose the tools for carrying out the change and defining the methods of change assessment. Therefore, with a strong marketing plan, Adidas will be able to keep the track of its progress and identify problems at the earliest stages of their development, thus, having a chance to create solutions fast.
There is no need to stress that Adidas is going to face a range of obstacles on the company’s way to conquering the new market. Despite the fact that Adidas has become a household name over the years of its existence, the company is still known mostly as a sports brand.
Therefore, the entrance to the food market may be quite problematic for a company with such distinct and easily recognisable image. The lack of experience, which is required in order to remain competitive in the realm of food industry, is also a major obstacle on the company’s way to becoming a success in the specified market.
Finally, it is noteworthy that the target market already is dominated by several major brands. Attempting at surpassing these companies right after entering the food market is absurd even for such a powerful organisation as Adidas; therefore, instead of defining the strategy to defeat the rivals, Adidas will have to consider locating a specific niche in the existing market, therefore, helping people to identify its product as unique and, therefore, attracting more customers. At present, the company may consider putting a stronger emphasis on the fact that their drinks are purely natural and one hundred percent healthy, in contrast to other drinks.
The inelastic demand within the market may also be a problem. Seeing that difference in the price for drinks is not going to be that drastic, people may still prefer the traditional brand, which is only a few dollars more expensive, than the one that is slightly cheaper yet is completely new and, therefore, may fail to satisfy the demands of buyers.
Despite the aforementioned difficulties, Adidas has impressive chances for success. By creating a promotion campaign with impressive advertising strategy, a new and strong brand to offer and a range of benefits for the target audience, starting from financial ones and up to those that are related to healthy lifestyle, the company will clearly advance in the new market.
As far as the current objectives are concerned, it is essential that Adidas should conjure a well thought out marketing strategy. While the product itself cannot be considered original, it clearly has a range of unique properties; by using the legendary images that are traditionally attributed to Adidas, i.e., excelling in sports, being the best, getting in a good shape and being athletic, the company will be able to sell the product quite successfully. It should be noted, though, that some issues within the company have to be addressed as well.
For example, the change management strategy must be altered slightly in order to help the company adapt towards an entirely new environment. To promote the change, one will have to deploy the principles of Lewin’s change management model (Cameron & Green 2012) and incorporate the philosophy of change into their vision. Thus, the company will be able to transfer into the specified market and at the same time retain its positions in the sports industry.
As far as the promotion of change among the company staff is concerned, integration of the key principles of transformative leadership will allow motivating the staff to excel in exploring the new market. With that in mind, the vision should also be shaped so that the company’s processes should be geared towards employees’ satisfaction as well; as a result of this strategy, increases in the staff’s performance and, therefore, a faster integration into the market will become possible.
The last, but definitely not the least, the financial policy concerning funds for R&D should be reviewed. In order to locate new avenues for conquering the specified segment of the food market, Adidas will have to identify new levels of consumers’ interest (e.g., introducing different types of water, such as fizzy drinks, several types of packaging, a stronger emphasis on public health and development of new types of the drink, etc.).
With the aforementioned strategies up their sleeve, the members of Adidas will be able to conquer the target market rather fast. More to the point, with a consistent evolution of the company and the improvement of the product, which will be possible once R&D is enhanced within the organisation, further expansion may become a possibility.
Reference List
Cameron, E & Green, M 2012, Making sense of change management: a complete guide to the models, tools and techniques of organizational change, Kogan Page Publishers, Philadelphia, PA.
Hopkin, P 2013, Risk management, Kogan Page Publishers, Philadelphia, PA.
Rejda, G E & McNamara, M J 2014, Principles of risk management and insurance, Pearson, Upper Saddle River, NJ.