The Role Of Supply Chain Management Of Adidas

Adidas is a well-known sports company that manufactures shoes, sportswear and accessories. Adolf Dassler in Germany established the company in 1949. Adidas was started in a washroom and over the years triumphed the world. Recently Adidas has been going through a lot of turbulence. In the year 2014 the company stocks went down staggeringly. Adidas recently closed down close to 200 stores in Russia due to deteriorating economy. Nike has been giving Adidas a stiff competition. Adidas definitely need better planning and better leadership to give its competitors a healthy competition.

The supply chain management is considered as a management concept from past two decades as the customers are concerned about timely and safe delivery. The competitiveness has been increasing among the companies to deliver the products as quickly as possible to the customers all around the world. This has made the supply chain management as a vital tool for the management. This is also measured as a competitive parameter for the companies.

Supply-chain management consists of developing a strategy to organize, control, and motivate the resources involved in the flow of services and materials within the supply chain. A supply chain strategy, an essential aspect of supply chain management, seeks to design a firm’s supply chain to meet the competitive priorities of the firm’s operations strategy.

Mellat-Parast and Spillan (2014) defines supply chain management as the method of handling material and information moves from the beginning, through the organization, and to the end-user. This is a very important factor of organizational strategy.

Adidas is a sportswear manufacturing company started by Adolf Dassler. Adidas group has incorporated brands including Adidas, Reebok, TaylorMade-Adidas and Rockport. The wings of the company are widespread and have assimiliated other productions including handbags, shirts, spectacles, watches, balls, and sportswear. Adidas is being the largest company that sells footwear in the European market and have achieved a momentous market share at the global platform. Adidas has achieved phenomenal sale and have reached the pinnacle of success on the global scale with other international footwear companies (McDonald & Milne, 1999).

Supply management is a complex function that’s critical to business success, responsible for delivering efficient costs, high quality, fast delivery and continuous innovation throughout companies’ entire supply chains. The strategic contribution of supply management is measured not only in savings made, but also in increased shareholder value (Niezen, Weller & Deringer, 2007). Nike and Adidas are two global companies try to improve their competitive advantage through strategically managing and utilizing their supply chain. The purpose of this report is to compare and evaluate the supply chain management practices of Nike & Adidas.

Inspired by the heritage, Adidas know that a profound understanding of the consumer and their journey in sport is essential to achieving this goal. To anticipate and respond to their needs, it continuously strives to create a culture of innovation and creativity. By harnessing this culture together with their insights and knowledge of sport, Adidas push the boundaries of products, services and processes to drive a long-term strategic advantage. This, in turn, will drive value creation for their company and

Nike’s global supply chain is an extremely complex network that impacts a wide range of stakeholders around the world. The supply chain was initially built through the outsourcing of manufacturing directly to suppliers. Since 1990 the company’s supply chain had many problems such as ineffective forecasting and an inability to keep up with changing consumer trends. As a result, Nike launched the Nike Supply Chain project in 2000 with goals of implementing enterprise resource planning and customer relationship management software into an integrated platform. This project proved to be a disaster for Nike.

Supply chain management is a main process in all kinds of companies. That’s because an optimized supply chain results in lower costs and a faster production cycle.

Adidas was founded by Adi Dassler on August 18, 1949 in Herzogenaurach, Germany. Adidas has been in business longer than Nike, they have had their logo since the inception; thus, the three stripes on the side of their shoes. In Spring of 2015, they came out with their new strategic business plan called, “Creating the New”. The focus was on Cities, Speed, and Open Source. According to Herbert Hainer, the CEO at that time stated, “The company is working every day to inspire and enable people to harness the power of sport in their lives (Adidas Group, n.d.). Adidas current competitive strategy is not the same as Nike’s competitive strategy. In October 2016, Kasper Rorsted became Adidas’ current CEO. He believes health and fitness will continue to become a lifestyle not a fad. Furthermore, he wants to expound the three clear strategic choices: Speed, Cities, and Open Source.” They are more focused on the broad target market, a low-cost provider strategy. In March 2017, he updated the focus for Adidas to include “Corporate Culture, Digital, One Adidas, North America and Portfolio.” (Adidas Group, n.d.).

1. What is adidas’ position in the athletic shoe market? How does the brand seem to be doing in this market? Position: the position of adidas has transferred from “leading supplier of soccer footwear worldwide” to “leading sport brand”. Adidas was founded in Germany in 1920. In 1995, it became a public company as well as the leading supplier of soccer footwear due to its great performance of footwear sales. In 1998, adidas began to move into the U.S. market. Adidas doubled its U.S. market share within only one year, so it hoped to continue to make big move in following years. In its way to U.S. market, adidas confront with the

Since Adidas Group is a very large corporation; it has to structure the organization efficiently and effectively in order to

Adidas is a major German sports apparel manufacturer, which was founded in 1948. It is the largest sportswear manufacturer in Europe and the second biggest sportswear manufacturer in the world, after Nike. The company's clothing and shoe designs typically feature three parallel bars. The company revenue for 2009 was listed at €10.38 billion. The market segmentation; targeting and position play an important role in this company. This essay will use the three factors to analyze this company.

In an era where companies compete in global context to provide the best solutions, products or services in order to gain loyal customers, every detail in the processes within the organisation contributes massively to its success or failure. Every organisation’s desire is to match supply and demand in a timely manner with the most efficient use of resources. Meanwhile, the key component of success is to understand customer’s needs and to translate them into value, and eventually into products. In order to meet both the above, the organisation desires its internal processes to have a clear and adequate mechanism that will link all departments and ensure high quality and trust.

Adidas’ business model is represented in a variety of aspects. Those of which will be discussed include technology, sell channels, customers, ability to innovate and geography. The technological advances in the last ten years means Adidas are more accessible to customers than ever before. Customers are able to shop online as well as on their smartphones causing a surge in demand. This in turn affects their suppliers. Adidas need to invest more in suppliers to keep up with higher demand. This means opening more stores, and Adidas have plans to expand worldwide by 2020, as well as factories to produce their products. Growth in technology has a profound effect on Adidas’ business model.