Identify Business Level Strategy

5. Identify Business level strategy.

Under Armour

- Differentiation

- Focus on their core competencies

- Mission: “to make athletes better through passion, science, and the relentless pursuit of new innovation.

- Increases the number of retail stores in outlets or malls to increase sales growth.

- Increases e-commerce sales by driving traffic to website.

As a niche athletic- apparel maker, Under Armour stated its mission such as: “Make Athletes Better through passion, design, and the relentless pursuit of innovation.” UA did adapt some sufficient strategies such would help gain more competitive advantages compared to their competitors. company’s plan is outperforming competitors through actions of adding more performance features, appealing design, better quality or wider product selection. To UA, a large amount of sale comes from North America; UA leaders believe that they could promote their products internationally as well. In the future, a statement: “we plan to continue to grow our business over the long term through increased sales of our apparel, footwear and accessories, expansion of our wholesale distribution, growth in our direct to consumer sales channel and expansion in international markets”. (Under Armour). Under Amour has partnership with many colleges and also pro teams. It bought the “rights ticket” to sponsor the team.

In order to survive and thrive, UA has been focusing on innovation to keep up with its opponent. “moisture-wicking fabrications” will still be UA upper hand card in order to gain more market share. UA products are positioned at the highest quality and best available in the market. Furthermore, their new shoe line is to aim to the goal of adhere the brand to become quality and innovation, and female buyers now become a very important part in marketing strategy of UA with quality yoga wear and Armour Bra styles are such pathfinders.

For international market, UA is fairly new compare to its rivals with just about 10% of its income comes from international market. Hence, main focus of UA in international market is to gain more shares. UA is trying to introduce its products globally with already-success-strategy using brand-building in North America. The company will also sell products directly to the teams and individual athletes like the company did with domestic market. This strategy can help UA promote its image and attract more customers.

Manufacturing is done at factories all around the world and UA distribution mechanism is to go mostly through retail stores, small portion will be from outlet store and online sales. Under Armour experienced a rapidly growth with the first commercial public in 2003, the first outlet store in 2005 and shares could be purchased from NYSE. The down side of what UA is doing is that distribution through retailers will increase the price of products. Other than that, UA has only established its store for about 7 years; it does not have the same presence as its competitors such as Nike and Adidas. UA cannot eliminate from stores because those products are still important aspect of UA’s sales. The sales, revenue, cost of goods sold and net income of Under Armour is quite a bit lower than its competition Another challenge arising from established competitors is the difficulty of keeping up with competitors that have large capital resources that can be utilized in research and development.