Individual Assessment

Answer to Question 1

The international market arena in which our athletic footwear company competes is characterized by global competition as it faces competition in well over a 100 country markets that its four focus continental markets namely North America, Latin America, Europe-Africa, Asia-Pacific present.

Answer to Question 2

Our company is employing a global strategy in the branded footwear segment in all of its focus markets as it typically produces and sells ‘above-industry-average’ quality shoes at the most competitive prices in all of these focus markets under reference.

Answer to Question 3

Our company is employing a global strategy in the private-label footwear segment in all of its focus markets as it typically produces and sells ‘industry-average’ quality private-label shoes at the most competitive prices in all of these focus markets under reference.

Answer to Question 4

We indeed sought to adapt our company’s strategy at various times to take shifting exchange rates into account. As much as it was practically possible, we always sought to ship shoes, more shoes to other locations to the extent possible, from any of our two production plants/locations where currency was weakest relative to the destination location. This was due to our knowledge of the fact that exporters always gain in competitiveness when the currency of the country where goods are manufactured grows weaker while they become disadvantaged when the currency of the country where goods are manufactured grows stronger.

Answer to Question 5

We also sought to adapt our company’s strategy in the course of the ten-year play period of the game, to take into account geographic differences in import tariffs. This we did by always ordinarily shipping from our North American plant to the Latin American market and from our Asia-Pacific plant to the Europe-Africa market except in situations where exchange rate issues and other relevant considerations dictated otherwise.