Under Armour Case Analysis Questions

MANG4480-001

Professor Logan

Fabiola Wollants

Under Armour Case Analysis Questions

1. What is the basic strategy that Under Armour seems to be using to achieve their mission?  Relate this to the 5 basic strategies that your book mentions.

A company’s strategy deals with the specifics of management’s game plan for competing successfully – hot to please the customer and more importantly, how to react to the strategies of industry competitors and the market as a whole. Although it is almost impossible that two companies in the same industry will employ the same strategy, because managers between companies always have different opinions on what is best for the company. There are 5 basic strategies that companies dive into, and are based on two important factors: whether the market target is broad or narrow and, whether the company is trying to pursue competitive advantage over differentiation or lower cost. These two factors give rise to five competitive strategies, which are:

• A low-cost provider strategy
• A broad differentiation strategy
• A focused low-cost strategy
• A focused differentiation strategy
• A best-cost provider strategy

The mission of Under Armour has been to “make all athletes better through passion, design, and the relentless pursuit of innovation.” The company of Under Armour focuses on the development, marketing, and distribution of branded performance apparel, footwear, and accessories that can be used in every climate to provide a performance alternative to traditional products. The growth strategy of Under Armour is clearly layout in their article and it states that they intend to achieve sales revenues of $4 billion by 2016, some 71 percent. The strategy of Under Armour is focused on broadening the products offered, target additional consumer segments, increase its sales and market share in the athletic footwear segment and secure additional distribution in North America and other countries.

One of the strongest strategies of Under Armour is there strong investment in their marketing plans. Under Armour increases their expenditure in marketing every year, spending $246.5 million in 2013. The key element of Under Armour’s marketing and promotion and marketing strategy is to promote the sales and use of its products to high performing athletes and teams because the management believed that having audiences see Under Armour products being worn by athletes on the playing field which would help the company establish on-fiel authenticity of the Under Armour brand with consumers. Therefore, based on the five competitive strategies, we can say that Under Armour has a broad differentiation strategy to have a unique product in the industry and broaden constantly their market segments to reach all possible consumers in the world.