Is The Li Ning Co Going Astray?

Li Ning Co Ltd (2333.HK) is already too bad to be worse.

Perhaps any new major adjustment would seem to be regarded as good news.

In July 5th, Lining announced that the former chief executive, Zhang Zhiyong, had resigned from office. Lining, the founder of the company, went to the front desk. Jin Zhenjun, the TPG partner of Lining, was the executive vice chairman of the group and was responsible for the internal affairs and operation of the group.

On the same day, Lining's intraday share price was 5.33% higher.

For this company that emerged from 2010, it is indeed a symbol of the turning point.

In the July issue of "Lining's dream" published by the media in July last year, we have analyzed in detail the crux of the Li Ning Co's existence. There is only one conclusion: CEO Zhang Zhiyong should take the blame and resign.

The reason is that he still thinks he can still control the situation that is already on the brink of collapse.

After the publication of Lining's dream, Lining himself had an in-depth interview with this magazine. It was the first time that the founder, who had long been seen as faded from daily operations, gave a full account of his understanding of business and his views on the company's status quo.

Since mid 2010, when Lining launched the brand remodeling campaign marked by LOGO, he has gained too much criticism. Lining himself revealed that at the end of 2010 he considered whether to start adjusting, but ultimately, "I gave the team three years to make this change."

He told reporters.

But he admitted that the management team denied that the seriousness of the problem was horrible. "This is really what management needs to change and can not always justify itself."

Lining himself decided to finish the three year trial period 1 years ahead of schedule. This is the biggest sporting goods manufacturer in China who has been close to the bottom of the valley. Yes, Lining's market position has slipped to Anta after now. Despite the sales revenue of the group, Lining was 8 billion 929 million yuan last year, and slightly more than 25 million yuan from, but if Lining and Anta were sold, it was surpassed by the latter.

Its net profit dived from 1 billion 108 million in 2010 to 386 million yuan, down 65% from the same period last year, which is less than half of PEAK's net profit and far from Anta's 1 billion 700 million yuan.

In contrast, other bad news is not worth much.

Lining's internationalization has become a mirage - half of its employees have been lost in the design center of Portland, USA. "If the other half is still there, I don't know what they are doing."

A Lining resigned senior executives told reporters.

At the same time, the US partner Foot Locker Inc.

The agreement was terminated, and the sales company established with the Spanish agent was also bankrupt.

The company issued an early warning that the total amount of orders for Q4 orders this year showed a high double-digit decline, and annual revenue and profits will be negative growth.

The wrong positioning of "90's Lining", the failure of brand reconstruction, the decline in sales, the high inventory pressure and the resignation of executives are all the appearances and results. The fundamental reason is that the company has deviated from its main channel.

Deposed former president Zhang Zhiyong is the first step of Lining's self governance, focusing on Lining's brand, sports spirit and domestic market is the key to the root of the problem.

This strategy is obviously the result of Lining's careful consideration.

In last year's in-depth interview, he revealed: "multi brand strategy needs to be changed.

It will focus more on Lining's brand. "Zhi Yong is the CEO of the whole company. He is not the CEO of Lining brand. As a whole, Lining brand needs a general manager", "the real way to do business is to make a brilliant career, and then to cover the mass market."

Lining.

Data map

It was not difficult to find the recipe for a wonderful job. Lining had the chance to avoid it all happening. It was even in a confidential confidential room not far from Lining's office.

This is the top secret report of two projects named ZIBA and PPT (Pilot Project Team).

In 2006 and 2008, some of Lining's elite soldiers tried to launch two disruptive revolutions related to products, operations and supply chains. After the initial success, the two reports were mysteriously hidden.

"The new generation of China is looking for their real idol. The Lining team will take the lead in encouraging them," wrote the title page of a report.

The question now is, is Lining still saved?

Eye of storm

One evening in early 2008, in a private room of the 798 day salt restaurant in Beijing, Lining was holding the largest and tallest in the lineup.

Dquo, it's so exciting that some people even wet their eyes.

This is a practice meeting.

These people will soon go to Portland to participate in the Li Ning Co's biggest cost change project.

The ZIBA is the largest and most award-winning top design company in the world. The internal code of the project is the ZIBA project, which aims to bring about new changes for Lining.

Zhang Zhiyong believed this, and made a cheque for up to 30 million dollars.

Such a great product revival movement is like the Chinese Football League Jianlibao Brazil secret training program.

According to plan, if all goes well, the company will achieve 20 billion yuan income in 2013, almost five times that of 2007.

As early as a year ago, Lining spent a lot of money on providing English training for the project team members for a year.

A participant recalled to reporters that he was unable to complete the established English course on schedule because he was too busy to work. After that, he could only pay 20 thousand yuan to study English.

In his view, the personal cost of 20 thousand yuan is just a drop in the bucket compared to this rare opportunity to learn.

Teaching lasted for a whole month. The primary task of training is to rationalize Lining's existing process according to ZIBA's product development concept.

Morning is the teaching time, and afternoon is the object design class.

Designers are also required to conduct consumer research in a foreign country to find specific consumers and provide targeted creative designs.

This is a comfortable time.

"Everyone was very swelled at that time. We all thought Nike was something. Lining was a real bull."

One participant said.

During the study period, some people received overseas calls from headhunters, without exception.

This fairy tale learning career ended with an American steak.

Wu Xianyong is the leader of the ZIBA project.

After returning home, all the people were promoted, and some even started to work in several departments. This is a glorious moment of pride.

These ambitious young people are convinced that a storm of product innovation is about to start in the company, and they are "eye of the storm".

ZIBA project has put forward the new slogan of "Define your game".

In the brainstorming, some designers suggested that companies produce portable devices connected to the Internet -- these ideas coincide with Nike's epic product Nike+ series.

According to ZIBA's change experience, Lining arranged the shoes and clothes designers together and set up the project leader.

ZIBA recommends that Lining abandon the past practice of relying on current fashion trends and terminal sales data to design products. Instead, he will go deep into the study of consumers, understand their needs, and predict the trend accordingly.

Wrong path

In a top secret report, ZIBA positioned Lining's consumer group as "the first generation of Chinese reform and opening-up creators". (unfortunately, this positioning was later interpreted as the highly criticized "post-90s Lining"), and the consumers were subdivided into professional athletes, sports participants and sports enthusiasts. The product line was also divided into three categories: professional sports, urban light sports and sports life.

"When I felt like ZIBA, Lining was able to keep pace with top brands."

ZIBA's project participants told reporters.

This is indirectly proved by facts.

The Li Ning Co has been conducting targeted research on target players in basketball matches, and the result of the blind test of the Lining's match suit that was tearing off the label and Nike and Adidas together was encouraging. Lining won many times.

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The picture shows: Lining (left).

Data map

Lining was thriving at that time.

Optimists think that ZIBA has provided Lining with a methodology to rapidly climb to the top brands in the world. First, the study of brand positioning, followed by the realization of products and the promotion and implementation of the market, and finally, the marketing system's channel strategy and sales innovation for brand positioning.

The rest is how to land.

At that time, Zhang was eager to build a more young super brand, and the age of the real consumer group was regarded as the biggest stumbling block of the brand premium.

If we want to achieve a higher premium, we must lower the age of mainstream consumers and please them.

At the top of Lining, some people think that remodeling is more important than product change.

Marketing system believes that if we want to upgrade brand, we must change LOGO.

Fang Shiwei, who was a Li Ning Co CMO, has listed the successful companies in aviation, chemical industry, logistics and other fields to prove their success.

The target group positioning of ZIBA project is refined from "the first generation of Chinese reform and opening up creators" to "post-90s Lining".

The seeds of error are buried here.

The insider insisted that the positioning of target groups in ZIBA's report directly led to Zhang Zhiyong's decision to rebuild his brand in the future.

Unfortunately, Zhang himself did not understand the meaning of ZIBA correctly.

He rarely pays close attention to the process improvement of innovative products.

"ZIBA is obviously running off.

At that time, Zhang should be most concerned about product pformation, followed by brand.

The insider said.

The error is not limited to this.

Zhang quickly pferred from the ZIBA project leader Wu Xianyong, replaced by the newly completed Vice President and CPO Xu Maochun, Xu is very good at sports life series products.

This field of expertise has even covered two other sub product lines set by ZIBA, Lining, professional sports and urban light sports.

It turned out to be a great disaster.

The English name is Morrison's high position. At that time, almost every word in the product system.

Xu has indeed made great contributions to the introduction of new product design processes.

Under his advocacy, all product designers must make VLP (virtual load map) virtual design, and designers must provide research data, story packages, ideas and sketches.

In the early days of the project, Lining began organizing product managers and designers to organize "Kick Off" meetings regularly so that brainstorming could be carried out on all sides.

These development processes, which are popular in Nike, are copied to Lining.

In the past, Lining's product manager would only give the designer a product structure list, and nothing else.

In terms of personnel arrangement, Xu Maochun strives for specialization.

He even used his connections to help Lining dig three product directors and a creative director, who worked for Hongkong or Westerners in Nike, Reebok and other related background companies, but they were all keen on sports life products and not good at professional sports.

The negative effect is that Lining did not have a product director position before, and designers could only communicate with product managers. Designers usually are the final decision makers when the two are left behind.

But the emergence of Xu ends this point - designers are just a part of the assembly line, not all.

Among these paratroopers, Lining, director of sports life Meta, is most valued by Xu Maochun.

The two had worked in Nike for 6 years.

Meta is smart, beautiful, fashionable, typical American thinking.

The character of "ghost sister" is very close to Xu Maochun's aesthetic and personality.

With the support of Xu, the sports life under the Meta has gradually become the mainstream of Li Ning Co's products, and its order quantity has once been 60%.

Xu doesn't like designer's creativity.

He stipulates that all products must be conceptions of creativity by Lining.

No itching. "

ZIBA participants prefer radical creative styles, such as the professional basketball series that advocates Chinese style and named "Eighteen Wu Yi". Its product family only has 10 surplus, but once ranked 30% of basketball orders. Even so, it did not get the favor of Xu.

"The reason is that Morrison is very westernized. He once said that he was particularly incapable of understanding Oriental elements."

One designer said.

In a private way, Xu has a very Chinese nickname.

People call it Chairman Mao because of their excessive autocracy.

Xu accepted this.

Compared with the eastern elements that puzzled him, Xu favoured Abeklundby Fitch's (Abercrombie &Fitch) American campus style, a design sensation of Polo shirt turned up.

In the eyes of the onlookers, Xu's merits and demerits are quite obvious. His professional life in sports leads to his ignorance of professional sports products.

Some designers believe that Xu is too partial to Meta's sports life department, and deliberately neglect professional sports concepts and urban life products.

Some of the most innovative ideas have been strangled.

At the end of 2010, Lining's basketball designer put forward the concept of "muscle" - by studying the muscle function of human muscle fiber and each movement part, and giving it the function and image of Lining's new product.

This creative plan was rejected.

After that, Nike launched Nike Pro sports suit with tight muscle and muscle support.

In addition, the rejected products have potential and dark energy.

Xu, who is in high position, is losing the trust of designers.

In the latter view, it is superficial to Lining's brand DNA, and personal likes and dislikes are too obvious.

At a Kick Off conference in 2010, Xu discovered that his favorite and most common blue products in the basketball series had disappeared and replaced by dark brown coffee.

He questioned the reason for the basketball designer. The latter explained that the coffee product originated from the result of interview with NBA star Davies Davis (Baron Davis) in Losangeles. This is a special color that Davies prefers, and may be a strong selling point in the market.

Xu did not approve of this. He retorted that his color was too old, which was immediately besieged by many designers.

Conflicts are still fermenting.

Shortly afterwards, at a plenary meeting of the design system, a ZIBA project participant and Lining basketball chief designer mocked Xu in front of the designers. He provocative irony, "aren't you full of LV and Hermes are not brown? Why don't you say they are old?"

Runaway

The internal conflict eventually became a big problem.

A dangerous sign is that since 2010, product orders have begun to decline.

Because a series of creative products with oriental elements have been rejected one after another, some dissatisfied designers are leaving.

"My job has been built up, and now it's like a frog in warm water, so that it can't bring itself into full play, and it can no longer bring any benefits to the company."

A designer wrote in his resignation letter to Xu Maochun.

Designers complain about processes.

They were deprived of the right to draw - the creative director's creativity was drawn by a special pattern designer, and then handed to the designer, but the designer could not control the direction of design through details.

"This kind of frustration is because you become a drawing tool, and you can't play anything. You feel that what you learned before was learned."

A designer told reporters.

The new design process stipulates that the accessories pattern is also responsible by the special person.

Xu specially recruited several graphic designers from Hongkong, but there was an obvious gap between them.

"You give Hongkong people a direction, but it is not what you want at all."

The insider said.

Hongkong designers like to make large and exaggerated alphabet designs on their chest, but Lining's designers think they are very earthy.

After the conflict, the contradiction can only be solved by the level of the job. Usually, the position and salary of the Hongkong team are higher than those of Lining inland. They are the winners.

So, a strange phenomenon appeared. Even though Lining inland designers complained about the poor effect of the drawings, they had no right to modify the products of "aliasing", and finally the "aliasing" products could only be put on the counter.

Most of the time, designers can only choose silence.

A mainland designer sent a detailed revision of each dress to the Hongkong graphic designer for modification.

The latter flew into a rage and replied to a long English mail and copied it to Xu Maochun.

In the letter, the distributor said he had decades of experience, and the designer was not qualified to criticize his work. He insisted that he would not make any changes.

Xu Maochun did not say anything about it.

In the view of Lining's designer team, this stems from Xu's excessive partiality. "Once a problem arises, he will blame us for doing so.

We said that the motifs did not change according to the established direction, and they did not change their opinions.

But Xu did not blame Hongkong people. Instead, he blamed us for poor communication.

So many times.

Then we didn't mention it.

A resignation designer who did not want to be named told reporters.

This absurd situation has continued since 2010.

According to the insiders, Lining's designers completed 8 quarters of the goods without controlling the design direction.

The market red light has long been on the way - the Q2 orders in early 2011 were flat and down by 6% in terms of retail price and wholesale price, while Q3 had a negative growth of about 15%.

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Another fault

According to Lining's established error correction mechanism, mistakes can be avoided.

As early as 2006, Lining set up a PPT project group, which aims to avoid inventory problems through a collaborative supply chain inventory management system called CPFR.

The system was first created by WAL-MART, and used IT system to cooperate with retail enterprises and production enterprises, and unified planning and management of production plan, inventory plan, distribution plan and sales plan.

This is not simply a supply chain project, but a lean production mode based on dealer collaboration, demand forecasting, hedging design and material sharing. It is also a business mode that Zhang Zhiyong urgently hopes to rebuild. In the past, the supply cycle of Lining's quarterly goods needs about half a year. If the ZARA type fast turnover mode can be realized, the supply chain can be shortened to 14 days.

The simulation results of Lining PPT project from 2007 to 2008 can reduce the inventory of supply chain by 40 weeks to 12 weeks, reduce the inventory inventory of the entire supply chain by 70%, increase the sales rate by 10%, reduce the stock shortage rate by 75%, reduce the logistics cost by 20%, reduce the operating capital consumption by 30%, increase the total sales volume by 9%, and increase net profit by 33%.

At the beginning of the project, Zhang Zhiyong had asked the project team to run independently in order to show his determination. He himself served as chairman of the PPT project committee.

In the spring and summer order meeting in 2007, the 31 pieces of products that had been optimized had created 2 million 200 thousand orders, the amount of the tag was as high as 209 million yuan, and Lining's revenue was only 4 billion 349 million yuan.

The PPT project group is known for its killer products, which offer a small quantity of refined products. It takes up more than 25% of the order quantity by 10% product, and its test delivery cycle also reduces to about 20 days. This is a great number in the clothing industry.

The first person in charge of the PPT project was Guo Jianxin, then chief executive officer, who rose to COO from then on.

The PPT project team is also famous for its efficient operation. Its efficiency is called the crown of various departments - the first ranking of its rapid response, supply chain cost, inventory management, and single product efficiency.

"PPT is like a lighthouse, where the tree is an example of efficiency, no matter the product system, the operating system, or the sales system, it has to work hard."

The insider said.

But in Lining's interior, it sparked panic in the products, supply chain, sales and other departments.

For a long time, Lining's supply chain cycle has been up to 60-90 days. The supply chain department is unwilling to reduce the supply cycle, nor is it willing to re select suppliers.

The sales team is also the same. In the past, sales forecasts need to be quarterly, and it is difficult to adjust them to the weekly PPT project.

The departmental uncoordinated ends the PPT project in isolation.

If PPT mode is implemented in an all-round way, this means that product design, supply chain, retailer pformation and factory line pformation need to be changed.

For the foundries, they need to give up millions of orders for bulk goods, and to produce tens of thousands of goods quickly and elastically.

To achieve accuracy, it is necessary to accurately calculate the capacity and material rate of suppliers, and make delivery of finished products and material sheets on the IT system.

In this way, suppliers will not be able to report production capacity more easily, nor can they make more money than materials.

Because of the interests of all parties, PPT is not affiliated to any department, but it has become a target of public criticism.

Lining CPO Xu Maochun once rebuked the PPT project team to grab the business of the big cargo Department, and the PPT project team members reacted to the inefficiency and incompetence of the big cargo Department.

In the end, PPT's rights to independently plan products are stripped.

Unfortunately, the PPT project has finally become a prop of the power game.

After COO, Guo Jianxin also downplayed the PPT project.

"Guo also knows that PPT's capability is too strong. Whoever gets it can win the world.

And he has already sat in the position of COO, do not want others to make use of PPT.

PPT has become a big worry for him. "

The insider told the global entrepreneur.

In April of 2007, Zhang Zhiyong arranged for Zhang Hui, the then strategic director, to pick up the PPT project to contain Guo.

A scene worth watching has happened.

At the launching ceremony of PPT celebration, Guo Jianxin once said a long aftertaste.

Guo said, "everyone is the elites of the company, but after I have achieved today's results, I don't know what direction the project team will go in next. I don't know where the future is going to be." and the next speaker is Zhang Hui, Zhang refutes Guo: "I believe that the operation mode adopted by the PPT project must be the most advanced mode in the world, and it will also be the largest management mode to contribute to the Li Ning Co in the future."

But a year later, Zhang Hui had hoped to promote the PPT project to the whole company.

Zhang Hui was almost driven away.

PPT projects for quick response factories are simply unable to obtain large orders.

The big cargo system privately stipulates that as long as the factory makes PPT orders, it will not allocate bulk orders.

PPT production is very limited. If there is no big futures order, the foundries will be unable to make ends meet.

Even if the resistance is heavy, Zhang still hopes to remodel the new model for the PPT project on the LNG product line.

In 2009, the PPT project group set its price to slightly lower than the 10% to 20% of Lining's price at the time of brand planning.

LNG is similar to Adidas Original product line. It is located in fashion and is separated from its parent brand. Lining focuses on professional sports.

The project team divided its inventory control into five levels, with 300 thousand orders per quarter, but few stocks.

The subsequent misfortune destroyed all this.

At the beginning of 2011, the result of board discussion was that the selling price of LNG was higher than that of Lining and lotto 50% and 30% respectively, and there was no market charge.

"Is it possible for a company not to give you a penny to make you a top brand that is even taller than Lining?" is it possible for a LNG core member to say "Global Entrepreneur"?

LNG is also trapped in channels.

The company stipulates that LNG can not develop new distributors separately, and there is no independent sales organization in the LNG framework.

LNG shops can only be opened by Lining distributors in the major districts, and are managed by sales representatives from Lining district. TOP

Since then, Lining's board has positioned LNG as a brand of online sales.

Such a big decision was made overnight.

LNG finally failed.

This devastating blow comes from short-sighted financial guidance strategy.

Writing any project report in the Li Ning Co requires the balance of payments in the first year, which is almost the Lining's hidden rule.

PPT is also true.

The goal of PPT project group initially set up for LNG is to set up 100 stores a year, with a slight loss. It is quite difficult for the industry to remain flat for three years.

But then, under the pressure of high performance, LNG's opening goal was blindly raised to 300.

This is due to the calculation of the financial department. If LNG wants to achieve balance of payments, its annual water flow must achieve 300 million yuan, gross profit will be 150 million yuan, and 300 stores will be required to achieve such a running water.

Zhang Huiyi once wanted to apply PPT to the brand of red double happiness, and developed shoes and clothing products.

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Flee helter-skelter

Zhang Hui finally chose to leave.

Zhang made the strategy of Li Ning Co, which was deeply valued by Zhang Zhiyong. Lining's board of directors report was written by Zhang Hui.

But after that, the gap between the two people grew gradually because of a difference between the "09-13 strategy".

The core of the plan is Lining's revenue of 20 billion yuan in 2013.

Zhang said he strongly opposed the strategy and refused to write.

Since then, the board of directors has reported to Chen Shaowen, Zhang Hui's subordinate and strategy manager, who is known to be in charge. Chen told him that he had risen from Zhang Yanting to vice president.

Facts have proved that the "09-13 strategy" is indeed too optimistic.

Ironically, Zhang Zhiyong once sighed internally that only two people in Li Ning Co knew strategies, one of whom was himself and the other was Chen Shaowen.

The internal conflicts caused by the power are far-reaching.

Another senior executive was COO Guo Jianxin.

Guo once was second only to Zhang Zhiyong and was regarded as a strong contender as president.

In order to decentralization, Zhang began to introduce CMO, CPO and many other top management positions.

Guo, who has been repeatedly denied power, has no real power even though he occupies the COO position. His controllable Department has only sales system, which has aroused the strong rebound of general manager Hu Nan, a sales company.

Hu is one of Lining's super elder statesmen. His ability is outstanding, he pays attention to his loyalty, and has a "underground leader" in his dealership and sales system.

Guo is not the winner.

People familiar with the matter said Guo had been excluded from sales, products and brand systems, and could not control the product direction and sales system, nor had the right to manage market resources. But as COO, he needed to bear the pressure of operational assessment.

The shifting of responsibilities between departments is also a headache.

In addition, Guo has been criticized for the frequent quality problems in the supply chain.

Guo finally chose to leave.

"Donkey can be pullled, or donkey meat can be fired."

Guo said in private.

Guo's departure is the most gloomy among many executives - no farewell party, or even "no one dares to eat together in private".

The insider said Lining's slide had two important watershed.

Hu Nan and Guo Jianxin's departure is one of them, which leads to the floating of the sales system and the great change of the operation level.

Another watershed time was the departure of Lining CFO Chen Weicheng in September 2008.

Chen served as Lining CFO in 2003, and he was known as "Mr. efficiency" in handling Lining's listing.

During its term of office, Lining's supply chain efficiency inventory turnover time has been declining. In 2004, compared with 2003, it dropped by 23% to 124 days, and in 2007 it dropped to less than 70 days.

In the capital market, in a short span of four years, Chen Lining's share price was pulled from HK $1 to HK $33.

After Chen's resignation news, Lining's stock price fell 9.68% on that day, and Lining's share price has no bull market thereafter.

Future

Can Lining get better?

Lining himself has a clear judgement of the company.

In the three year reorganization plan announced to the outside world, he reflected his profound reflection on past lessons.

Why should we concentrate on resources to do the Lining card? "(each sub brand) is relatively independent and not independent. It's like eating a big pot. It seems to be able to share resources, in fact, it is a drag on your real core content."

At the beginning of this year, Lining had completely liquidated the new brand of Z-DO, which was founded in 2007, and the expansion plan of the company has also been cut down.

In a conversation a year ago, he told reporters.

He also sees the problem that has troubled Lining for a long time about swaying at both ends of sports and fashion: "we are not swaying, but professional.

If you are professional, if you come up, you will be more professional than fashion. Because it is unprofessional, it looks like we are making fashion.

In a recent order meeting, Lining himself suddenly appeared and repeatedly mentioned "professionalization" to the designers and senior designers.

He did not take basketball as the main resource in Zhang Zhiyong's strategy. He thought that signing Lin Chiling was an obvious failure.

He didn't turn a blind eye to the company's internal struggle. "Everyone looks naked. Few people say how I can make my department better and better."

As for the problem of paratroopers, he believes that the company still does not have enough capability to inspire these airborne troops to play a greater role. Others can not understand and cooperate with the professionalism of these airborne troops.

Lining really needs to make changes happen as soon as possible.

The TPG has organized more than a dozen core teams to enter Lining in early April, including sports goods, marketing, retail, procurement and supply chain management experts, who dominate the core departments of Li Ning Co and begin to meet with the middle levels of various departments and try to find out the crux of the problem.

TPG's prescription is to reorganize the company's business chain with CPFR, that is, to return to the PPT project mode.

TPG has tried to find a manager familiar with the project inside the company. The embarrassment is that the core members of the project have already left.

However, for Lining himself and TPG, it may be just a pitional period in management.

He still needs to find a professional manager who is well versed in the brand spirit of sports products and has enough executive power.

But the challenge is that the market and competitors will not set aside enough time to let Lining easily regain the throne of the largest sporting goods brand in the country.