Shoe Enterprise Puma: Way Of Thinking Determines Brand Outlet

Editor's note: Puma, which has gone through 60 years of development, has become one of the largest manufacturers of sports shoes, apparel and accessories in the world.

In fact, its development has not been plain sailing, and it has also faced a crisis of survival close to collapse.

Behind the crisis is Puma's clear strategic concept to guide enterprise development.

Looking at market development from a global perspective, Puma has become a very international brand.

In order to successfully implement the global market strategy, the guiding ideology of Puma is to look at market development from a global perspective.

In order to really implement this strategic intention, the company CEO must first set an example.

Johan Zeitz, chairman of Puma CEO and chairman of the board of directors, said in an interview: "as a global CEO, we must have an open mind and good education. We need to take every opportunity to understand different countries and customs, so as to better broaden our horizons, adapt to the diversified cultural background and improve our own practices.

In this way, when opportunity comes, you can catch it. "

Puma also made itself more internationalized by integrating the strength of its partners.

Because of the different brand development in different markets, the challenges encountered are different. Therefore, Puma will adopt some regional ways to make appropriate adjustments to the strategic thinking so as to better adapt to the local market demand.

At present, the Chinese market has a pivotal position in the global market of Puma. Puma also put forward specific development goals: sales outlets from 700 to 1200, to more than 1600 in 2008; the growth rate reached 100% in 2006, 50% in 2007, and 40% in 2008; and in the past 3 years, the top three international sports brands in the Chinese market have been stable.

Johan Zeitz said: "we will continue to increase investment in the Chinese market in order to seize the rare market development opportunities in China."

In fact, many Chinese counterparts are also internationalizing, but they often do not have their own brands. Where are the problems?

Johan Zeitz said: "the success of an enterprise does not mean that its experience can be shared and achieved by another enterprise.

In fact, the road to internationalization is not the same.

To succeed, you still need to spend a lot of time and investment, and have the ability to understand consumers. "

Puma has made great progress since 1993. It has played an important role in repositioning brand connotation, product development and channel development concept.

In terms of brand, Puma regards sports as an attitude towards life. It always implements the concept of "sports life", integrates sports, leisure and fashion elements into the brand, and inherits many traditional elements, and finally forms a brand concept based on traditional sports, technological innovation and new design.

In terms of products, we aim to integrate sports, lifestyle and fashion elements into the product line with the aim of "sports life".

At present, in addition to the core product lines such as sporting goods, runway supplies and slimming sports products, new product lines such as golf series, motorcycle series, swimsuit series, sailing series and city vitality series have been developed.

In terms of product structure, three categories of footwear, clothing and accessories have been formed. In 2006, they accounted for 59.9%, 33.6% and 6.5% of Puma's total sales respectively.

Puma is now outsourced in more than 40 countries around the world for product production.

At present, China is Puma's largest production base in the world. In order to make the product lose its individuality, "we are now mainly like coaches, not athletes.

To the R & D personnel enough creative space, so that they have a lot of freedom in design, because our aim is to innovate.

But we also need to ensure that they are able to perform well in order to achieve our expectations.

However, our products are designed for consumers who are willing to make new attempts.

Johan Zeitz said.

In terms of channels, Puma has established a huge sales network in more than 80 countries, including sporting goods stores, department stores and specialized shops.

Now, Puma has increased its cooperation in the wholesale and retail fields, established subsidiaries, and adopted merger strategies around the world to establish new joint ventures and develop new partners.

For different types and styles of products, Puma takes different marketing channels to ensure that they can diversify their products.

Instead of taking the PPR Road, Puma has established three regional headquarters in Germany, Boston and Hongkong.

Johan Zeitz said: "our goal is to have a first-class management team in every market in the world, and every regional team has a very good auxiliary team.

The regional team can assist the global management team in decision-making on the basis of the local market characteristics, while ensuring that the brand concept is effectively conveyed to the regional markets.

Local management reports to the international headquarters. Our approach is from bottom to top, and then we will refine and solve the problem.

To adapt to the increasingly diversified and fast-paced industry development needs, Puma has adopted measures to gradually decentralization the organizational structure in order to build more flexible and efficient organizations.

For example, in order to broaden the leadership structure of the company and improve the decision-making efficiency of the company, Puma formed a group executive committee, including directors of the board of directors and directors of the global functional departments.

To adapt to it, Puma has formulated a pragmatic four step development strategy: starting from 1993, reorganizing the global business and improving the financial situation of the company; from the autumn of 1997, it has intensified its marketing and product design efforts, increased the R & D investment from 2% to 4%, and promoted the Marketing Fee from 10% to 15%; from 2002, it strengthened the long-term development strategy of the company, maintained the healthy development of the business and gained its due profits; from 2006, it started to further improve the company management system and comprehensively improve the efficiency of enterprise management.

But things are impermanent.

In July 2007, Puma was held by PPR, the world's leading luxury goods group.

PPR has acquired 62.1% of Puma's shares through open stock acquisition.

Therefore, there is concern about the fate of Puma's acquisition, such as whether it will abandon the original development strategy and change to the high-end fashion line.

"Leisure and sports oriented positioning will not change, of course, it will balance the relationship between sports and fashion, but it will not take the path of PPR's high-end luxury consumer brands."

"Puma wants to control its core business," said Johan zez.

In a joint venture, Puma has a dominant position and has a controlling interest.

Of course, different markets have different situations, but we must control the market resources if we want to implement the strategy of Puma 100%.

Based on the growth of Puma in major markets, effective control of the core market is the key to long-term success. "