What Can Your Company Adopt from Adidas' Post-Pandemic "Own the Game" Business Plan?
written by Jahnvi Patel, MAZURKRAEMER LAW CLERK, Villanova School of Law, JD/MBA Candidate
In the aftermath of the pandemic, as a result of changing consumer preferences, Adidas AG is restructuring its distribution operations through a new 5-year strategic plan called "Own The Game". Own The Game is meant to strengthen the credibility of the Adidas brand, create a unique consumer experience, and continue to expand the company's activities in the area of sustainability through its e-commerce activities. What can your company adopt from this strategy?
Adidas officially announced the Own the Game strategic plan in 2021. The plan puts the consumer at the center of everything and serves an an integral part of Adidas current quality culture. Adidas hopes Own the Game will enhance brand credibility, elevate the consumer experience, and push the boundaries of sustainability.
"We are delighted to be deepening our partnership with Foot Locker as we continue to execute our 'Own the Game' strategy," said Adidas CEO Kasper Rorsted. "Consumers will be at the heart of this exciting collaboration and will be able to experience the Adidas brand and its key product franchises, as well as new product innovations, at Foot Locker, stronger than ever before."
Sources: Google Images
In order to enact their purpose, mission & attitude, the Own the Game strategy puts the consumer at the heart of every decision at Adidas. Adidas identifies four (4) of its strategic areas - diversity, equity & inclusion, leadership, betterment & performance.
DEI. Adidas hopes to eliminate barriers by giving all employees the opportunity to perform at their best, be consistently & fairly developed, & be recognized and rewarded for their efforts.
Leadership. Adidas views leaders as role models. Cultural role models are those that emulate the company’s values & often leave a lasting impact on the organization. Here, Adidas focuses on empowering their employees to realize their own possibilities. Adidas achieves this by growing all employees & giving them learning opportunities whether they are line managers or executives.
Betterment. Betterment relates to leadership through Adidas value of continually learning & improvement. Adidas allows employees to seek betterment for themselves through offering a wide range of learning & development opportunities. These include interactive learning experience & resources such as training seminars.
Performance. Adidas believes performance comes from a team's ability to support, challenge, and cheer each other on. First, to drive performance, Adidas gives out recognition rewards & continual feedback, allowing employees' voices & opinions to be expressed. These recognition awards can be seen as cultural transmitters which are vehicles by which the company’s culture is passed down through generations. Second, Adidas rewards its employees through compensation, benefit & incentive programs they refer to as “rewarding for performance”. This comprises of a variety of rewards including monetary & non-monetary ones
Necessarily so, Adidas is engaged in an aggressive battle against mighty opponents like Nike and Under Armour where most players are aggressively investing in digital technology to achieve higher market penetration, wider customer reach and a superior customer experience. This gives Adidas the motivation to use Own the Game to drive sales and profitability higher. Sales growth, around 96%, is expected to come from five key categories: Football, Running, Training Outdoor and lifestyle.
Digital Transformation. Apart from customer experience and customer relationships playing a key role in helping the company expand its market share faster, a key focus of the plan will be the digital transformation of the company. The company will invest heavily in strengthening its e-commerce operations as it expects the Direct to Consumer channels to account for a substantial part of the company’s revenues in the coming years, i.e., around half of its total net sales by 2025. The e-commerce channels will also drive above 80% of its targeted top line growth.