Under Armour

Under Armour® (UA), founded in 1996 by Kevin Plank, quickly rose from a basement-business into a $725 million revenue company by 2008. Even though barriers to entry are high, the athletic apparel industry is highly competitive and competitors adamantly defend their market share. UA has managed to succeed through unique product innovation and grassroots marketing techniques. These two strategies have been key to UA's success, and it now controls 75% of its sector in the sports apparel industry.1 Since inception, UA has expanded to include women's and youth apparel, footwear, and accessory products, although its key revenue driver continues to be men's sport's apparel.

This is the Under Armour environment as of December 2008, and UA now asks itself the question, "Where do we go from here?" This is a timely question as UA appears to be at crossroad in its growth potential. The direction it chooses will not only determine its success or failure, but will also test the UA mission to, "make all athletes better through the science, passion, and the relentless pursuit of innovation."

In determining the direction UA should choose, we must, most importantly, understand the external environment. Reviewing UA's internal strengths and weaknesses, as well as its external opportunities and threats, we narrow our decision path down to several key deciding questions:

1. What is UA's core competency?

2. Where is UA's greatest opportunity?

3. What is hindering UA from taking advantage of that opportunity?

4. What can we do to remove that hindrance and align UA's strengths with its greatest opportunity?

Our conclusion is that UA's core competency is market recognition of its innovative products. To dilute this image would be detrimental to UA's success. Therefore, UA's greatest opportunity is international expansion of its current product line, tied on a smaller scale with domestic growth through military distribution. It's highly innovative product, although already popular in the U.S., is relatively unknown internationally, and with billions of additional potential buyers worldwide, international expansion is UA's best growth opportunity. This strategy also meets the UA goal to "become the world's number one performance athletic brand."