What Should Be Puma's Next Step to Grow the Company?

1 Problem Statement

What should be Puma's next step to grow the company?

2 Synopsis of Case

Puma is a sport brand originally created in 1948 In Germany by Rudolf Dassler, the brother of Adolf Dassler who established the big competitor ADIDAS. Puma is one of the world's leading sport lifestyle companies that designs and develops footwear, apparel and accessories. It starts in sport and ends in fashion. Its sport performance and lifestyle labels include categories such as Football, Running, Motorsports, Golf and Sailing. The company has a big structure and sales network over 80 countries, employs more than 9,000 people worldwide and has headquarters in Germany, Boston, London and Hong Kong.

Inside the market is so competitive; there are many actors, more or less specialized and with different positioning. Puma is situated in the fourth position behind Nike, Reebok and Adidas. Right now after reinventing itself creating a new market segment and demonstrating that company could compete with its bigger brother Adidas, Puma was at a crossroad. The CEO Jochen Zeitz and Puma need to make a decision what should be the next step to grow the company under the rumors that Nike and Pinault-Printemps-Redoute (PPR) were flirting with the idea of buying Puma.

Swot Analysis of Puma

Strength: 1 High innovation and unique products.2 Strong brand equity.3 Reputation management.4 "Special items" on its niche.5 International strategies.6 Good performance in stock market.

Weakness: 1 Low market share.2 High price.3 Missing sports segment.4Distribution channels 5 Lower financial resources

Opportunity: 1 Acquisitions.2Fitness type.3Product and services expansion.4Non-Puma brands.5Technology.

Threats: 1Actual economic situation.2 High competition.3 Lower cost competitors or imports.4 Imitation of products.5 Increase in cost of materials, resources, shipping fee.

Adidas Vs Puma

Puma brand has closely relationship with fashion, style, and sport, which brand image brought by modern designing, co-branding and partnerships with famous designers. It has broadened their brand image so that it now competes with fashion brands as well as their traditional rivals in the sporting footwear industry. Its value proposition is to fit your active lifestyle

Adidas's mission is to improve every athlete's performance through innovation. To compete with the value propositions of their traditional competitors, Adidas has focused their brand communications in three different areas including sport performance, sport heritage,