I. Background and Company Analysis ________________________________________ Patagonia, founded by Yvon Chouinard in 1971, is an outdoor apparel company that has successfully integrated green elements into almost every business activity, from R&D to human resources management, to reduce harm to the environment. These elements firmly align with the corporate objectives of enhancing product and service quality, reducing environmental impacts and having constant innovation. These practices not only enable Patagonia to create values to its customers, but also help the company differentiate itself as innovative leader in the green segment of the industry. A. Orsato’s Framework - Competitive Environmental Strategies Patagonia should be considered …show more content…
It inspired other giants in the apparel industry, namely Nike and Gap, to make changes in terms of material usage. It also shared information and advised firms on the organic cotton business. More and more companies turned out to follow Patagonia’s business practices and imitated some of its products. Sharing resources with other firms may impose a threat of imitation and thus weaken Patagonia’s competitive advantage. Therefore, Patagonia should consider how to maintain its competitiveness in the green …show more content…
Alternatives and Evaluation ________________________________________ A. Selection criteria The triple bottom lines may serve as the foundation for green business, allowing firms like Patagonia to evaluate its business strategies in a more comprehensive manner, to take more stakeholders into account and can potentially contribute its sustainability. It also align with Patagonia’s business objectives including the followings: TBL Objectives of Patagonia Planet Reduce environmental harm Profits Achieve 10% sales growth People Educate the public B. Alternatives 1. Product Recycle Initiative with refined scope One of the possible solutions to the above issues is to continue with the Product Lifecycle Initiative, but with a refined scope. As proposed, Patagonia might repair any garments regardless of their brands. Such services may benefit its competitors at the expense of Patagonia’s profits as it will incur extra cost to boost repairing capacity. Therefore, Patagonia may consider to provide such services to other brands only when they agree to pay a price for it. Also, outsourcing the repair services to reliable and high quality provider can keep their repair cost at a low level. These measures probably allow Patagonia to reduce costs and continue to impact other players in the apparel industry to go
Maximise the benefit in terms of quality and fashion Extended to sub-rand American Apparel + which has full range of clothing dedicated for overweight people’s use. (Fill the product gaps) ‘Made in American’ products 3.5.3.2 Price Set different price points on different products. Innovative value-added point for products such as pattern design. Control over-priced product Price strategies for American Apparel + will concentrate on building long-term growth and make the brand become market leader Compared with competitors price 3.5.3.3 Distribution Channels
Lululemon has the ability to switch buyers to keep cost low; they can easily switch their demand for high quality material if dissatisfaction is found with the supplier product. The importance to Lululemon’s brand reputation is to protect having the “technically advanced fabrics and innovative functional features that we believe will advance our product line and differentiate us from the competition” (Lululemon,
With technological advancement propagating all industries within the market, consumers now have faster access to information about the products and services in the market. Hence, they are demanding that products and services are delivered in an ethical, environmentally sound and sustainable way, in order to protect the environment for the future generations, and since, the consumers’ demands are the major driver of productivity in the market, companies are moving toward creating and operating their production systems or revamping their daily operations to reflect their support for conservation and renewal of environmental resources. Inadvertently, the quest for sustainability by companies has created the need for new and better
Even after the recession and the layoffs, Patagonia was been able to keep their cultural values, which were developed at the beginning, alive and going. These values were the core of Patagonia and instead of the normal stuffy offices which were believed to inhibit creativity instead of allowing creating to flow freely, employees were surrounded by friends, could dress however they wanted, and even went around barefoot. Employees played volleyball in a sandpit at the rear of the building, they ran, they surfed, they attended company sponsored ski and climbing trips and although many times arrived home late on Sunday, on Monday they arrived at Patagonia in time for work and most importantly happy. Employees do not have private offices which
This will create competition among the suppliers. Hence it gives an added advantage to Lululemon and they now can find a supplier who is willing to sell them at the least price. * Bargaining price of customers: As stated in the case article, that synthetic factors are now easily available among other companies. This will create more choice for the customers as now they will tend to buy from a store which is selling at a cheaper price.
Currently, the textile industry is producing more textile waste than our environment is able to handle. Since exporting clothing to people in need is no longer as beneficial as it used to be, the effect that fast fashion has on the environment has only been
The reason why the company chooses popular product lines to be in this program is because every fair trade certified product sold sends a percentage of the money back to the workers who made it. This action by the company shows that they have a commitment to ethical production. Patagonia is an outdoor clothing and gear shop that provides very good products for people who love being outdoors, not only do they hold a high standard on their products but they also care very much about the environment. They take the lead in the industry by caring about the environment when manufacturing as well as treating workers fairly
The True Cost demonstrates the need for Corporate Social Responsibility in businesses that only focus on the bottom line. At ……. we see the waste produced in third world countries from the manufacturing of clothes this shows us that these businesses do not take into account environmental sustainability. Companies who fail to incorporate corporate social responsibility need to design a CSR program in order to make their businesses sustainable because if the business does take into account the sustainability of their environment and their employees the business will not be
In order to explicitly analysis the clothing industry, emphasis must be laid on Textile
Introduction Forever 21 is a clothing brand that is based in many countries. Most people would be very familiar with the brand as it caters to them in terms of a fashion retailer. The country that will be in this report would be in Singapore and the purpose of the report is to perform an environmental analysis on a company. The structure would be an introduction, followed by company background, country background, PESTEL analysis, porter’s 5 forces, strategic recommendations and conclusion.
On the other hand the fact that Zara produces the remaining 40% internally, is a strong asset, providing better control, and short lead-times. Finally the fact that Zara owns 450 workshops were garments are to be sewed is a major asset ensuring quality. Another important asset in terms of production, is the technologies involved, for instance the cutting machines, to minimize waste (Ferdows & co. 2014 p9), used in combination with the last-final hand-made sewing. The ease of the connection between the production center and the distribution center is also an important time-saver element, and therefore
There is a huge market for bottled water which Kraft saw an opportunity in when they designed their new innovative bottle water flavor enhancer MiO. We weighted and rated this opportunity 0.13 and 4, respectively. Another important external factor is the growing environmental awareness in the U.S and Europe. We weighted this factor a 0.06 because we feel that for food processing companies to go green they would have to allocate many resources in developing new ways to reduce waste. These changes would be expensive and long running so companies would find them overvalued and not profitable.
This team of leaders, and others who also were searching for answers, led to a new way to measure and complete this transformation. The company’s team came up with what was eventually known as “the Seven Faces of Mt. Sustainability.” The progress measured was separated into seven different categories: “waste elimination, benign emissions, renewable energy, closing the loop, resource-efficient transportation, sensitizing stakeholders, and redesigning commerce” (Amodeo, 2009). The company set a deadline and timeline that they would put their energy, time, resources, and money into, and would eventually reach their ultimate goal and vision. Because of the plan, and the leaders, the company was ready for the next phase of
Big manufacturer companies discovered that by blending both elements together. Now that famous companies, franchise or retail-shops are embracing the new-organic or natural lifestyles, the organic cotton industry is slowly rising. The move to combine the organic and conventional cotton was wildly success, as brands such as Levi’s, the largest garb cotton user of the world, purchasing about one million pounds of organic cotton while Nike and The Gap, procured half a million each in the year 1997. Since the items won’t have special labeling on them and the price is unaffected, people begun to respond well compared to the pricey pure organic cotton items. From the time when people began to respond well to this new and modest approach, the market for organic items had expanded.
Consumers now not only want to know the quality and environment impact of the product they purchase but also about who produced the product and in what conditions was it produced. A lot of social impacts are overlooked intentionally or otherwise by companies due to their major focus on production and effectively managing the supply chain. A socially responsible company looks at the social impact of its products and production techniques not just within its sphere of production but across the supply chain. The extremely elaborate nature of supply chains may sometimes make the companies unaware of the social impacts as they have varying degree of control over them.