INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND OF MERCURY SHOES
This section serves to introduce and provide background information regarding Mercury Shoes.
Patricia and John O’Brien, brother and sister, founded Mercury Shoes in 1974 at the University of Colorado. Their initial products were generic running shoes. Yet in the 1980s, they pivoted towards crafting high-quality athletic footwear for runners. Currently, Mercury Shoes excels in developing, promoting, and distributing three main brands: Boost, TrailStep, and Sweatless Apparel.
Mercury International Ltd is a worldwide corporation that operates in 170 countries and employs approximately 4,800 individuals. It holds a significant position in the athletic footwear and apparel sector, ranking fourth on a global scale. The company competes with well-known brands such as Nike, Reebok, Adidas, Puma, and others, solidifying its prominent role within the sports industry.
The aim of Mercury Shoes:
According to the official website (www.mercuryshoes.com), Mercury Shoes’ main objective is to become a global leader within four years. To achieve this, they strive for an annual growth rate of 10% to 15% in revenue, sales, and profit margin over the next four years.
KEY ISSUES WITH MERCURY SHOES
Mercury International Ltd., despite holding a significant market share in the athletic wear industry, is currently facing multiple challenges in maintaining its market share and achieving its goals. These issues can be summarized as follows:
The main challenge confronted by Mercury Shoes is adapting to the ever-changing fashion preferences of young athletes. The youth constantly seek new trends, products, and brands, making it challenging for the company to retain loyal customers. Although Mercury Shoes invests in market research and development, the outcomes are not consistently successful. Furthermore, the company faces tough competition from rivals that have a stronger impact on consumers.
To address the challenge of changing fashion trends, Mercury Shoes should conduct thorough market surveys and seek input from loyal customers to understand their preferences and dislikes. Based on this feedback, the company can make necessary adjustments to its production. Additionally, recruiting talented and innovative designers, and adopting effective marketing strategies to promote its products are vital steps in meeting the demands of changing fashion. By implementing these measures, Mercury Shoes can maintain its market share and meet customer demand.
Market Forces – Mercury Shoes distributes its products through high-end retail shops, specialized athletic sports stores, and department stores.
Despite the influence of market forces such as government policies, interest rates, inflation, consumer sentiments, and unemployment rate on the purchasing power of customers, Mercury Shoes can overcome these external factors by offering fair discounts, new marketing schemes such as buy two get one free, seasonal sales, after-sales service, warranty periods, and many more. These offers compel customers to purchase the company’s products and help retain them even during the worst economic period.
Despite facing strong competition from Nike, Adidas, Converse, and Puma in the sports industry, Mercury Shoes has experienced a decline in its stock prices while its rivals have seen a rise of over 20%. Information on Mercury International Ltd.’s website (www.mercuryshoes.com) reveals that the stock prices for Mercury Shoes plummeted from $29.45 in Q4 of 2008 to $42.36 in Q1 of 2009.
Limited Brands – Mercury Shoes focuses on a small range of products, mainly Boost, TrailStep, and Sweatless Apparel. In contrast, other competitors in the sports industry specialize in producing a variety of products, like basketball, football, cross-training, outdoor activities, and women’s fitness. Due to this lack of product diversity, Mercury Shoes is failing to attract customers. To address this issue and expand its customer base, Mercury Shoes should consider specializing in introducing additional brands alongside its main brands.
In order to gain a larger market share and eventually dominate the entire sports industry, Mercury Shoes should introduce unique brands specifically for women’s fitness. Women allocate a significant portion of their household income towards shopping, thus presenting an opportunity for the company to generate higher profits. Additionally, the company should consider introducing brands for all essential sports equipment used by athletes.
The quality, skilled, and innovative labor is crucial for the success of a sports business in the global market. Despite having skilled labor in its production and design team, Mercury Shoes falls short in terms of staying updated on the regular market compared to its larger competitors. To secure a top position, Mercury Shoes requires highly intelligent, skilled, talented, and exceptional employees. Additionally, it needs to provide regular training programs for its employees in areas such as design, fashion, technology, and sports management. The company should also focus on developing skills through sports and leisure education packages and certifications, particularly within the sports industry.
According to the financial reports of Mercury Shoes, the net profit ratio has decreased from 4.38% in 2008 to 3.79% in 2009. This decrease in profit indicates a decrease in sales turnover rather than an increase. In order to address this issue, it is essential to increase the amount of marketing, specifically through advertising and promotion. This increase in marketing efforts will help achieve the annual growth objective of 10%. (Mercury International Ltd., www.mercuryshoes.com)
Mercury Shoes should advertise its products using various methods including hoardings, sign boards, sports magazines, and peer reviewed journals. Additionally, online advertising should be carried out extensively. The company should also promote its products through sponsorships in international games and with the support of famous celebrities. This will help in popularizing Mercury Shoes’ products and brands even among ordinary consumers.
By utilizing advertising, the trademark of Mercury Shoes can be showcased on various international platforms such as pants, shirts, equipment, boards, hoardings, etc. This strategy aids in boosting the company’s global market share. Consequently, competitors face greater challenges when it comes to promoting their businesses. These challenges are the primary issues confronted by Mercury Shoes, which ultimately impact the demand for its products, brand name, and overall profitability of the company.
Recommendation
To address these concerns, improve market share, and attain the top position in the sports apparel sector, Mercury Shoes should implement strategic management.
The company needs to devise tactics to address these main concerns. Given that Mercury Shoes operates in the athletic apparel sector, the recommended strategy for the company is Sustainable Business and Innovation. By placing greater emphasis on this strategy, Mercury Shoes can effectively tackle its crucial issues and strive towards becoming a leader in the industry. A sustainable business operates in an environmentally responsible manner, ensuring that its products and operations do not have any adverse impact on the environment.
And innovation refers to the originality or creativity in the business’ products. If Mercury Shoes embraces the strategy of Sustainable Business and Innovation, the business will experience growth and expansion while reducing problems. Mercury Shoes should focus on achieving sustainable business by modernizing and delivering enterprise-level sustainability outcomes, incorporating sustainability at the core of the organization, giving significance to stakeholders, and rallying them towards balanced solutions.
A focus on sustainable business entails the creation of sustainable manufacturing, product development, and market. The potential strategy for achieving this involves innovation. Mercury Shoes’ Sustainable Business and Innovation strategy allows for the development of new and innovative products that require minimal materials. Additionally, the strategy promotes designs that are easy to dismantle and facilitates the recycling of used products into new ones.
In order to establish a lasting presence in the industry and gain a strong foothold in the market, companies can rely on innovation. This includes the creation, production, recycling, and reusing of various products such as women’s fitness gear, safety masks, practice balls, chest protectors, basketball equipment, and pitching machines. The integration of corporate responsibility into Mercury Shoes’ business can also play a key role in uniting the company around a shared purpose, addressing challenges, adopting similar approaches, and envisioning the future. Overall, this integration supports the promotion of cultural change that leads to the development of a more sustainable organization.
When it comes to sustainable business, integration plays a crucial role in decision making. It not only helps in achieving a greater impact but also serves as a key factor in the growth plan and corporate strategy of Mercury Shoes. For instance, if Mercury Shoes decides to acquire another athletic wear company to enhance its growth and expand further, the company can reap the advantages of economies of scale, wider market reach, heightened market influence, and reduced production costs.
Mobilization – The Sustainable Business and Innovation Strategy is essential for measuring the size of the systematic change. Without scale, it becomes impossible to measure anything. Scaling, in this context, refers to the mobilization of innovation and technology by skilled and efficient employees. At Mercury Shoes, achieving mobilization involves making systematic changes to the working conditions of employees in order to improve performance. The most effective way to accomplish mobilization at Mercury Shoes is by utilizing resources to enhance organizational capacity and deliver benefits to society. These resources are financed by various sources, including internal funds such as retained earnings, share capital, bank loans, etc.
CONCLUSION
Based on the implementation of this strategy, Mercury Shoes can undoubtedly secure the third position in the market and experience strong business expansion. Moreover, the company will have the opportunity to increase its annual revenue, return on assets, and operating margins.
Reference Citation
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- http://www. quickmba. com/strategy/horizontal-integration/
- http://siteresources. worldbank. org/INTBELARUS/Resources/Resource_Mobilization. pdf
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