INDUSTRY FOUR: APPAREL
CASE 2 4 Under Armour 24-1 (Contributors: Ram Subramanian and Pradeep Gopalakrishna) Under Armour’s footwear sales declined by 4.5% during the second quarter of 2009 and showed a 16.6% decline in the first six months of 2010 compared to 2009. This was in contrast to its performance apparel, the company’s core category, which saw a 32.2% uptick over 2009. Under Armour had tremendous growth opportunities in the apparel category in China. However, CEO Kevin Plank wanted Under Armour to be a leading player in the field of athletic footwear.
CASE 2 5 TOMS Shoes (Mini Case) 25-1 (Contributor: J. David Hunger) Founded in 2006 by Blake Mycoskie, TOMS Shoes is an American footwear company based in Santa Monica, California. Although TOMS Shoes is a for-profit business, its mission is more like that of a not-for-profit organization. The firm’s reason for existence is to donate to children in need one new pair of shoes for every pair of shoes sold. By 2010, the company had sold over one million pairs of shoes. How should the company plan its future growth?
CASE 2 6 J.C. Penney Company, Inc.: Surviving the Ron Johnson (CEO) Era 26-1 (Contributor: Alan N. Hoffman) Ron Johnson, the architect behind Apple’s wildly successful retail stores and 15-year Target veteran, became American department store chain J.C. Penney’s new CEO in November 2011. The owner of J.C. Penney had high hopes for Johnson, who proceeded to make drastic changes to the company including a new logo and a new spokesperson (Ellen DeGeneres). His vision included transforming 700 of the largest J.C. Penney stores into collections of some 100 branded shops with a central ”town square” gathering area for services. J.C. Penney fired Ron Johnson after just 17 months, following a disastrous decline in business directly attributable to the failure of the new business plan.