Adidas Brand Will Continue To Push Forward The 2015 Strategy In An All Round Way

2011

Reporter: when we met at the beginning of 2011, we discussed Adidas's performance in 2010.

At that time, the Greater China region was an exception in your global performance, the only area that did not achieve two digit growth. Now, your 2015 strategy has brought about results. Can you specifically talk about how to implement the new strategy in the past year?

Gao Jiali: our "2015 strategy" came into operation in early 2011.

This strategy covers two parts, first of all, the five growth models.

First, the high-end city strategy. We will focus on sports products such as football category. We will continue to maintain leadership. We will also challenge or attack basketball products.

Second, small and medium-sized cities Raiders, we will expand stores in small and medium-sized cities.

Third, retail segmentation strategy.

We launched the first outdoor product retailing store in Harbin.

Fourth, clover strategy.

In the past, clover sold only in self owned retail stores. Now we have opened it to some distributors' stores.

Fifth, NEO changes.

Next, we will promote NEO products and brands in a big way.

Under the five strategy, we propose to enhance ten capabilities with channel partners, 7 of which are related to the remodeling of internal capabilities, and the remaining 3 are customer facing capabilities.

For example, site selection, we said in early 2011 that we should open 2500 new stores in 2-3 years.

After implementing this strategy, we achieved very good results in 2011.

We opened more than 1000 new stores in 2011, and in terms of market share, we have greatly shortened the distance from the market leaders and even compared them with them.

Reporter: the sinking of the channel seems to be the general trend of the industry. In the five major strategies, are you more concerned about the strategy of high-end cities or the strategy of small and medium-sized cities?

Gao Jiali: equally important.

First tier cities, we must keep the business foundation.

Reporter: is that why you have made a significant structural adjustment after taking office?

Gao Jiali: we did carry out the reorganization and pformation of the organizational structure. It took about 7-8 months.

We have created a regionalized management model, especially in the western and central parts of China, and set up the Chengdu office.

We believe that this is a very successful link in the strategy, which enables salesmen to be more close to customers and consumers.

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Reporter: look at Adidas's financial reports over the past two years. In the global scope, the growth of Adidas's self operated retail business is much faster than that of the distribution business.

But in China, the growth of distribution business is faster than that of self retailing.

Is the industry particularly dependent on channels in China?

Gao Jiali: actually, we rely on channels all over the world, but there are regional differences.

In China, 95%-96% is a single brand store, most of which are multi brand stores in the United States.

In China, you have closer ties and interests with channel partners.

Reporter: there is one.

Gao Jiali: we did not lower our price.

Our product line is relatively broad, has a very high-end series, there are also some entry-level products.

When the channel sinks, we will choose products suitable for small and medium-sized cities, and you will find that the price is the same.

We are not playing price wars in low tier markets. We play a series of products.

Of course, in 2011, we opened a lot of shops in small and medium-sized cities, opening stores and promoting sales, so that people could understand this brand, they are some phased strategies, not long-term competition strategies.

Reporter: is the London Olympic Games coming in 2012? Is there any reference to Adidas's problems in China after the Beijing Olympics?

Gao Jiali: in the 2004-2008 years, the whole industry is in a stage of rocket growth. We have opened shop crazily, from the first tier city to the three line city, so there is a stock problem.

Now that we have become more mature, we have spent 24 months to digest inventory.