ATHLETIC FOOTWEAR

    In 1998,  retail sales in the U.S. footwear market totaled 37.6 billion dollars with 1.325 billion pairs of shoes sold. The top three industry leaders were Nike, Reebok and Adidas, with Nike controlling almost half of the entire market. Part of a once vertically integrated industry, athletic footwear companies are now looking to more horizontal structures of production that rely on globalized competitive strategies. These strategies include outsourcing manufacturing and production processes to foreign markets and spending more on developing a brand.  Companies who want to be global leaders are putting more money and resources into the marketing and advertising components of the supply chain.  As Fine's theory of clockspeed amplification argues, once you move closer to the customers' end  of the supply chain, the clockspeed increases.  This theory explains why companies are changing their approaches in order to keep their competitive advantage.  From our research we have concluded that it is not necessarily the way a shoe is manufactured, but it is the companies ability to identify with new trends, such as the rise of the alternative sports market, that determine the success of the industry leaders.

Created by Mollie Allick, Erica Keany, Jen Koslow, Ann Tansamrit, and David Thorkelson

Last update: 4/5/00