Adidas is a leading brand in the sporting goods market with strong positions in footwear, apparel and hardware, and its products offer technological innovations to athletes of all skill levels who aspire to achieve peak performance. Consequently, the brand is structured into three divisions: Adidas Sport Performance, Adidas Sport Heritage and Adidas Sport Style.
The core values of Adidas-Salomon Group are authenticity, inspiration, commitment, honesty, and the company accordingly measures itself and their business partners by these values. On the other hand, the corporate mission, meanwhile, is "to be the global leader in the sporting goods industry with sports brands built on a passion for competition and a sporting lifestyle".
To realise this goal of leadership, the company puts emphasis on brand strengthening and development, as it is Adidas-Salomon's aim "to maximize consumer impact and enhance brand profitability through the application of five strategic approaches."
Consequently, the company focuses on these five strategies: (1) matching their structure to the consumers (i.e., anticipating and fulfilling consumer desires and needs); (2) extending design and innovation leadership (i.e., constantly developing cutting-edge design coupled with market-leading, high-profile technologies that capture consumer imagination); (3) developing leading positions in all major markets and categories (i.e., adidas-Salomon aims to have number one or number two positions in all the markets and categories in which it competes); (4) achieving excellence in execution (i.e., focus on improving apparel product quality and delivery); and, (5) focusing on financial health (i.e., tight management of working capital and more importantly, giving attention to the indicators of financial health that are highest priorities for the company-operating margin, working capital and debt level-so as to make visible improvements to the operating margin in 2004 and be among the leaders in the industry in this category over the next three to five years)
