B312 Group Report for Timberland

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Technological factors

With the development of new technology, cloth industry also gets new opportunities. Those following two new technologies can bring Timberland Company benefits.

Firstly, new technology (especially the process automation and robotics) suggests that the organization has the innovation of this shoe phase method. Robots are attracting a variety of manufacturing more and more attention, especially the labor cost is up rapidly in some countries, such as the UK. Robots have lots of advantages which are much better than traditional manufacturing such as faster speed, higher efficiency, low cost.

Secondly, 3D printing is the most popular topic in current society, it is believed that 3D printing will definitely become the trend of clothing industry in the future, because 3D printing can reduce the cost rapidly including raw material as well as human resource.

Micro environment

Market:

Threat of new entrants:

It is easy to set up a shot store, but it is not easy to set up a super brand shot store. If a company wants to become a super shot store, it has to spend long time on growth. Spending more attention to increase the popularity of the brand. For example, Timberland (1973) (Superbrands, 2005), Ecco (1963) CEcco history), Columbia (1938) (Columbia history), Billabong (1973) (Billabong history).

Market weakness:

- The success of Timberland products and marketing strategy are depend on wholesale customer s’ information. However timberland cannot ensure that any existing products or brands will continue to be favorably received by consumers or our wholesale customers.

Market aim and strategy:

The aim is add the timberland brand with a younger, metro consumer. The timberland PRO service for consumers’ demands, what products the consumers need, what products they make (Superbrands, 2005). Furthermore, timberland marketing strategy is to develop category and consumer-specific plans and advertising.

Sale orientation

Timberland based on ‘don’t wear it’ and ‘use it’ encourage consumers to buy hi-tech products. There are an important promotional exhibition for Timberland, as the brand celebrated its 30th anniversary, in the year of 2003 (Superbrands, 2005).

Product orientation

The company of timberland set up a product quality management group to reviews and updates the production quality to ensure the production standard are met. Additionally, the group responses reviewing the timberland factories, distribution centers and independent manufacturers’ factories. For example, the timberland company have offices in Bangkok, Thailand; Zhu Hai, china; Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam; and Chennai, India to supervise the firm’s footwear sourcing activities conducted in the Asia-pacific region (Timberland report, 2010).

Market intermediaries:

- The company of timberland open timberland stores to sale products (Superbrands, 2005).

- In UK timberland intermediaries are independent retailers, department stores, sports stores (Diyar, 2013)

- Timberland sets up an official website to show new products and consumer could buy goods from the website.

Suppliers:

The suppliers of timberland is from all over the world. Such as china, India. In 2010, the purchases of raw material is approximately 80%. The company using recycled materials which make up 91.4% of the total materials (Timberland responsibility, 2007). It is timberland that has the interdepend factories to produce the own production. However, in 2010, the demand of each shoe’s leather increase, and price of each shoe could not increase, due to that of question, it will impact the gross profit, meanwhile, the total revenue will deduce, in the end of year (Timberland report, 2010). The company of timberland sets up central network of supplier. Suppliers could through this website supply local raw material to timberland to reduce the lead time, as well as, maintaining high quality standards of production. It could have the ability to decrease the cost.

Customers:

The company of timberland of target group is men, women and children from the upper middle class. Timberland, produce casual shoes, hiking boots and boat shoes, as well as outdoor-inspired to satisfied consumers demands (Superbrands, 2005).

Timberland establish a complete customer service, which could help contact with buyer and provide the best service for them and collect useful information to make a decision of target at next year. Buyer could utilise these to give the company some useful suggests. For example, buyer could tell the service website what kind of shoes that they want.

Competitors:

The competitors of timberland are Ecco, Columbia and Billabong. These three companies produce the same products. Many of competitors are larger and have greater resources for marketing, research and development. Some of these shoes and sportswear competitors have its own brand and retail stores. These competitors usually decrease the product price to appear buyers and wholesale customers to redirect some of their purchases away from timberland products (Timberland report, 2010).

Public:

It is BBC that shows the company of VF paid 43% for each timberland share, which is a 43% premium above its closing price on the New York Stock Exchange in 2011 (BBC, 2011).

Internal environment

- Business objective

The American giant announced that it will aim to increase sales by 1.4 billion dollars over the next five years in order to reach 3.1 billion in 2019 (2.4 billion euros), translating into an annual growth rate of 13%. Its ambitions in Europe, although more modest, are still firm. Timberland will target one billion dollars in 2019 in the EMEA region, with an annual increase of 10% and a focus on German-speaking countries, while also building on its strong English and Italian bases (Guyot 2014).

- Brand image

The timberland company made up of a lot of small parts and incredibly talented people. Timberland does not rest