Amer Sports' strategy
Amer Sports' strategy emphasizes faster growth in apparel and footwear, excellence in consumer-centric product creation and brand marketing, and the strengthening of commercial fundamentals through sales and distribution development.
The strategic cornerstones in Amer Sports’ development are as follows:
- Clear portfolio roles and business synergies
- Faster growth in softgoods
- Winning with consumers
- Winning in go-to-market
- Operational excellence
Clear portfolio roles and business synergies
All business units are being developed with clear portfolio roles. Each unit has specific growth and profitability targets with a clearly assigned role in creating scale and synergy for the company. Most group synergies lie within the Ball Sports, Winter Sports Equipment, Apparel and Footwear businesses which are the focus of the Group’s integration and synergistic development efforts. Examples of primary synergies are category-based development and sourcing across brands - for example in footwear and apparel - supply chain integration, as well as common go-to-market, i.e. sales and distribution. Combining the resources will allow the company to grow more rapidly, to share and to reapply, and to benefit from cross-brand scale and capabilities.
Precor in fitness, Mavic in cycling and Suunto in sports instruments all have relatively distinct characteristics, partly because the customer base is different, the distribution channels are different, and because the raw materials used and the technologies employed also differ. Of these, Precor and Suunto are being developed as portfolio businesses with synergies being sought more selectively when and where they make good sense.
Faster growth in softgoods
Amer Sports is pursuing faster growth in softgoods by moving to category-based development across brands. This will build scale in softgoods sourcing, R&D, design and product line management.
Amer Sports is aiming to further leverage its key brands. For example, Amer Sports is capturing the growth trend in apparel and footwear with tennis apparel and footwear marketed under the Wilson brand. The Group is actively studying opportunities to launch further softgoods lines under different Amer Sports brands.
Winning with consumers
To ensure local relevance and winning with consumers, the Group has established a set-up for local consumer insight and reinforced global marketing capabilities.
To ensure that the product offering satisfies the distinct needs of local or regional consumers, Amer Sports wants to move closer to these consumer groups. Group marketing skills and capabilities, including brand management, have also be strengthened. The focus is on understanding consumers as the basis for all the actions.
Winning in go-to-market
To win in go-to-market, the focus is on expanding the distribution footprint in both developed and emerging markets while also achieving growth in own retail and e-commerce.
Some Amer Sports brands have traditionally been stronger in certain specific geographic markets and this means there is potential for expanding business in markets where Group brands are not equally strong. For example, even though Salomon is a well-recognized brand in Europe, it is a challenger in North America, so there are growth opportunities for the brand in this region.
Amer Sports also believes that emerging markets offer attractive opportunities for growth as their standards of living improve and the level of consumers’ disposable incomes increases. The Group’s initial focus in emerging markets is Russia and China. In contrast to the situation in developed markets, the retail infrastructure in most emerging markets is still developing. Amer Sports own retail presence will therefore be important in accelerating growth and gaining brand recognition in such locations.
Operational excellence
The Group will continue to drive operational excellence, tight management of working capital and the improvement of gross margins in all areas. In Winter Sports Equipment, Amer Sports has a major improvement program focused on increasing profitability and flexibility, and on improving the customer service.